Page 20 of Swipe Right on the Alpha
Dylan took a cautious step forward, then another when Aiden didn’t flinch away. “Are you afraid of me now?”
The question held such raw fear that Aiden found himself moving before he could overthink it, sliding off the stool and crossing the room until he stood directly in front of Dylan.
“Should I be?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Dylan answered immediately, his hands flexing at his sides as if he was physically restraining himself from reaching out. “Never. I would never hurt you, Aiden.”
“Then no, I’m not afraid of you,” Aiden said, surprising himself with the truth of it. “Shocked? Absolutely. Confused? Definitely. But afraid of you specifically? No.”
Something like hope flickered in Dylan’s eyes. “You’re taking this… better than I expected.”
“Oh, I’m definitely having an internal freak-out,” Aiden assured him with a shaky laugh. “But external calm has always been my specialty. Also, I’ve been suspecting something weird for weeks. Werewolf wasn’t actually my first guess, but it makes a disturbing amount of sense in retrospect.”
“What was your first guess?” Dylan asked, a hint of his usual dry humor returning.
“Cult member or some kind of wilderness survivalist with sensory training,” Aiden admitted. “Werewolf seemed too outlandish until I actually read the LunaLove app description.”
Dylan winced. “That app has a lot to answer for.”
“It brought us together,” Aiden pointed out. “Though apparently it was supposed to prevent clueless humans like me from downloading it in the first place.”
“I’m glad it failed,” Dylan said softly.
The simple sincerity in those words created a warm flutter in Aiden’s chest despite the surreal circumstances. Hesitantly, he reached out, placing his hand on Dylan’s chest above his heart. The steady, slightly-too-fast rhythm beneath his palm was reassuring in its familiarity.
“So,” Aiden said, striving for lightness, “when were you planning to bring up the whole ‘mates for life’ thing? First date seemed a bit early, but waiting a month might be considered burying the lede.”
Dylan’s hand came up to cover Aiden’s where it rested on his chest. “I was hoping you might be open to the concept by the time I explained everything. Though I’d planned to frame it as ‘serious relationship with supernatural elements’ rather than ‘eternal soul bond’ right off the bat.”
Despite everything, Aiden found himself laughing. “Smart approach. The eternal soul bond conversation is at least a third-date topic.”
Dylan’s other hand finally, tentatively, came up to touch Aiden’s face, thumb brushing his cheekbone with gentle reverence. “You’re really not running away.”
“Not yet,” Aiden agreed. “Though I reserve the right to freak out properly later. I have about a thousand questions.”
“Anything,” Dylan promised. “I’ll tell you everything now.”
“Show me,” Aiden requested suddenly. “The transformation. I want to see it happen… voluntarily, not because of some werewolf territory dispute.”
Dylan hesitated, uncertainty crossing his features. “Are you sure? It can be… disconcerting the first time you see it deliberately.”
“I need to understand what I’m dealing with here,” Aiden explained. “All of it.”
After a moment’s consideration, Dylan nodded. He stepped back, creating space between them, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “It’s easier with fewer clothes,” he explained at Aiden’s questioning look. “Less restrictive.”
As Dylan stripped down to his boxers, Aiden was struck by the familiarity of the body revealed—the same one he’d explored with hands and mouth, the same one that had held him through the night. Whatever else Dylan might be, this part of him Aiden knew intimately.
“Ready?” Dylan asked, standing barefoot on the hardwood floor.
Aiden nodded, not entirely trusting his voice.
The transformation began subtly—a slight elongation of Dylan’s features, his eyes taking on that amber glow Aiden had glimpsed in the forest. Then it accelerated, bones shifting beneath skin in a way that should have been horrifying but was instead strangely beautiful in its fluid efficiency. Dylan’s face extended partially into a muzzle, though still recognizably his own. His ears pointed, body hair thickened without becoming a full pelt, and his hands developed claws where nails had been.
The entire process took perhaps thirty seconds, and when it was complete, Dylan stood before him in what Aiden now understood was a partial shift—neither fully human nor fully wolf, but something in between that combined elements of both.
“This is what you saw in the clearing,” Dylan said, his voice deeper and rougher but still unmistakably his. “I can go further, become more wolf, or less, closer to human. Full wolf form is also possible, but takes more energy.”
Aiden approached slowly, eyes taking in every detail of the transformation. Up close, the changes were even more fascinating—the subtle alterations to familiar features, the way Dylan’s musculature seemed even more defined, the slight elongation of his canine teeth visible when he spoke.
