As my lady commands.

Rose’s POV

The night stretched golden and endless after that—not in frenzy, but in deliberate, unhurried connection that felt more sacred than any lecture hall vow or ancient rite. We moved together across the room—from the wide leather couch where the cushions still bore the imprint of our bodies, to the thick rug before the dying fire where embers painted our skin in shifting shades of amber and shadow, then to the cool stone wall when the need to feel anchored simply would not wait.

Each shift brought us closer in ways that transcended the physical; the bond sang brighter with every shared breath, fear and love and raw possessiveness and bone-deep certainty braiding into something stronger than any academy rule or Marcus’s petty schemes. The golden thread between us hummed like a living melody, carrying not just emotion but fragments of thought—his steady resolve brushing against my lingering terror, my russet wolf curling tighter into the protective curve of his silver one in the shared inner landscape.

Between rounds we talked strategy, voices low and intimate, foreheads pressed together while the bond carried every unspoken word like a secret too precious for the open air. “I’ll speak first,” I said softly, my fingertip tracing the sharp line of his jaw, feeling the faint stubble that had grown since our last stolen moment. “In the ethics chamber. I’ll claim my choice publicly, loud enough for every board member and witness to hear. ‘I was never confused. I was never manipulated. I was waiting for someone who saw me as an equal, not a prize to be collected or a reputation to be elevated.’ Thorne can cite the exact clauses of the 1847 Accord—mutual consent superseding every line of the academy charter. Lila’s research on omega rights will back us; she stayed up half the night copying precedents from the restricted archives. Three senior betas already offered statements—quietly, in the omega lounge after dinner. They’re tired of old-pack politics deciding who bonds with whom, tired of being told our scents make us liabilities instead of sovereigns.”

Jason nodded, his hand stroking slowly through my hair as his knot locked us again, the fullness grounding rather than overwhelming, a physical echo of the certainty that steadied my racing heart. “Hargrove will route any last-minute complaints straight to his desk—he owes me for keeping his son’s indiscretion out of the northern reports last term. Elara’s raven will be read aloud; its glowing seal alone carries the weight of the entire northern council. If Marcus testifies—and he will, the jealous fool—every word will expose him for what he is. The way he cornered you after orientation week, offering those ‘private study sessions’ like they were gifts instead of traps. The ‘study sessions’ he pushed in the training yard, always with that possessive smirk, as if you were already his to claim. His jealousy will be the loudest evidence against his own accusations. Let him snarl about ‘power imbalance.’ The board will hear a spurned pup who never understood equality.”

Hours slipped by like that—planning, dreaming, loving. We spoke of contingencies in hushed tones, the fire crackling softly in punctuation. “What if the headmistress calls for a full scent audit?” I asked, my palm resting over his heart, feeling its steady rhythm sync with mine through the bond. “Marcus has been whispering to the aides all week—‘her projection changed too fast, too strong, must be coercion.’ Clara’s joined him now, spreading it in the omega dining hall like poison. ‘Rose Vale thinks she’s above the rules,’ she hissed at me yesterday between tactics drills. ‘One sovereign bond and suddenly every omega has to prove we’re not all chasing professors for status.’”

Jason’s silver eyes darkened with protective fire, but his voice remained calm, commanding—the same tone that had once silenced an entire lecture hall mid-debate. “Then we present the blood seals. Mine. Yours. Elara’s. The Accord is older than this academy’s foundations; it doesn’t bend to audits or whispers. And if they still push for separation…” He paused, his thumb brushing my lower lip with a tenderness that made my wolf whine softly in the bond. “Then we leave tonight. I have a bag packed in the bottom drawer—spare clothes for both of us, maps of the northern passes, enough coin from my campaign stipend to get us across the border without questions. Travel papers under neutral pack names, forged by an old contact who owed me from the frozen skirmishes of ’92. We ride before dawn if we must. The border lands don’t answer to crimson-robed committees or jealous eastern pups. They answer to the old magic. To wolves who choose each other without permission slips.”

I twisted in his arms to face him fully, searching those silver eyes that had haunted every lecture, every sleepless night since the first day of term. The bond let me feel the depth of him—the scars from blizzards that froze lesser men, the quiet nights he’d spent alone in this very office before I crashed into his world like a comet he never saw coming. “You’d really give it all up? Your position, your reputation, the northern campaigns you bled for—just for me? A student who walked into your office shaking with fear and left it claimed and certain?”

“For you?” He cupped my face in both hands now, thumbs brushing away the tears that had slipped free without permission. His smile was slow and devastating, the kind that had once made my knees weak in the middle of a crowded auditorium. “Little one, I’d burn every tower on this campus to ash if it meant keeping you safe and claimed and mine. But I won’t have to. Because you claimed me back. You chose this—us—when every rule, every whisper, every instinct screamed to run. That courage? That fire in your russet wolf that refuses to dim even when the whole world whispers ‘inappropriate’ or ‘scandal’? It’s what makes us sovereign. Equals. Unbreakable. I waited years for someone who would look at me—not the war hero, not the professor with the silver eyes and the iron reputation—and see the man underneath. The one who still dreams of a porch overlooking a river instead of stone walls and tenure reviews. You did that the moment you bit me and whispered ‘I’ll ruin you’ like it was the most beautiful vow the old rites had ever heard.”

I kissed him then—slow, deep, tasting the salt of shared sweat and the faint copper of our reopened marks. When we broke apart, I rested my forehead against his, breathing him in as if the scent alone could anchor me against the storm gathering beyond these walls. “I’m still terrified,” I admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “Every time I walk across campus I feel eyes on me. Whispers following like shadows in the corridors. Betas averting their gazes in the dining hall. Alphas nodding with that new respect, but Marcus’s pack glaring like I stole something from them. Clara cornered me after dinner last night, hissed that I was ‘ruining the reputation of every omega who works hard to prove we’re more than our scents.’ Called me a ‘bond-chaser’ loud enough for half the hall to hear. But then I feel you through the bond—steady, certain, like gravity itself pulling me home—and the fear shrinks. You make me brave, Jason. You make me want to fight instead of hide. To stand in that ethics chamber tomorrow and say, ‘I chose him. I marked him. And if that breaks your rules, then your rules were never worthy of the old magic that forged us.’”

His arms tightened around me, the bond pulsing with fierce pride and that deep, unyielding possessiveness that felt like armor rather than chains. “That’s my mate,” he murmured, lips brushing my temple. “Tomorrow morning we walk into the ethics chamber together. Hand in hand. No more secrets. No more herbal masks dulling what the bond forged in fire and choice. We present the Accord, the documents, the blood seals. We let them see the bond for what it is—old magic, mutual, adult, consensual. If Marcus wants to testify, let him. Let everyone hear how his jealousy sounds when it’s dragged into the light: a spoiled pup snarling because an omega chose steel over silver spoons, chose a war-scarred equal over a loud-mouthed trophy hunter. And when the headmistress bangs her gavel and provisionally recognizes us…” He rolled us gently so I straddled his hips, his half-hard length nestled against my slick folds again—teasing, possessive, but not demanding, a promise of more connection rather than urgency. “Then we celebrate right here. Properly. Until you can’t walk straight and the whole wing knows exactly who you belong to—and who belongs to you. Sovereign. Equals.”

I rocked against him instinctively, a fresh wave of warmth coating him as the bond flared brighter. “Careful, Professor. Keep talking like that and we’ll never make it to the hearing. The board will be waiting while we’re still locked together on this couch, rewriting their precious charter with every pulse of the thread.”

He gripped my hips with gentle strength, guiding me to slide along his length without taking him inside yet—slow, deliberate, a dance of reassurance. “Good. Let them wait. Let Marcus pace outside the chamber like the pup he is, nostrils flaring, scenting the air and realizing every breath he takes is filled with the proof that you’re mine. That I’m yours. I want him to smell me on you tomorrow—pine and iron woven into rose and honey so deeply no tonic could ever separate us. Want the entire academy to know an omega chose her alpha and marked him for the world to see. No more hiding behind suppressants. No more pretending the pull is academic. Just us. Sovereign. Equals in every way that matters.”

I leaned down, licking along the claiming bite on his throat with slow reverence, savoring the way he shuddered beneath me, the bond flaring with shared heat and certainty. “Then mark me again tonight. One more time before dawn. So when I walk into that chamber tomorrow, every alpha in the room feels exactly who I belong to—and knows they’ll never have even a fraction of what we share. Let them feel the weight of it. Let Marcus choke on it.”

His eyes flashed silver fire, the wolf inside him rising close to the surface, protective and proud. In one smooth motion he flipped us, pinning me beneath him again, his body caging mine with protective strength that felt like coming home. “As my lady commands.”