I'm terrified.

Rose's POV

**The Corridor – Moments Later**

The stone walls pressed closer as I rounded the corner toward the omega wing, their ancient granite seeming to lean in like judgmental elders in the council chambers, cool and unyielding beneath my trailing fingertips. My boots echoed too loudly in the sudden hush, each step a hollow *thud-thud-thud* that matched the frantic rhythm of my heart and the insistent tug of the bond stretching tighter with every inch I put between us.

The midday rush had thinned to a scattering of stragglers— a beta scholar clutching scrolls, two deltas giggling over shared notes—but even they gave me a wide berth, nostrils flaring subtly as if catching the faint, treacherous thread of pine smoke and cold iron bleeding through my failing scent blockers.

The air carried the distant clang of the academy bell tower marking the half-hour, wind whispering through the stone arches overhead like gossip already taking flight. I pressed a shaking hand to my chest, right over the spot where the bond felt like a living cord wrapped around my ribs, pulling, always pulling, toward him. It wasn’t painful yet, but it hummed with a low, warning ache, every minute ticking closer to 7pm adding another subtle twist, like fingers gently but firmly reeling me back.

Lila was waiting outside our dorm door, arms crossed tight over her chest, one eyebrow arched in that sharp, knowing way that meant she had already scented the storm rolling off me from twenty paces away.

Her dark braid swung as she pushed the heavy wooden door open with her hip, the familiar creak of the hinges grounding me for half a second in the small, sunlit room beyond—two narrow beds pushed against opposite walls, the single arched window overlooking the training fields where alphas were already shouting through afternoon drills, their grunts and clashes of practice blades carrying faintly on the breeze.

The air inside smelled safe: our shared vanilla-lavender lotion on the dresser, the faint floral of my abandoned suppressants, and the clean linen of freshly laundered sheets. But even here, my own changed scent was seeping in, rose and wild honey tangled inescapably with Jason’s pine and iron, like ink bleeding through parchment no matter how many layers I tried to blot it with.

“You look like you went ten rounds with a dire wolf and lost,” Lila said without preamble, her voice a low, concerned drawl as she shut the door behind us with a soft *click* that felt far too final. She crossed to the window, tugging the heavy velvet curtain half-closed against prying eyes from the fields below, then turned back to me, hands on her hips. “And that pine-iron scent is bleeding through the blockers again—stronger than this morning, Rose. It’s like he’s wrapped around you even from across campus. What happened in that lecture hall? Did he yell? Did he beg? Did he grab you and—gods, tell me he didn’t knot you right there on the podium. Your eyes are all glassy, and your cheeks are flushed like you’ve been running from your own shadow.”

I stepped inside, letting the door click shut behind me, and collapsed onto my bed with a broken exhale, burying my face in my hands. The mattress dipped under my weight, the faint creak of springs loud in the quiet room. My high collar scraped against the claiming bite as I moved, sending a fresh spark of heat straight down my spine to pool treacherously between my thighs. “He said he’ll see me at 7pm in his office,” I cut in, voice raw and cracked, like I’d been screaming for hours instead of whispering fears. The words tasted like surrender on my tongue.

I lifted my head, tears still stinging at the corners of my eyes, and met her gaze. “I told him everything, Lila. I poured out every single fear—about the board stripping his tenure, about my family’s disgrace, about how my little sister’s alliances would shatter if my name becomes poison in every pack hall from here to the northern borders. I told him to stay away. To leave me alone. To let me disappear before I ruin him completely. I said I loved him too much to watch the academy drag his legacy through the mud because of one night with a student. And he just… listened. Silver eyes steady as winter stone. He said he’d give me space during the daylight hours—no chasing through the halls, no knocking on my door, no pushing through the bond except the bare minimum. But then he looked right at me and said, ‘But I will see you at 7pm in my office, little omega.’ Doors locked. Wards up. Like it was the simplest, most inevitable thing in the world.”

Lila’s eyes widened, then softened with a mix of awe and worry. She sank down beside me on the bed, the frame groaning softly under our combined weight, and wrapped one arm around my shoulders in a tight, sisterly squeeze. Her scent—bright citrus and warm cedar—cut through the heavier notes of my own turmoil, grounding me. “Voss doesn’t do half-measures, Rose. Never has. If he’s holding that meeting tonight, he’s already three steps ahead of whatever storm the board might brew. You know he rewrote half the claiming statutes after the last border skirmish—made consent rites ironclad, gave omegas actual voices instead of just heats to be managed. He knows the law better than those crimson-robed fossils on the council. Sovereign bonds predate their stupid charter by centuries; they’re older than the academy walls themselves. Go. Keep it careful if you need to—just talk, just sit across that desk with your Lore notes like armor and glare at him the whole time. But don’t cut the bond off completely. I can feel the echo in you even from here; it’s like an open wound throbbing in your chest. Last term when my cousin tried to fight her secret bond with that delta from the eastern pack, she lasted three days before the strain made her shift uncontrollably in the middle of Shifting Theory. Ended up in the infirmary with healers chanting stabilization rites for hours. Don’t do that to yourself. Or to him.”

I nodded, but the motion felt hollow, my throat tight as I leaned into her side, the fabric of her uniform soft against my tear-streaked cheek. “I’m terrified I’ll walk in at 7pm and forget every reason I tried to run. Terrified the second that heavy oak door clicks shut and the wards hum up around us, I’ll end up on my knees begging again like I did last night—pleading for his knot, for his bite, for pups I have no right to dream about. Terrified the board already suspects. Marcus was staring again at lunch, nostrils flaring like he could taste the change on the air, that knowing smirk on his face making my skin crawl. What if he reports it? What if whispers reach the council before Jason can finish those preemptive documents he mentioned—consent forms, dated statements, ally testimonies? I can’t be the reason they strip him of everything in front of the entire assembly, Lila. The reforms he fought for, the students he’s mentored through their first shifts, the border packs that still send him ravens for advice on rites… all gone because I was selfish enough to say yes when the heat took me.”

Lila rubbed slow, soothing circles on my back, her palm warm through my jacket. “Then face it together, like he keeps saying through that bond of yours. You’re not ruining him by existing, Rose. You’re not weak for loving an alpha who sees you as his equal, not just a heat to be managed. You’re the one who’s been fighting suppressants and rules your whole life. Go at 7pm. Let him remind you why the bond snapped into place so perfectly—why your wolf is purring inside you right now instead of snarling. And if Marcus or anyone else starts circling… well, Voss’s possessiveness I felt flare through you earlier? That alpha aura is no joke. He’ll handle it. You just have to let him stand beside you instead of trying to shield him from the world alone.”

We sat like that for long minutes, the room filling with the distant shouts from the training fields and the soft rustle of wind through the window crack. My wolf circled restlessly inside me, tail flicking with tentative hope at Lila’s words, sending flashes of silver fur and warm pine through the bond—*Mate. Safe. Go to him at 7pm. Let him steady us.* But the guilt roared louder, a crashing tide of imagined headlines and public hearings that left my stomach churning.