ANMELDENDeclan's POVI smelled him on her before I saw them together. It was a Monday, and I was cutting across the east side of campus on my way back from the athletic facility. I had no reason to be on the east side except for the fact that I found any excuse to find a way to run into Maeve even when I denied to myself that it was what I was doing. My dorm was on the west, the facility was on the west, and everything I needed for the day was on the west side of campus, but the bond had been pulling in this direction all morning and I had stopped fighting that battle. So I told myself I wasn't going to approach her. I just wanted to know she was alright. That was it. Right. Then the scent hit me. Her scent that was made of honeysuckle and the warm vanilla underneath it was what hit me first, and then something citrusy and male and entirely wrong that made my alpha throw itself against the inside of my chest followed. Beta. I stopped walking. The scent was fresh, like it had had tim
Maeve's POVMy mother called on Sunday at noon as usual. I was ready for her this time. I had spent the week building the version of myself that sounded settled, productive and completely fine, so when her contact photo lit up my screen, and I answered on the first ring. "Maeve." Her voice was pleasant, and I knew it had something to do with the fact that I had answered at the first ring. "You sound better, my dear." "I feel better," I said, and it was true enough. People liked to talk about how friends would save you, but it was understated. We needed more people out there preaching on the power of friendship. Superman to save the day? Nah. The power of friendship, yay! "Good. I'm glad. How are your classes going?" "Well enough Mom.” "And socially?" She asked. "Are you finding your people, making friends and building relationships? You know how that is equally as important as having good grades, right?" "I have a study group," I said. "And I’ve made very good friends with all
Maeve's POVThe first thing I noticed about Tyler was that he was easy, and in my current situation, easy was the most attractive quality a person could have. He didn't make the bond do anything. He didn't make my omega sit up and take notice. He was just a boy in my study group who was funny and smart and didn't look at me like I was something to be figured out. After six weeks of being on this campus feeling like a live wire, easy was exactly what I needed. He was in my constitutional law seminar and two of my other core units, and he had introduced himself on the first day with a handshake and a joke about the reading that had made me laugh. Real laughter, not the polite kind I used when I needed someone to think I was approachable. He was a beta, which my omega registered and immediately filed under not relevant. No pheromones, no biological attraction, and nothing to cloud my head or make me feel like I was fighting against something. He was just a normal guy. It had been a l
Declan's POVI was breaking records and I didn't care. That was the thing nobody told you about obsession. It didn't slow you down. If anything, it made you faster, sharper, and meaner on the field. The anger had to go somewhere, and I was directing every single drop of it into football. My completion rate was the best it had ever been. My yards per game were up. Coach Jerry had started looking at me the way he looked at game tapes he really liked, quiet and satisfied, like he was watching money being made. I felt nothing. Practice was six in the morning till whenever I decided I was done, which was usually when my body gave out. My teammates had stopped asking questions about it. Smart guys. They showed up, did the work, and left me alone in the way you left a live wire alone: you knew better than to touch it. "You're going to burn out," Marcus said one morning, watching me run the same route for the fourth time. "You know that right?" "I'm fine," I said. He didn't push. He ne
Maeve's POVI knew the moment he found out who I was. I was in the library when the bond went sharp with shock first, and then it grew into heat, and before I knew it, I was partially blinded by the rage Declan was feeling. It hit me so suddenly that I knocked my highlighter off the table and had to press my hand flat against my chest just to breathe through it. I sat there and waited for it to pass. It didn't pass quickly. The rage burned for a good few minutes, and then it shifted into something else that I liked even less. It settled. Got quiet and heavy in a way that felt final, like a door being closed from the other side. Resignation. I picked my highlighter up off the floor and looked at my textbook and thought about what the series of emotions meant. Shock, then fury, then resignation. Something had landed on him hard enough to produce all three in quick succession, and I didn't need three guesses for what it was. My name. My family. The full picture of exactly who I was
DECLAN'S POVI almost didn't go back. That's the thing I kept coming back to afterward, in the way you picked at something that had already decided to scar. I had been on that path, and I had felt her ahead of me, and I had made the decision to pull back and give her the distance she had been maintaining for three weeks. It was the right call. I had felt good about it for forty minutes before my alpha started the argument again. I gave myself until after practice. Practice ended, and I showered, ate, and I went back to my room. I sat at my desk with the drawing in front of me and had the argument with myself one more time. She was building a life here. So was I. The bond had made its connection and was maintaining it whether we engaged with it or not, and nothing about approaching her on a public path in the middle of the afternoon was going to untangle the knot we'd made the first night. The right thing to do was leave her alone, so I picked up my phone and went back to the q







