That’s us, Rose.

Rose’s POV

The knot throbbed deep inside me, a living pulse that matched the frantic beat of my heart. Every tiny shift of Jason’s hips sent fresh sparks racing up my spine, even though the peak had already shattered me twice more since he’d first locked us together. His weight was perfect—solid, grounding, the broad planes of his chest pressing me into the scarred oak of his desk while his arms caged me like the safest prison in the world. The room smelled like us: pine-iron and rose-honey, sex and sweat and the faint metallic tang of reopened claiming bites. Papers lay scattered across the floor like fallen leaves, forgotten casualties of our surrender.

I traced the raised edges of the old scar on his collarbone again, my fingertip trembling. “I still can’t believe I did that,” I whispered, voice hoarse from screaming his name. “Marked you. Claimed you. A professor. My professor. If anyone finds out before we’re ready—”

“Shh.” His lips brushed my temple, then the fresh indentations of his teeth on my throat. The gentle laps of his tongue sent lazy aftershocks rippling through the bond, soothing and arousing at once. “They’ll know when we decide they know. Not before. And when they do, they’ll see two sovereigns standing together, not a scandal.” He rolled his hips in the tiniest circle, grinding the swollen knot against that devastating spot inside me. I gasped, walls fluttering helplessly around him, another trickle of slick and cum leaking around the seal. “Feel that? That’s us, Rose. Irrevocable. The board can schedule all the hearings they want. Marcus can sniff and scheme and seethe. But this—” another slow grind, “—this is what they can’t touch.”

I moaned softly, nails digging into his shoulders through the rumpled fabric of his shirt. “Marcus… gods, I saw the way he looked at me in the dining hall yesterday. Like I was something he’d already decided belonged to him. When he caught my scent this morning, his face twisted. Pure jealousy. He cornered Lila after breakfast, asking if I’d ‘finally come to my senses and picked a real alpha.’ She told him to crawl back to his eastern pack and choke on it.”

Jason’s silver eyes flashed, the possessive growl vibrating straight through his chest and into mine. His knot pulsed harder, as if the bond itself reacted to the threat. “He thinks because he’s young and loud and backed by old money that he has a claim. He doesn’t. Never did. You were never his to want.” His hand slid between us, thumb finding my swollen clit and circling with devastating patience while the knot kept me stretched and full. “Say it again, little omega. Who do you belong to?”

“You,” I breathed, hips twitching despite the lock. “Only you, Alpha. My mate. My sovereign.”

“Good girl.” The praise melted over me like warm honey. He kept the slow torture going—thumb, tiny rolls of his hips, the constant pressure of being so perfectly stuffed—until I shattered a fourth time, clenching and fluttering around his knot, sobbing his name into the crook of his neck. He followed with a low, broken groan, another hot pulse of cum flooding me until I felt swollen, claimed, owned in the most exquisite way.

We stayed locked like that for long minutes, breaths slowing, foreheads pressed together. The fire had burned low, casting the room in deep amber and shadow. Outside, the academy slept under a blanket of stars, oblivious to the war brewing in these stone walls. Inside, the bond glowed golden and steady, our wolves curled together—his massive silver form wrapped protectively around my smaller russet one, tails entwined.

Eventually the knot began to soften. Jason eased back with care, slipping free with a wet sound that made my cheeks burn. He gathered me into his arms immediately, carrying me the few steps to the wide leather couch beneath the tall window. We collapsed there in a tangle of limbs, his big body spooning mine, one heavy thigh draped over my hip to keep me close. His hand stroked lazy patterns over my belly, where I could still feel the warmth of him inside.

“Tell me about the cabin again,” I murmured, nuzzling into the claiming bite on his throat. The mark was still tender, still humming with shared magic. “The one in the northern passes. The one you built with your own hands.”

His chest rumbled with quiet pride. “Wood I felled myself during a winter leave. Wide porch overlooking the river. In spring the salmon run so thick the water looks silver. Summers, the meadow behind it fills with fireflies. Room for a litter—pups with your wild curls and my stubborn streak. They’ll learn the old rites under open sky, not these cursed stone halls. No hiding their scents. No academy rules telling them who they can love.” His palm pressed firmer against my stomach. “I can see them already, Rose. Little alphas and omegas running barefoot, shifting for the first time without fear. And you—standing on that porch in one of my old shirts, watching them with that fierce light in your eyes. That’s the future I’m fighting for. Not tenure. Not lectures. You. Us.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “What if the board doesn’t care about the Accord? What if Marcus convinces them it was coercion? He’s been telling anyone who’ll listen that I was ‘confused’ by your authority. That an omega from a mid-tier pack couldn’t possibly choose a war-hero professor without being manipulated. Lila overheard him in the training yard this afternoon—said he was rallying his pack brothers, talking about ‘protecting’ me from you. Possessive little prick. He wants what he can’t have, and it’s making him dangerous.”

Jason’s arm tightened around me, possessiveness flaring hot through the bond. “Let him try. Elara’s raven arrived while you were in tactics class—her blood-sealed statement is already with the headmistress. Hargrove intercepted three more anonymous complaints this evening and buried them. Thorne updated the tutoring logs to cover every minute we’ve spent together. And if politics still tries to bite us…” He kissed the shell of my ear. “Then we leave tonight. I have a bag packed in the bottom drawer. Travel papers under neutral pack names. We ride north before dawn. The border lands don’t answer to this academy. They answer to the old magic. To us.”

I twisted in his arms to face him, searching those silver eyes that had haunted every lecture, every sleepless night since the first day of term. “You’d really give it all up? Your position, your reputation, the northern campaigns you bled for—just for me?”

“For you?” He cupped my face, thumb brushing my lower lip. “Little one, I’d burn the entire academy 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 you could have run. That courage? That fire? It’s what makes us sovereign. Equals. Unbreakable.”

I kissed him then—slow, deep, tasting the salt of sweat and the faint copper of our reopened marks. When we broke apart, I rested my forehead against his. “I’m still terrified. Every time I walk across campus I feel eyes on me. Whispers. Clara cornered me after dinner, hissed that I was ‘ruining the reputation of every omega who works hard to prove we’re more than our scents.’ But then I feel you through the bond—steady, certain—and the fear shrinks. You make me brave, Jason. You make me want to fight instead of hide.”

His smile was slow and devastating, the kind that had once made my knees weak in the middle of a lecture. “That’s my mate. Tomorrow morning we walk into the ethics chamber together. Hand in hand. No more secrets. 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. And when the headmistress bangs her gavel and provisionally recognizes us…” He rolled us so I straddled his hips, his half-hard cock nestled against my slick folds again. “Then we celebrate right here. Properly. Until you can’t walk straight and the whole wing knows exactly who you belong to.”

I rocked against him instinctively, a fresh wave of slick coating him. “Careful, Professor. Keep talking like that and we’ll never make it to the hearing.”

He gripped my hips, guiding me to slide along his length without taking him inside yet—teasing, possessive. “Good. Let them wait. Let Marcus pace outside the chamber like the pup he is, scenting the air and realizing every breath he takes is filled with the proof that you’re mine.” His voice dropped to that dark velvet growl that always unraveled me. “I want him to smell me on you. Want the entire academy to know an omega chose her alpha and marked him for the world to see. No more hiding behind tonics. No more pretending the pull is academic. Just us. Sovereign.”

I leaned down, licking along the claiming bite on his throat, savoring the way he shuddered beneath me. “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.”

His eyes flashed silver fire. In one smooth motion he flipped us, pinning me beneath him again, cock nudging my entrance. “As my lady commands.”

He slid home slowly this time—inch by thick inch—until the base of his knot kissed my folds once more. The stretch was still perfect, still overwhelming. I wrapped my legs around him, heels digging into his back, and whispered against his lips, “Together.”

“Together,” he echoed, beginning those deep, rolling thrusts that rebuilt the fire between us. “Always.”