Page 12 of The Werewolf’s Study Date

Tate catches up with me on the way to the locker room, already grinning. “You dropped an easy one.”

“I know.”

“You never drop easy ones.” Tate drops his pads by his locker and leans in. “And you checked your phone four times during water breaks. You’ve never checked your phone four times in the entire three years we’ve lived next door to each other.”

“I had things to check.”

“Right. Important things. Like whatever’s got you smiling like an idiot.” Tate snorts, pulling off his cleats. “I saw a blueberry muffin in your cupholder yesterday, Boone. You don’t eat muffins. You eat entire rotisserie chickens.”

I pull my jersey over my head to buy five seconds of privacy. “It was for a friend.”

“It was for the tutoring girl,” Tate says, way too pleased with himself. “The human freshman you’re supposedly not weird about.”

I don’t answer, because answering honestly would require explaining a whole mess I’m not ready to share.

Tate’s grin fades a little, turning into that steady look he gets when he actually gives a shit. “Whoever she is, don’t do the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The wolf thing. The too-much thing.” Tate jabs a finger at my chest. “You know how you get. You care about something, you go all in, no brakes. Humans spook easy, man. You come at a girl with full Kinkaid intensity right out of the gate, she’s gonna think you’re insane before she figures out you’re just you. Go slow. Slow works better with humans. Trust me.”

I grab my shower gear and pretend the advice doesn’t sting. The problem is, Tate thinks “the too-much thing” is a bad habit I can just switch off. He doesn’t know it’s an actual wild animal in my chest that found its mate and wants to claim her immediately, entirely, without taking a single breath.

It’s exhausting.

By Sunday night, I’m sitting on my living room floor at eleven p.m. like a total idiot, highlighting a university brochure titled Human-Creature Mate Bonds: A Guide for New Students.

Every creature at CU sits through the orientation seminar freshman year—slides about consent, pacing, scent-marking etiquette, the difference between instinct and choice. We all laughed about it back then because it felt theoretical. Most shifters never meet their mates on campus anyway.

Except now it’s not theoretical. Now it’s Maisie Pope sitting across from me in the library, chewing on the end of a pen while she frowns at biology diagrams. And my wolf doesn’t give a fuck about university guidelines.

My wolf doesn’t speak in polite suggestions. It speaks in blunt, physical demands.

Keep her close. Manageable.

Keep her fed. Done. I’ll buy whatever pastry she looks at.

Keep her safe. Working on it.

Put your scent all over her right now so every other guy in this building knows she’s taken.

Yeah. That’s the one trying to kill me.

The pamphlet says scent-marking instincts are notoriously hard for wolves to control early on and recommends redirecting behavior through appropriate proxies such as shared clothing.

I already gave her one of my team hoodies. My wolf considers that a down payment at best.

I flip the page. Allow the human partner to set the pace of physical intimacy. Remember that instinct is not permission.

Right. Thanks, pamphlet. Super helpful.

My entire game plan comes down to taking massive, possessive wolf urges and breaking them down into small, normal gestures so she doesn’t realize I’m losing my mind.

Instead of demanding she eat every meal with me, I show up to study sessions with extra pastries from the good bakery. “I was already there,” I tell her, sliding a box across the table. She just rolls her eyes and digs in.

Instead of trailing behind her like a guard dog, I ask. “Heading back to your dorm? I can walk with you if you want company.”

She always says yes. And every damn time, the wolf gets stupidly smug about it.