Chapter Two: The Pull I couldn’t ignore
1167 Words
The next morning, I woke to the sound of my phone vibrating against the nightstand.
Groaning, I reached for it, expecting a text from my best friend, maybe a reminder about work or brunch. Instead, it was a single message from an unknown number:
“Don’t forget what you felt yesterday.”
I froze.
The words weren’t threatening. They weren’t cute or flirtatious either. They were… deliberate. Certain. And somehow, I knew it was him.
I stared at the screen, my stomach twisting. I had never met someone who made me feel seen in the way he did. It was unnerving, thrilling, and completely unwelcome all at once.
I tried to shake it off, telling myself it was a coincidence, some stranger who got my number wrong. But every instinct in me—the part I had learned to ignore—refused to let it go.
And I hated that it did.
At work, nothing felt normal. The office buzzed with the usual noise of phones ringing, keyboards clicking, and printers whirring, but I couldn’t focus. Every shadow on the street, every stranger passing by my window, seemed like it could be him.
By noon, my patience snapped. I needed to see him again. I didn’t know why—maybe curiosity, maybe stubbornness—but I needed to see him.
I left my office early, ignoring the worried glance from my coworker. My steps took me back to the café where I had first met him.
The door chimed as I entered. My heart stuttered.
He was there.
Not at the table I’d been sitting at, not looking casual or friendly. He stood near the counter, back straight, hands tucked into the pockets of his dark coat. His gaze swept the room as if he knew exactly where I would appear.
And when our eyes met, my chest went tight.
I should have turned around. I should have walked away.
But I didn’t.
“Hi,” I muttered, my voice low.
“Hi,” he said, and the corners of his lips curved just slightly. That smile—the one that felt like it belonged to some other, safer world—made me want to melt, even though it made no sense.
“Why are you here?” I asked. Not because I was angry—though maybe a little—but because I needed answers.
He shrugged, deceptively casual. “I didn’t have to be anywhere else.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And that means…?”
“That means I want to see you.”
I blinked. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“I don’t even know you,” I said, though my words sounded weak. My body, on the other hand, seemed to understand him perfectly, responding before my mind had a chance to protest.
“Yet,” he said, his voice low, almost a growl. “But I know you.”
Something in the way he said it made the hairs on my arms stand up. There was something… alpha about him. Commanding. A presence I couldn’t ignore, even if I tried.
I wanted to argue. I wanted to step back. Instead, I let myself sit across from him, feeling the pull of his attention like a tether I couldn’t break.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
His eyes flicked toward mine, sharp and steady. “Someone you’ll understand eventually.”
I opened my mouth to ask what that meant, but he interrupted me.
“You felt it yesterday,” he said, leaning just slightly closer. “The shift in the air. The pull.”
I swallowed, remembering the moment, the pressure in my chest, the way my body reacted before I even saw him.
“It was… weird,” I admitted.
“Not weird,” he said. “Real. Important.”
I frowned. “Important? How?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he stood, and I realized he had been blocking the sunlight from behind the café counter. Now, standing fully, he radiated something I didn’t have words for—a heat, a presence, a warning.
“You’re my mate,” he said.
The words hit me like a punch. I laughed nervously, certain I had misheard. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he said, calm but firm. “You don’t know it yet, but that’s what you are to me.”
My stomach dropped. My pulse accelerated. I didn’t know whether to be terrified, confused, or… excited.
“You—what?”
He shook his head slowly, almost pityingly. “I can’t explain everything now. Not yet. But you’ll understand. And soon, you’ll feel it too—the connection. The pull that doesn’t lie.”
I stared at him, trying to process the words, the intensity, the truth I wasn’t ready to accept.
“You’re insane,” I said, though my voice trembled.
“No,” he said. “I’m not human.”
The words made the air feel heavier, like a weight pressing down around us. My pulse thundered in my ears. And for some reason, even though it should have terrified me, it didn’t.
Instead, I wanted more.
I wanted to know everything.
“You—what do you mean, ‘not human’?” I asked, trying to sound steady.
He leaned closer, and I smelled the night air clinging to him, something primal and untamed. “You’ll see. But first, you need to trust me.”
Trust. The word made me laugh softly—half disbelief, half tension.
“Trust you? After telling me you’re my mate and not human?”
“Yes,” he said, his gaze locking with mine, unyielding. “Because the pull between us… it’s real. And it’s dangerous if ignored.”
I shivered, though not from fear.
“Dangerous how?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he reached out, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers grazing my skin lightly but leaving a trail of electricity. “You’ll find out. But for now… just know that the world as you know it is about to change.”
I swallowed hard. My heart was racing, my mind screaming to run, yet my legs stayed planted. Something about him held me in place. Something about him was… impossible to resist.
He took a step back, giving me space, yet the tension between us didn’t lessen. “I’ll see you again,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it’s inevitable,” he replied, and before I could respond, he was gone—disappearing into the street, leaving only the echo of his presence and a fluttering pulse of anticipation in my chest.
I sat there, stunned, my mind spinning, my body on edge.
Meeting him had already changed something inside me. I didn’t know what it was yet—but I knew I couldn’t go back to the way things were.
And deep down, I knew I didn’t want to.
- Writer
