I nearly had a heart attack when our skin brushed ever so slightly. It was just her hand. It was the smallest of touches. And yet, all the sound in the room was suddenly drowned out by the beating of my heart. The pounding in my ears.

Heat flared in the place our skin had found contact.

The twinge in my chest that made me want to reach for her, to lightly graze her hand again… to hold hers in mine.

I would just stare into those eyes of hers for forever, just to see the emotions held in their depths. I wanted to bring them out. I wanted to see all that she was feeling, toward me, toward everything.

I wanted to talk to her, really talk to her.

Face to face, nobody else around to interrupt… just us, and whatever this was.

We had to talk about this, right?

Right?

This wasn’t something we could just ignore.

Our gazes snapped together, electrifying everything in this silent moment we shared. I could see Kat’s gaze burning into the both of us, but we held on, for as long as we dared.

Longer.

This was really it, wasn’t it?

She wasn’t just a hallucination or a reoccurring figure in my dreams. This was her. This was Jane.

Right here.

Right now.

She…

She was wearing a flowy yellow dress that went to her knees.

Had she always looked so beautiful? So…

Ethereal?

Maybe, I wondered, could it be that seeing her after all this time, after my own realization that I was in love with her happened when we weren’t even face to face… could that be why she was shining brighter and more beautiful than a full moon, brighter and lovelier than all the stars in the galaxy, now? Was it only me seeing this?

If it was so, if it was just me, I didn’t mind. She’d just be my moon then. My galaxy. I didn’t want to share this anyway.

As if I could.

Ha.

Part of me tried to deny what this was. Because how could something this perfect be real? How could fate truly be aligned with my feelings?

As my breath slowly returned to me, I heard her voice and it started all over again. Palpitations of my racing heartbeat.

Had her voice always sounded like this?

Her laughter?

I’d seen that smile before, but why did it feel so new?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

Pretty soon, the roar of people returned. The laughter. The jokes. The obliviousness they held to what we were feeling was clear to me.

Nobody had noticed but Kat, and she might not even know what this is, as an outsider to these feelings. An outsider… because it was just us, just the two of us.

I looked around at the others, nibbling on some of my food, unable to stop myself from seeing Jane wherever my gaze landed, whether it was in my peripheral vision or just right in front of me.

I sighed.

Everyone was so rowdy.

It was like always, eating with such a big group. There wasn’t a buffet line. All of the food was laid out on the table between the plates, and we acted like a family, asking each other to put a dish closer to them on our plate. More? Less? Good. Trading plates around. Eating. Laughing.

Lynn was practically trying to start a food fight while Josephine, sitting next to me, ate with one hand, the other holding a book just under the edge of the table. She was reading. It must’ve been a good book if she could ignore all the noise.

William and Fallyn weren’t here.

Kat was watching us and sharing stories.

The adults were absorbed in their conversation at the other end of the table.

And then there was Jane.

I glanced back up at her to find her eyes were already on me.

Something in her gaze seemed to soften as I searched her face, unable to stop myself from lingering in certain places.

I had this hope… this wish…

Long ago, when I first got a crush on her.

I’d gone out late, snuck out to a hidden gazebo at my home pack, and pleaded with the universe, with anything. I wasn’t sure what to believe in, with one exception. I’d believed that Jane and I would be a fated pair; that we were true mates. Despite that belief, I still pleaded for it to happen.

Years went by.

Days and months of trying to ignore the ache in my chest to just see her again. That belief I’d had faded in my mind.

After all, how could that happen?

How could fate be so prevalent in these three allied packs?

The number of shifters who had found their fated pairs there was astronomical in that one year.

So…

How could that work for me?

Hadn’t it all been used up?

How could it pair Jane and I together?

It wouldn’t.

At least, that was what I’d told myself.

I’d pushed her away slowly, in an effort to lessen my own pain. If I heard her voice for too long, I’d want to test it. I’d want to see her to find out whether it was just a faded dream, or if… it could be my reality.

I was wrong.

Because now, I knew.

I knew, but I was still in disbelief.

We were – we… we were meant to be?

Jane…

And I?

Fate…

We all finished eating and seemed to congregate in the living room to chat more. Our parents were drinking a bit, the smell making my nose itch.

The rest of us?

We kind of gathered into smaller groups to talk.

I ended up with Josephine, still reading her book, not that I had much to say…

Still, I kept feeling glances from not just the rest of us ‘kids’, but from the adults too.

They probably found this strange.

Jane and I used to be practically glued at the hip at the reunions. And then, skip a few years of being unable to attend at the same time, and now…

We were at opposite ends of the room.

But it was good.

Her over there. It was good.

Any closer and I might do something like hug her and not let go. And then the staring would only really begin.

I was practically tingling. Just her presence in the same room as myself had my heart thundering wildly in my chest, had my fingers going numb with cold, begging to touch the warmth that I knew she had.

But I didn’t know what to say.

I didn’t know what to do.

Just as much as it felt right to go to her side, it felt wrong here. Now.

Night crept in before I realized and we all muttered and called out goodnight to one another as we headed to our rooms. Long ago, I’d been assigned a room with William.

He wasn’t here.

So I was alone. In my room.

It was too quiet.

I couldn’t sleep.

And… I didn’t have enough supper, clearly, because my stomach hurt. I’d been too busy trying to look semi-normal in front of everyone while simultaneously trying to figure out what was going on.

I was hungry.

I snuck out of my room and to the kitchen.

As I was searching quietly in the cabinets for something to snack on, I thought I saw a dark shadow pass through the living room. When I looked, there was nothing there.

I grabbed a box of crackers to snack on in my room and moved to leave.

Smack.

“Oh, sorry.”

And I walked right into another person. We automatically steadied each other, but that was when I felt it hit me again.

Heat.

In my hands.

On my arms.

“Lee?”

“Jane?”

I didn’t remove my hand, but just kind of froze as I whispered her name.

Her wide eyes stared up at me, causing my heart to stir painfully in my chest.

Jane…

It’s Jane.

Here.

And then came the second thought.

We were alone now.