Chapter 8: Change

Skye's POV

My wolf whined, tail low, ears pinned back—but her attention was fixed on him. She wanted him. Desperately. Her need wasn’t rational, wasn’t earned. It was instinct. Bond-deep. She was drawn to him, despite everything. Despite the years of silence, the pain, the way he’d looked through me like I didn’t exist.

I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood.

Maybe if I stayed quiet, he’d go away. Maybe if I pretended none of this was happening, it would break. The bond. The scent. The weight of his eyes on me.

But I knew better.

You don’t walk away from a mate bond. You survive it—or you don’t.

“Skye,” he said again, this time softer. The sharpness in his voice was gone, replaced with something… uncertain. “Please.”

Please.

That single word cracked something inside me. Just a hairline fracture—but I felt it.

I stood up slowly, my legs unsteady, heart pounding so hard I thought he might hear it through the wood. My wolf pressed against my skin, pacing just beneath the surface, ready to leap. Her excitement bled into me, tangled with my dread.

I reached for the doorknob with a trembling hand. I hesitated, fingers hovering there. Once I opened this door, nothing would be the same. I couldn’t pretend anymore. Couldn’t hide behind the comfort of being unseen.

I twisted the handle and opened it. There he was—Damian Wolfe.

The male I’d grown up watching from the shadows, the one who’d never spared me more than a passing glance. He stood just beyond the threshold, tall and commanding even when silent. The hallway light caught in his dark hair and lit the edges of his eyes—those eyes that once looked right through me, but now held me like I was something precious and dangerous all at once.

His jaw clenched. His hands were fisted at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them. And yet, in his eyes, I saw it—hesitation. Vulnerability. Regret?

“Skye,” he said again, quieter this time. My name wasn’t sharp now. It was soft. Careful. Like he was afraid to break something between us.

My wolf surged toward him, tail wagging, heart leaping. Mate. Ours. She pushed so hard against my skin I could barely hold her back.

My grip tightened on the doorknob as I tried to breathe past the sudden ache in my chest.

“What do you want?” I asked, barely more than a whisper. The words scraped my throat on the way out.

His gaze flickered down, then back to me. “I needed to see you.”

“Why?” The word slipped out before I could stop it. My voice cracked.

He hesitated, then said, “Because… I don’t know what the hell this is. But I can’t stay away.”

I hated how that made my heart flutter.

I hated how close he was, how good he smelled—pine and smoke and rain on scorched earth. The scent that had haunted me since the night I shifted. The scent that told every cell in my body this is him.

My wolf whimpered but I didn’t let her out.

“I didn’t ask for this,” I said. “I didn’t ask for you.”

“I didn’t ask for you either,” he shot back, almost too fast.

The words hit like a slap. My stomach twisted, the bond pulling tight enough to burn.

His eyes widened, realizing what he said. “Skye—I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Sure you did,” I replied, voice hollow. “You meant it exactly like that.”

The silence between us stretched, tense and raw.

Damian stepped closer, crossing into the doorway, just enough that I had to fight the urge to step back.

“I didn’t mean I don’t want you,” he said quietly. “I meant I didn’t expect you. You were never supposed to be my mate.”

“Right. Because I’m just the omega in the corner,” I said bitterly. “The girl no one noticed. The one no one ever picked.”

“I noticed,” he said. “More than you know.”

That stopped me cold.

“I saw you get pushed around. I saw you bruised and bloody after training. I saw you trying to disappear,” he continued. His voice was rough, but something in it cracked. “And I hated it.”

His jaw clenched, and I could tell he was wrestling with something—words he’d never said before, truths he’d never dared speak aloud. Then he looked at me.

Really looked at me.

Not like I was an obligation. Not like I was a burden. He looked at me like I was the only person in the entire world. Like I was something fragile and powerful all at once. And it scared the hell out of me.

“Because if I let myself care then,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and low “I wouldn’t have stopped.”

The words lodged in my chest like an arrow.

My breath hitched, the air catching on a knot of feeling I couldn’t unravel. I didn’t even fully understand what he meant—but the way he said it made me feel like it mattered. Like it wasn’t just a line. Like it cost him something to admit it.

The bond between us vibrated like a live wire, buzzing beneath my skin, humming with tension and emotion too big to name. It wasn’t just a string tied between us—it was a storm, and we were standing in the center of it.

My wolf surged again, clawing at the walls I’d built to keep her contained. She wanted out. She wanted him. Her mate.

She howled inside me, not with sadness—but with need. But me? I stood still.

Torn between instincts and memory, between craving his touch and recoiling from the ache of the past.

Because even if something in him had changed, I hadn’t forgotten how it used to be.

I hadn’t forgotten how many times I looked to him in the crowd—bleeding, hurting, humiliated and saw him turn away. I hadn’t forgotten the silence. The absence.

But there was something different in his eyes now. His shoulders weren’t set in that proud, arrogant way anymore. His posture was tense but not defensive. Almost like he was waiting for me to slam the door in his face. Like he would take it if I did.

For some stupid, unexplainable reason I didn’t. I didn’t close the door.

And Damian didn't walk away from me.