Fae-ted To The Alpha

7- A Date With My One-Night Stand

Daisy

Thursday. Ah, the second to last day of the workweek. I breathed a sigh of relief as I had breakfast with my family. This week had flown by in a blur, yet it felt like time was dragging its feet. Every time I walked into work, I half expected to see him. I had only seen him once when I was leaving the restroom and walked past the conference room, where I recognized his broad shoulders hunched over some blueprints. I remembered his unusual sea-green eyes, although I couldn’t see his irises at that moment, narrowing in concentration.

Just walking past made my skin prickle with the memory of his gaze from the last time we spoke in the cafeteria. The cafeteria had become a minefield for me, and I have since avoided it. But avoiding him didn’t mean forgetting him. Far from it. Rik occupied my thoughts far more than I was comfortable admitting. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the way his lips had quirked into a faint smile at the party. The way I know how his lips felt against mine. Against my skin.

Mom and Dad left the breakfast table and Dale pounced on me immediately. He’d been subtle about it, but Dale was never one to let things slide for long. “You’re distracted,” he said this morning to me, leaning against the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee in hand. The steam curled upward, like the questions he was clearly holding back.

“Just tired,” I replied, focusing on my laptop screen and the lines of code I was working on. It wasn’t a lie. I was tired- tired of trying to act like everything was fine when it wasn’t.

“Does this have anything to do with why you and Jordan broke up?” Dale’s voice was gentle, but it hit like a sledgehammer.

I stiffened, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. “No,” I lied, hoping he’d let it go. He didn’t.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” he pressed. “Whatever happened, I’m here.” The sincerity in his voice made my chest ache. Dale has always been a steady presence in my life. As much as I wanted to confide in him, the truth felt too raw, too tangled up in things I didn’t fully understand myself. So, I nodded, offering him a weak smile. “I know. Thanks.”

He didn’t push further, but the way his gaze lingered on me suggested he wasn’t convinced. The codes on the screen blurring together had me closing the lid and heading to my car for work.

At work, I buried myself in the project, hoping to drown out the thoughts that kept surfacing. My team’s latest software update was nearing its final stages, and the deadlines were tight enough to keep me occupied. Still, the familiar scent of ozone lingered faintly in the air, a constant reminder that he wasn’t far away.

Rik, the werewolf man.

Being Half-Fae came with its quirks. My heightened senses often felt like a blessing and a curse. I could pick up on things others couldn’t, like the faint hum of magic that clung to Rik. It wasn’t overt, but it was there- a primal energy that seemed to draw me in, no matter how much I resisted.

I’d always been sensitive to auras, a trait my mother said was common among Fae. But what I felt around this werewolf was different. It was magnetic, like gravity itself bent in his favor. It wasn’t just his presence; it was the way his energy filled the room, demanding attention even when he wasn’t speaking.

The quiet hum of the office filled the air as I hunched over my desk, my fingers flying across the keyboard. Lines of code blurred on the screen, but I refused to let my focus waver. Work was the perfect distraction- logical, demanding, and, most importantly, far removed from the chaos Rik had stirred in my life.

Except he works here as well.

He’d been on my mind far too much for comfort, even after I’d avoided the cafeteria entirely. I made sure to eat lunch at my desk, my earbuds in, avoiding any potential run-ins. Not that it mattered. His presence lingered like an echo I couldn’t escape.

“Daisy?”

The deep, familiar timbre of his voice broke through my thoughts, sending a jolt through my spine and my heart frenzied. I froze, my hands poised over the keyboard, before reluctantly looking to the doorway and squirming in my chair. Rik stood there, all six-foot-plus of him, looking slightly out of place among the rows of desks and fluorescent lights. His sea-green eyes locked onto mine, and I immediately felt that same magnetic pull I’d been trying to forget.

“Rik,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “What brings you to this part of the building?” I went through loops to avoid him- even endured the best-tasting coffee down the street... okay so the coffee in the tiny cafe was lovely.

“I wanted to check in on how things were going,” he said casually, but we both knew I was avoiding him as he stood partially inside the office, we all shared in my department when needed.

“Things are fine,” I replied, leaning back in my chair, trying my best to appear unaffected by his presence. “Busy, as usual.”

He didn’t respond immediately, his gaze drifting to my computer screen. The back of it but he used the moment to gather his thoughts. “Busy is good,” he finally said, his voice lower now, almost contemplative. “I wanted to ask you something.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Okay…” My heart was speeding up more and more. Excitement about what it could be and curious to know if his wolf was taking note of my reactions and pulses and such.

He shifted slightly, his hands slipping into his pockets. “Christmas is coming up. We’re hosting a dinner at my home- me, the pack, some close friends. I was wondering if you’d like to join us.”

Blinking, momentarily stunned, because out of all the things I’d expected him to say, this wasn’t even on the list. A date? “Dinner? At your home?” I repeated as if saying it aloud would make it make more sense. I was also wondering what my parents would think if I missed dinner at home. Was this Christmas dinner or Eve of? And how easily he asked this when my boyfriend of two years fumbled at this.

“Yes,” he said simply. “It’s nothing formal, just a gathering. My daughter will be there, along with her boyfriend. It’s a chance to relax, enjoy some good food… get to know each other... I mean, I don’t know if you would be comfortable with me being an er, werewolf," he cleared his throat, "alone...”

His words were all jumbled and was making less sense the more he spoke. “Wait.” I held up a hand, my brain catching on one crucial detail. “You have a daughter?” I also was wondering why he was so quick to admit to me his true nature. Did he sense that I knew already? He was talking so casually as if we were discussing the weather.

He nodded, his expression unreadable, but he entered the office, then slowly closed the door behind him but remained right there. “Liz. She’s twenty-one.”

My mouth fell open before I could stop it. Twenty-one? A daughter that age meant… I did some quick mental math. Rik was in his late thirties, right- got it but I figured him younger, like maybe thirty when we hooked up, and definitely not looking old enough to be in his forties- unless he actually was, which meant he’d been a teenager when he became a father. I eyed his sideburns where the edges were slightly greying. “You don’t look old enough to have a grown daughter,” I blurted out, then immediately regretted it.

A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. “I’ll take that as a compliment. But her mother was the one that did all the work in making her, not me.”

“Sorry, I just… didn’t expect that.” I shook my head, trying to refocus. But I was stuck there. What? An entire adult child who is nearly my age? And what about the mother? Was he one of those who had a wife and was going to introduce me to his wife who was making the dinner? I chided myself for the direction my brain sometimes carried me.

“Most people don’t,” he admitted, his tone softening. “Liz is… spirited. You’ll see if you decide to come. Please come, Daisy.” His tone was almost pleading. “Does that bother you? Her age, I mean?”

Shaking my head no but actually wanting to say yes, I let it be.

Part of me wanted to say no immediately, to put distance between us and keep things professional. A daughter three years younger than me. But another part of me, the part that had been inexplicably drawn to him from the start, was curious. I hesitated, the invitation hanging in the air between us. And why was he not mentioning the lack of the non-wife?

“Why are you inviting me?” I asked, folding my arms, my eyes meeting his. “I mean, we’re coworkers. This seems… personal.”

Rik met my gaze, and for a moment, the air between us felt charged. “You’re right, it is personal,” he said. “But it’s also not uncommon for pack gatherings to include new acquaintances. It’s how we build trust, strengthen connections.” His explanation was made to seem reasonable enough, but I couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to it than he was letting on. Still, my curiosity got the better of me.

But I was not a pack member, was I? Nor was I associated with any wolf in my DNA. From what my mother told me, werewolves were a dominant sort of creature who detested outsiders and tended to stick to their own kind.

Most ‘Folked’ people were that way.

“I’ll think about it,” I said finally, not wanting to commit outright though I wanted to scream yes. But more like yes, yes, yes! Like I had that night. I was intoxicated, but I remember how well-matched we were in bed. Our tangled bodies.

He didn’t have to sneak around because he was the adult in the family, right?

“That’s all I ask,” he said, his smirk returning. “You know where to find me if you have questions.” With that, he turned and walked away, leaving me with a thousand questions and a strange flutter in my chest as I stared at the retreating long-sleeved uniformed man.

My cheeks flushed then, and I bent my head slightly to hide it from his view even though he never turned back to watch me but I was still self-conscious. He’d invited me to a family dinner and I wanted to lie against him naked.

What the hell, Daisy?