LOGIN“What am I doing? What were you doing, letting another man get that close to you?” “I don’t belong to you, Declan. I can let whoever I want get close to me. Take a hint.” I ran a hand down her arms, watching goosebumps rise. Her scent filled my senses, sweet and intoxicating, and every alpha nearby could smell it too. The urge to pull her away from everyone and keep her all to myself was almost unbearable. Instead, I drew her against me and buried my face in her hair. She smelled like everything I had ever wanted. Warmth. Comfort. Home. “Does he make you feel like this, Maeve? Does being near him make your instincts go wild the way they do with me?” She gasped, a blush spreading across her cheeks. Her reaction told me more than her stubborn denials ever could. She wanted me. And I was beginning to suspect she knew it too. *** One night. One mistake. One bond that refuses to break. It was supposed to be a freshman party: loud music, terrible drinks, no consequences. But when I locked eyes with him, I knew I was walking straight into trouble. I did it anyway. Now Declan is everywhere, searching for me, watching me, looking at me like I’m the one thing he can’t afford to lose. The possessive alpha he tries to control slips closer to the surface every time I remind him I belong to no one. But bonds don’t care about pride, and instincts don’t always listen to reason. The more I fight this, the harder it is to tell whether I’m running from him or daring him to follow. Because I never forgot that night either. And some knots were never meant to be broken.
View MoreMAEVE'S POV
“Hey! Watch it!” I said when my bag fell to the floor because a girl bumped into me. She was surrounded by two other girls, and I knew they thought they looked put together to themselves, but they just looked like a hot mess to me with their cakey makeup and tacky clothing.
The main girl who had pushed me laughed and looked at her ilk for support.
“You watch it, girl. Can’t you have some respect?” Her voice was shrill and it almost made me raise my hands to my ears.
I knew what was happening, of course. I had run into the HBIC (high-bitch-in-charge). Just my luck, huh?
“You were the one who bumped into me, girl.” Of course, I knew what I had to do. I had to establish myself as the Higher-Bitch. Nothing else would do.
“Seems you don’t know who you’re talking to, huh?” Minion number 2 said with a smirk.
“I don’t know, and I don’t give a shit. Now get out of my way.”
“Or what?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “What’s your name?” I asked the HBIC.
“Oh, now you’re afraid huh. Well, you should be. Because I'm Ashley Jefferson, and Blackwood University is my turf. So, if you don’t want to make your life hell here, I suggest you get on your knees and grovel. Maybe I'll forgive you.”
“You really are a dumb blonde Ashley. You should apologize so I don’t make your life a living hell.”
“Bitch, what did you just say to me?”
There are two simple rules I follow in life. One, never let anyone get the upper hand on me. Two, wield the Collins name like a knight with no mercy.
Right now, rule number two was in play because I had to teach this girl a lesson.
“I said you should apologize. It's rude to bump into people and act all high and mighty about it.” I said, and the girl and her horde of witches laughed.
I knew girls like her. The ones who thought they were untouchable because their daddy was rich, and he always bailed them out of any ditch they got themselves into. Well, not this time.
I took my phone out of my bag and called my father’s secretary, Ali.
“Hey Maeve. What's up?” She asked as a greeting.
“Nothing much Ali. Do you happen to know any Jefferson family?”
The girl frowned, but I just smirked at her. I had only just gotten started after all.
“Yeah. Has a daughter named Ashley, needs your father’s funding for a project. What is the matter?”
“I think you’ll have to tell daddy dearest that the Jeffersons no longer need our assistance. His daughter is a raging bitch.”
Ali finally caught my game and laughed. She didn’t say anything, but she stayed on the phone. Of course, I couldn’t influence what deal my father signed on or not, but Ashley didn’t know that, and her white face brought joy to my heart.
“What the hell are you talking about bitch? Is this some form of joke? Who the hell are you?”
“Ah Ashley. But that should have been the first question you asked. I’m Maeve Collins.”
Minion number 1 swallowed. “Like Collins, as in the Collins empire?”
I smirked at her. “The one and only. It seems one of you has some brain in your head after all.”
“Shit Ashley!” We've fucked up. Her family is one of the richest in the country. And their connections to people in power are unmatched. She can ruin our lives!”
Ashley’s eyes widened as she took me in again, and I knew my dressing was deceptive. The weather was hot, and I had some jorts, a crop top, and some pink sneakers on. My silver hair was packed into a messy ponytail, and my headphones hung off my neck. I looked plain and boring, and that was exactly the point. I didn’t want attention, because I was so not ready to find my place on the Omega food chain in Blackwood, but only if wishes were horses.
“I’m so sorry! It's just a bit of harmless fun amongst girls!” Ashley stuttered out and ran before I could say a word.
I knew word would spread, and everyone would leave me alone just like I wanted.
Bliss finally.
Standing in front of Blackwood University, I knew this would be the perfect place for a girl like me to thrive. I looked back at my driver who had been quiet for the whole encounter and rolled my eyes at the look on his face.
I didn’t overpack for today. I wanted to map out the territory first and know if I would be staying on campus like my mother wanted, or if I would be looking for accommodation elsewhere.
But with my first encounter with miss HBIC, I knew I would absolutely not be staying on campus.
“Hey Nick. I’m going to take a look around. You can take my box to my assigned room and go home.”
“Okay Miss Collins.”
“Tell Mommy Dearest I’m alright, will you?”
“Of course, Miss Collins. But you know she will prefer to hear from yourself.”
“Yeah yeah. Tell her I'll call once I'm settled. Drive safe.”
And with that, I began my exploration into my new home, Blackwood University.
Blackwood University was one of the few that accepted Alphas, Omegas and Betas all together. Other institutions tended to separate the ‘aggressive’ Alphas from the ‘weak’ omegas, and Betas were admitted into these segregated schools.
Right now, as the scents of different omegas and alphas assaulted my senses, I kinda saw a little reason for the segregation. But i would never say that out loud of course.
My mother had to be convinced I her I wasn’t going to leap onto the first Alpha I saw and make him mark me. My mother was a beta who had married an alpha, and she had given birth to two omegas, and an alpha. Poor woman.
I shouldn’t be thinking of my mother right now so I put the thought out of my mind and skipped halfheartedly across the hallway till I burst into a field where the freshers seemed to be a field where the freshers seemed to be socializing.
I was about to go make myself some new friends when I felt goosebumps rise on my skin. I paused and looked around to find the person.
My eyes collided with a man standing by himself with his hands in his pockets. He had the stance of someone who was used to getting everything he wanted. He was very obviously an alpha, and when his scent drifted to me, I stumbled.
Even beneath all the suppressants I used, I could smell him vividly.
He smelt like... my mate???
Maeve's POVShe called me into her office right at the tail end of the day, which was a clear indicator that Morrison wanted a substantive conversation rather than a routine professional interaction. I walked down the carpeted corridor, my heels clicking softly against the floor, and stepped into her chambers. I took a seat across from her massive wooden desk in the chair that was deliberately, noticeably slightly lower than hers—a psychological positioning I was certain she utilized with every clerk, counsel, and petitioner who entered her orbit.I settled into the lower seat, smoothed the fabric of my skirt, and waited.She did not speak immediately. Instead, she adjusted her posture, leaned back slightly, and looked at me over the rim of her glasses for a long, measuring moment. The silence in the room was heavy, dense with the accumulated weight of decades of constitutional history and the quiet scrutiny of a Supreme Court justice who missed precisely nothing."Are you bonded?" sh
Maeve's POVThe clerkship started on a Tuesday, and by Friday I had completely forgotten what it felt like to leave before nine PM.Morrison's chambers ran on a schedule that operated entirely under the assumption that you had no other obligations, no other life, and no physical needs outside of consuming coffee and staring at legal text. That assumption was technically accurate in the sense that I had cleared my calendar of everything except Declan's calls.And even those were now happening at eleven at night, when I finally got back to the apartment, kicked off my heels, and sat directly on the cold kitchen floor because sitting on the floor felt somehow more honest than the couch.The work, however, was extraordinary.That was the thing I had not fully prepared for, the part that caught me off guard—that it would be this relentlessly, breathtakingly good. We were handling real cases at the highest possible level. This was the tier where a single turn of phrase in a drafted brief co
Declan’s POV I managed to hold my composure together completely through the entire napkin conversation, through the remainder of our dinner, and through the rest of the quiet evening. We sat together on the living room couch doing the exact thing we always did—her immersed in her legal files and me reviewing the team playbooks, neither of us offering a single word regarding the massive professional agreement we had just reached. I held the composure together right up until the moment she finally fell asleep against my shoulder. She fell asleep the exact way she always did whenever she was utterly exhausted—rapidly and completely, like an internal switch had been flipped to off. Her face went entirely still and soft against my chest, losing that rigid, controlled quality she always maintained when she was actively managing her environment. I lay there in the dark with her physical weight pressed firmly against my side, the bond delivering the slow, rhythmic cadence of her breathing
Maeve’s POV Carter had summoned me into her corner office at precisely four-thirty in the afternoon, which was late enough in the programmatic day that the rest of the floor had gone remarkably quiet around our desks. She had taken her seat across the massive mahogany desk, folded her hands over a legal pad, and looked at me with the exact expression she utilized when evaluating a case she had already reached a definitive consensus on. "I am going to be entirely direct with you, Collins," Carter said, her sharp eyes locking onto mine. "Please do," I replied, bracing my shoulders. "You are, without a single doubt, the most exceptional summer intern this firm has taken on in the past three years," she stated. From a woman of Carter's clinical disposition, that sentence was the structural equivalent of any other human being telling you that you were the most remarkable mind they had ever encountered. "We want to formally extend an offer for a permanent position. A full associate slot
MAEVE'S POVThe music was an electric current on my body. I always loved to dance, and right now, it was taking my mind off that arrogant jerk of an alpha. Declan Hayes. Even right now, I could feel his eyes on me. I could feel his hungry gaze devouring me through the clothing. Or maybe I was
DECLAN'S POVThere are lies we tell ourselves sometimes that make even us laugh. Because of how outrageous they were. This was one of them. She was simply breathtaking. Her silver hair fell around her face in soft waves right now, and she had done the most subtle makeup. It brought out the gold
MAEVE'S POVFirst day on the campus and my time here was already off to a bad start. But all of that was thrust to the back of my mind the moment I met my new roommate, Alana. Right now, she was currently trying her best to wrestle me off the bed. “It’s our first day on campus! I forbid you fr
DECLAN'S POVOne minute, my teammates and I were standing off to the side bitching about the freshers, the next, a scent slapped me in the face with the wave of a thousand punches. Omega, the alpha inside me growled. “Hey Dec. What's up? You zoned out.” “Give me a minute. Need to check somethi












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