Oops! I catfish the Wolf King

Chloe's POV I built a lie and called it me. On Lunaris, the network where every wolf in the northern territories posts a human face beside a shifted form, I was Lily. She had a slim waist, long legs, and the kind of smile that made males stop scrolling. Her wolf was silver-grey and sleek enough to make a warrior forget his own name. None of it was mine. The photos belonged to a she-wolf from some coastal pack I had never set foot in. I found her one sleepless night, saved twelve pictures, and told myself it was harmless. A mask, nothing more. I would wear it for a week, maybe two. That was a year ago. My real name is Chloe Adolphus. I'm twenty-three years old, with thick thighs, round hips, and a soft belly that no amount of pack training has ever erased. My wolf is a stocky brown thing with a coat the color of wet bark. In my old pack, the males had a word for girls like me. The one you dance with when the pretty ones are taken. So yes. I lied. And then he found me. His profile said Melvin. No pack crest. No rank. One photo: a black wolf seen from behind, standing at the edge of a cliff with the moon at his back. His first message was. Melvin: You write like someone who hasn't been held in a long time. I stared at my screen until it went dark. I had posted one caption that night, a few lines about the full moon making me restless. Hundreds of wolves had liked the photo, and not one of them had read the words. He had. I should have ignored him. Instead, I typed back, and we didn't stop talking for a year. Everyone in the territories knows the stories about the Wolf King of Duskhollow. They say he's colder than the river in midwinter and that his alphas lower their eyes when he walks into a room. They say he once stopped a border war without lifting a claw, because the enemy alpha took one look at him and surrendered. Melvin was nothing like that. Melvin called me baby. He sent voice notes I never played, because I was terrified a voice would make him real. He sent messages I read so many times I could recite them in my sleep. Melvin: You stir up every wolf instinct I have, baby. I don't know what you've done to me. Melvin: If I lose my mind over you, I'll thank the moon for it. Melvin: Tell me about your day. All of it. I want the boring parts too. I gave him the boring parts. I told him about my job at the herbalist's shop, my mother's burnt stew. Those parts were true. I never lied about my life. I lied about my face. And every time he said beautiful, something inside me split a little wider, because I knew who he was seeing. It wasn't me. It was never going to be me. Three months ago, he started asking to meet. The first time, it was soft. Melvin: One day, I want to see you in person. Hear you laugh. I sent a laughing emoji and changed the subject. The second time, it was firmer. Melvin: Give me a time and a place, baby. I'll make it happen. I told him my pack was strict, my mother was sick, the moon wasn't right. I ran out of excuses faster than he ran out of patience. Then, two weeks ago: Melvin: I'm done waiting. Tell me where you are, or I'll find you myself. My heart stopped. I could picture it. He'd walk into some café expecting a slim silver she-wolf with a sad smile, and instead he'd find me, round and brown and nothing he'd asked for. I could already see his face falling. I could hear the silence where all those sweet words used to be. So I did the most cowardly thing I have ever done. I blocked him on Lunaris. I blocked him on the pack message boards, on the mate-matching board, and on the email address I'd made for Lily. Then I deleted Lily, all twelve photos, and a year of my life with her. I cried into my pillow until sunrise. Then I got up and went to work, because that's what filler girls do. --- "You look like death," my mother said three days later, dropping a folded letter onto the kitchen table. "Your aunt wants you for the full moon break. Elle's been asking for you." I picked up the letter. The paper was thick and cream-colored, sealed with dark wax. "At their house?" "At the estate." My mother poured her tea. "Your aunt married into the Gonzalo family twenty-four years ago, Chloe. They don't live in a house." I had seen my cousin Elle at weddings and funerals. I had never been to the place where she lived. Her father's family kept to themselves up on the ridge, and my mother's side of the family kept to its herbs and its stew down in the valley. "I don't want to go," I said. "You've been crying for three days and you won't tell me why." My mother set down her cup. "You're going. Fresh air. New faces. Whatever this is, it'll still be here when you get back, and you'll be stronger for it." I didn't argue. I didn't have the strength. --- The estate wasn't an estate. It was a castle. It rose out of the pines on the northern ridge, all dark stone and tall towers. Its windows glowed amber against the evening sky. The driver my aunt had sent turned through iron gates taller than three wolves stacked together, and my stomach turned with them. "Elle never said she lived in a fortress," I muttered. The driver glanced at me in the mirror. "Miss Elle doesn't think of it that way. She grew up here." The car stopped in a courtyard paved with grey stone. Lanterns hung along every wall. Somewhere, a fountain was running. Somewhere else, wolves were laughing. I dragged my suitcase out of the trunk before the driver could reach for it. One wheel was broken, so it screeched across the stones like a wounded animal. Two guards at the front doors watched me struggle up the steps with blank faces. "I'm Elle's cousin," I said. "Chloe Adolphus. She's expecting me." One of them pushed the door open. The entrance hall was bigger than my mother's whole house. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, dripping with crystal. A staircase curved up both sides like two arms reaching for each other. The floor gleamed so bright I could see my own reflection, wild-haired and tired, in a coat that had seen better winters. I took one step inside, turned to drag my suitcase over the threshold, and walked straight into a wall. Not a wall. A chest. Hard, warm, and wrapped in black fabric. My face hit it first, then my shoulder, and then my suitcase toppled sideways and crashed onto the marble floor. I stumbled back, and two hands caught my arms before I could fall. And then the scent hit me.Something darker underneath, wild and sharp, like the forest right before a storm. My wolf, who had been sulking at the bottom of my chest for two weeks, went still. Then she whimpered. I looked up. He was tall. Taller than any male I had ever stood near. His black hair fell over his forehead, and his jaw was dark with stubble. His eyes were grey, cold and pale like the sky before snow, and they were fixed on my face. Power rolled off him. The kind that pressed against my skin and made my knees want to bend. Alpha pressure, but heavier than any alpha I had ever met. It filled the hall the way water fills a glass. He didn't let go of my arms. He didn't say a word. His nostrils flared once. Something moved behind his eyes, too fast for me to read. "Hey! Hey, hey, turn it down!" Footsteps pounded down the staircase. My cousin Elle came flying toward us in a green silk robe, her curls bouncing and her hands up like she was breaking up a dogfight. "Chloe, back up. Back up!" She grabbed my wrist and tugged, but his grip didn't loosen. Elle shot him a nervous look, then leaned toward me and hissed, "My uncle hates it when she-wolves throw themselves at him. Hates it. Especially lately." "I didn't throw myself," I whispered. "I tripped." "Doesn't matter." Elle's eyes darted back up to his face. She lowered her voice even more. "Some online fling ghosted him a couple of months ago. Blocked him everywhere. He's been in a mood ever since. He nearly tore the head off a rogue at the border last month, and the rogue had already surrendered." A chill touched the back of my neck. It crept down my spine, cold as river water, and spread through my whole body until my fingers went numb inside his grip. I didn't want to look up again. I did it anyway. He was still watching me. He hadn't blinked. My mouth had gone dry. I forced the words out anyway. "Elle," I said. "Your uncle. His name wouldn't happen to be Melvin, would it?"