Page 40 of The Werewolf’s Study Date

She’s here. She chose to stay. She loves me.

I close my eyes and breathe.

CHAPTER 11

MAISIE

The full moon is on a Wednesday.

Of course it is. Wednesdays are already an academic disaster. Might as well add a permanent werewolf bonding ritual to the schedule.

I know it’s happening before I’m even fully awake. There’s a text from Boone at six-fourteen AM.

Boone: Full moon tonight. How are you feeling about everything?

Maisie: Going to need you to walk me through the fine print one more time.

Boone: I expected nothing less. Dinner first?

Maisie: Obviously dinner first. I’m not completing a permanent magical bond on an empty stomach.

Three dots. Disappear. Come back.

Boone: I genuinely love you.

A ridiculous flutter hits my chest. He said it out loud for the first time last night—quiet and unpracticed—and hearing it still makes my whole body go soft. I type back.

Maisie: Feed me and I’ll love you forever.

Maisie: I love you too, Boone.

Delilah is sitting cross-legged on her bed with tea, watching me with the smug satisfaction of someone who predicted this outcome a month ago.

"Full moon," she says.

"Full moon."

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I've read a mountain of academic documentation, understand all the risks, and I'm still terrified I'm going to turn into a completely different person the second he bites me."

Delilah snorts into her mug. "You threw a textbook at the wall yesterday because the genetics chapter had a typo. You've been feeling the mate pull this long without dissolving. You're still aggressively yourself. That's not changing tonight."

She's right. I'm stubborn, I'm practical, and I'm hopelessly in love with a six-foot-four werewolf who brings me pastries and looks at me like I hung the damn moon.

"Go to class," Delilah says, waving her hand. "Get breakfast."

"I'm going, I'm going."

By early November, Creature University has settled into a crisp, cold routine. The leaves are down, the dining hall smells like cinnamon, and people have stopped tiptoeing around me. The second I showed up to Halloween in cheap wolf ears and kissed Boone in front of half the creature athletics department, campus decided I belong here.

At lunch, Petra—a gargoyle student in my biology group who usually resembles part of the stonework—sits across from me.

"Full moon," she says quietly.

"Yeah. Boone and I are doing the bond tonight."

Petra nods slowly. "Gargoyles don't have scents or bites. We dream."