The guilt was louder.

Rose’s POV

I hesitated, eyes burning with unshed tears that blurred the sharp lines of his face into something softer, almost dreamlike. Then I lifted my gaze.

There was no fury in his silver eyes. No wounded ego. Just steady, unwavering resolve and beneath it—pain. The quiet, bone-deep pain of waking alone, reaching across cold sheets for the mate who had chosen to carry the weight by herself.

The bond carried it all to me in a single, searing wave: the moment he had sat up in the empty bed, palm pressing into the still-warm indentation where my body had been, the low rumble of my name leaving his lips before consciousness had fully returned, the instinctive flare of his wolf rising to search for what was missing—snarling silently at the empty room, claws flexing against the mattress as if it could drag me back.

I felt the ache of it like my own, a hollow echo in my chest that made my knees threaten to buckle. The claiming bite on my throat pulsed in sympathy, hot and alive, sending a traitorous shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with memory.

“You leaving this morning did not protect me,” he said evenly, each word precise but threaded with something softer, something that made the bond hum with shared ache. “It told the bond you were unsure. It left me reaching for you across cold sheets and wondering if the vows we spoke were already cracking under daylight. Do you know what that felt like? To feel the bond stretch thin and not know if you were running from *me* or from the world? To sit up in an empty bed that still smelled like us—pine and slick and the faint copper of the bite—and feel your guilt like a knife through my own chest? I replayed every moment, Rose. Every word you said. Every time you chose *yes*. Every whimper when I locked inside you and the bond snapped into place with that white-hot snap, like lightning striking the same tree twice. The way your body clenched around my knot, the way you begged for my pups even as tears of pleasure streaked your face. And still you left me to wake up alone, the sheets cold where your heat should have lingered.”

My breath caught on a sob I refused to release. The lecture hall seemed to shrink around us, the high vaulted ceiling pressing down like the weight of every academy rule carved into its ancient stones. Sunlight slanted through the tall arched windows, catching on dust motes that danced like tiny accusations, turning the air golden and heavy.

The scent of old parchment, polished oak, and lingering chalk dust mingled with something sharper now—my own changed scent, threaded irrevocably with pine smoke and cold iron, and beneath it all, the warm, steady pulse of *him*. My wolf whined low inside me, circling restlessly, tail tucked tight against her belly.

She pushed an image toward me—his hand sliding across the mattress, fingers curling into the empty space, the faint frown creasing his brow even in half-sleep, silver eyes fluttering open to betrayal—and I had to bite the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood to keep from stepping forward and pressing my face into his chest like the desperate omega I was.

“I’m not unsure about *you*,” I whispered, voice cracking like thin ice underfoot. “I’m unsure about the *world*. About whether something this real—this bond-deep—is allowed to exist when every rule, every cornerstone of this academy, says it can’t. I woke up and saw you sleeping—peaceful, the scar on your collarbone rising and falling with each breath, your face soft in a way it never is in lecture, lashes casting shadows on your cheeks—and all I could think was how peaceful you looked. How you deserve peace after everything you’ve built here. The reforms you fought for in the council chambers, the students you’ve mentored through their first agonizing shifts, the border packs that still write to you for advice on claiming rites and pack alliances. And how I was about to ruin that peace forever because I was selfish enough to say yes when every instinct told me the cost would be too high. They don’t just fire professors for this, Jason. They strip titles in front of the entire assembly. They revoke grants with a single vote. They make examples that echo for decades.”

“I know.” He reached across the space between us slowly, deliberately, giving me every chance to pull away. When I didn’t—when I leaned forward instead—his fingers brushed my cheek, thumb catching a tear that had escaped. The contact sent a spark through the bond—golden and bright, chasing the cold guilt like sunlight melting frost on a winter window. Warmth flooded me, steady and sure, wrapping around the cracks in my heart like molten gold poured into a mold.

His palm was warm, callused from years of tactical drills and sword hilts, grounding in a way that made my wolf sigh and press closer. “Next time you feel that fear, wake me. Let me hold you through it. Let me remind you that we are partners now. Not professor and student. Not alpha and omega in the eyes of the academy. Just us. Rose and Jason. Mates. Whatever comes next—hearings, whispers, exile if it comes to that—we face it side by side. I chose this. I choose *you*. Every morning. Every risk. Every tomorrow. Even the ones where you try to run.”

Tears slipped down my cheeks faster now, silent and unstoppable, soaking into the high collar of my jacket where the bite mark still throbbed like a second heartbeat. I leaned into the touch despite myself, a broken sound escaping my throat—half relief, half surrender.

My wolf pressed closer inside me, tail wagging tentatively at first, then faster, sending waves of comfort through the bond. *See?* she seemed to say, voice a soft rumble in my mind. *He is strong. We are stronger. Stay. Let him knot the fear away again.* But the guilt was louder, a roaring tide that drowned her voice. I could already picture it: the boardroom with its long oak table scarred by centuries of judgments, the stern faces of the elders in their crimson robes, the way they would look at him—disappointment, betrayal, the end of a legacy that had shaped entire generations of shifters. And me, the catalyst. The omega who had dragged the academy’s most respected professor into ruin with nothing but her heat and her heart.

“What if someone notices?” I whispered, voice small and raw, muffled against his palm. “My scent changed overnight—Lila already asked questions at breakfast, kept staring at my collar like she could see straight through the fabric, asking if I’d finally found an alpha worth the risk, if the suppressants had finally failed in the best way. The bite mark—I can barely hide it; every time I turn my head too fast it pulls and sends sparks straight to my core. Every alpha who passes me in the hall flares their nostrils, slows their step. Marcus gave me a look in the corridor that made my skin crawl, like he could taste the change on the air. Kane whispered something to her packmates that made them all laugh and glance my way. If the board gets even a hint before we’re ready—if someone reports the change in my scent or the way I look at you during lecture like you hung the moon—”

“We’ll be careful,” he promised, voice like velvet over steel, thumb still stroking my cheek in slow, soothing circles that sent fresh warmth spiraling through the bond and lower, pooling treacherously between my thighs despite everything. “Discreet until we decide how to handle the board. I have allies—favors owed from old campaigns in the border packs, colleagues who owe me their positions after the last reform. Councilor Elara still remembers the winter I pulled her unit out of the northern pass, half-frozen and outnumbered. Dean Hargrove owes me for keeping his son’s indiscretion with that delta omega quiet last term—no scandal, no headlines. Professor Thorne in Advanced Shifting owes me his tenure after I covered for his sabbatical indiscretion. This isn’t the first time the academy has tried to crush something real. We’ll document everything. Dates, consent forms I’ll draft tonight, the exact moment the bond formed when my teeth sank into your throat and you came screaming my name around my knot. I won’t let them paint you as the victim or me as the predator. We’ll present it as mutual, informed, adult choice—two souls who found each other against every odd. But no more running, Rose. No more hiding from *me*. The bond doesn’t lie. It knows what we are. And it knows we are stronger together than apart. Let me prove it to you. Let me stand beside you when the whispers start. Let me be your shield as much as you want to be mine.”