Chapter 38

Andrew

I knew something was wrong the second I walked into my next classroom. Not wrong in the dramatic, someone-just-died sense. Wrong in the subtle, controlled way the air shifts before a storm – quiet on the surface, charged underneath. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, chairs scraped against tile, a few students lingered near the front pretending to care about homework. Normal.

And then I saw her. Prue was at the teacher’s desk. Not sitting like a regular student waiting for clarification. Not standing awkwardly with a notebook clutched to her chest. No. She was leaning. I walked deeper in the class to see her face, but, man what a grand mistake that was. What I saw almost ripped my wolf out in the middle of the classroom.

I watched as her one hand braced lightly against the edge of the desk, weight shifted just enough to curve her posture into something that looked effortless but absolutely wasn’t. Her hair fell over one shoulder in that way that made you think it had just happened naturally – except I knew better. If my sleepless nights had taught me one thing – and there had been far too many of them since she entered my life – it was that Prue never did anything by accident. She was intentional. Always had been.

Mr. Hale looked… delighted. That was the first thing that made my jaw tighten.

He was animated in a way I hadn’t seen before – hands moving as he explained something, smiling too easily, leaning a fraction closer than strictly necessary. And she was looking up at him like he was explaining the secrets of the universe rather than torque.

I told myself I didn’t care. That this was nothing. That she could ask questions. That it was a free country. But then she laughed: soft, light, interested. Not the sarcastic laugh she threw at me like a blade. This one was warm. And that did something ugly to my insides.

He picked up a marker and started sketching something on the board, and she stepped closer – closer – nodding as if every word out of his mouth was groundbreaking. I watched the line of her shoulders, the deliberate angle of her chin, the way her fingers brushed the desk when she emphasized a point. She was performing. And the worst part? He had no idea. To him, she was just an engaged student: curious, bright, eager to understand rotational force.

I’m surprised I still understood the actual topic, because the words that kept bouncing around in my head were leverage, angle changes, where and how you apply force, precision, hard to stop, external force, two bodies, resonance…

It wasn’t just a string of random physics terms – they felt like carefully polished suggestions feeding an entire fantasy my mind was building about her and the teacher. It felt so real that my nature-given jealousy and possessiveness almost dragged my wolf out into the open – consequences be damned. I was that close.

I knew I had said I hated lone wolves. But somewhere deep inside me, something had turned possessive – borderline obsessed with this female. It tore me apart, and unraveled me in ways I couldn’t even comprehend, dismantling every bit of control I thought I had. Half the time I didn’t even realize what was happening until I found myself saying things I didn’t even realize were leaving my mouth… not until it was far too late.

Every time he smiled, I felt it like someone tugging a wire under my skin. Every time she tilted her head, I felt heat crawl up my neck. I wasn’t even sure what exactly I was angry at – him for responding, or her for orchestrating it. Probably both.

And then that "I learn better one-on-one". Was she launching a precision strike, or was she actually into him? And he agreed. So what, they had a date now? A date. That was forbidden – at least technically. But rules get blurry behind closed doors, don’t they? And it’s not like he had fifty eager students volunteering for extra time alone with the physics teacher.

As I stood there watching the whole display unfold, one realization settled heavy in my chest: she wasn’t flirting carelessly. She was doing it because she knew I’d walk in. And she wanted me to see. At that point, with all those ugly emotions taking over, I was surprised I could still think rationally.

And then she managed to humiliate me with her choice of words – every single sentence landing like a punch. And the worst part? I would’ve taken sparring over this mind game any day. At least punches were honest. Now here she was, physically looking up at me, but somehow still managing to look down on me – on the man I was, the wolf I carried, the mate fate had tied her to. I hated her.

“Why?” she tilted her head at me, that infuriatingly innocent angle she used when she was anything but innocent. “Afraid I’ll schedule too many consultations?” She knew exactly what she was doing.

I stared at her, and for a split second I couldn’t even separate what I was feeling because it wasn’t just anger – it was heat, and pride, and insult, and something raw and territorial clawing its way up my spine while she stood there glowing with satisfaction.

It was the worst part that she looked pleased. Not loud, not dramatic – just that subtle shift in her expression that said victory with smuggness.

“Relax,” she added sweetly, tilting her chin up at me. “I’m just expanding my knowledge of physics.”

Expanding her knowledge. Right my as.s. I had watched her lean over that desk, watched the deliberate way she positioned herself just close enough to be suggestive without crossing a line, watched the teacher light up like a stadium at kickoff, because an attractive student was suddenly deeply fascinated by torque and gravitational pull, and I had stood there swallowing the kind of possessive instinct that makes alphas start wars over.

The bond wasn’t helping. It pulsed every time she smiled at him. Every time she laughed softly. Every time she leaned closer. It was like feeling someone tug on something that was already wired into my ribcage. And now she was pretending innocence.

“And what can I do,” she continued smoothly, eyes never leaving mine, “if I like them old, mature, and really smart?”

There it was: not implied, not subtle. No – out loud, clear, deliberate – a direct punch in my balls.

“Clearly nothing you can offer.”

For a second, I honestly thought I had misheard her because no one – absolutely no one – had ever spoken to me like that without immediate consequences. And yet here she was doing that again, small smirk playing on her lips, daring me to react, daring me to prove her right.

Wow.

Instead of letting me put two and two together, instead of allowing room for interpretation, she had stated it plainly, almost generously, as if she was doing me a favor by clarifying the insult.

Something violent flickered through me – not physical violence, but the kind that lives in impulses – the immediate urge to grab her, drag her close, make her shut up with a wild kiss tearing that smugness right off her until she forgot how to form sentences.

I shut the thought down hard. No, I wasn’t going to give her that satisfaction. I wasn’t going to be predictable.

I straightened slightly, forcing my expression into something controlled, something colder, because if she wanted a reaction, I could choose which one she got.

“Old?” I repeated slowly, stepping closer, invading her space just enough that made her make one step back.

“Mature?” My voice dropped without permission.

“And you naively think he’d go for a light-headed teenage brat?” She didn’t flinch. Of course she didn’t.

“He seemed....pleased,” she said lightly, almost like a seductive whisper. That word steered something below my waist but I let out a short, humorless breath.

“You were leaning over his desk like you were about to calculate his life expectancy.” She smiled: sharp and mused and unapologetic.

“And you were watching like you were about to fail a lab experiment,” she shot back though she never looked my way. It still hit: clean, I felt it. But instead of stepping back, instead of cooling down like a reasonable person, I leaned in closer until I could feel the warmth of her skin, until the air between us tightened into something dangerously charged.

“You think I can’t offer intelligence?” I asked, a trace of dry amusement slipping into my voice.

She shrugged one shoulder, casual, infuriating.

“I think you prefer dominance over discussion.” That wasn’t wrong. And that was the real problem. I swallowed the immediate defensive response because part of me knew she wasn’t just provoking me – she was dissecting me. And she was enjoying it – a lot.

“You want mature and smart?” I said after a moment, letting my tone smooth out, controlled but edged. Her eyes flickered – not fear, not retreat – interest. I lowered my voice further.

“Then stop performing for reactions and have a real conversation.”

That shifted something, just slightly. But then she tilted her head again, recovering.

“Maybe I was,” she said softly. “You just weren’t the audience.”

That one landed deeper than I expected. Because beneath the teasing, beneath her twisted games, there was something else there – a challenge, maybe even an invitation – but I was too tangled in pride to reach for it. Instead, I did what I always did when I felt cornered. I hardened.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” I told her.

She smiled slowly. “So are you.”

The class noise swelled around us, students still moving past us, but we were locked in that narrow strip of tension that felt like standing too close to the edge of something unstable.

And the truth was, I didn’t know whether I wanted to shut her up with my words or with my mouth. Maybe both. Goddess help me.

She wasn’t just expanding her knowledge of physics. She was testing force. And I was dangerously close to showing her exactly how her little theory about momentum played out in real life.

But with all this, she’d just proven what I’d known long before she ever showed up in this city – lone wolves were fu.cked up.