You are mine to cherish.

Rose’s POV

The room emptied with unusual speed, as though every student in the lecture hall had suddenly remembered an urgent appointment elsewhere. Notebooks snapped shut with sharp clicks that echoed off the high stone ceiling. Chairs scraped back in a hasty, uneven rhythm. Bags were slung over shoulders with a little too much force, and low murmurs rippled through the crowd like wind through dry leaves—nothing loud enough to be overheard, but the undercurrent was unmistakable.

Curious glances flicked toward the podium, then away just as quickly. A few seniors lingered by the door, exchanging weighted looks, but even they filed out when Jason didn’t dismiss them with his usual crisp “That will be all.” Within thirty seconds the heavy oak door clicked shut behind the last straggler, the sound final, almost ceremonial. The lecture hall felt suddenly vast and intimate at once, the rows of empty desks like silent witnesses to something far more dangerous than academic debate.

The silence that followed pressed down on me like a physical weight. It was heavier than the entire night before—thicker than the firelit confessions, the knot that had locked us together, the bond that had snapped into place with white-hot certainty. Now it was just stone and wood and the faint scent of chalk dust mingling with the lingering trace of two dozen students who had no idea their professor had claimed one of their own less than twelve hours ago.

My heart thundered against my ribs so violently I was sure the sound would carry across the room. My palms were damp where they gripped the edge of the scarred oak desk in the back row. The high collar of my jacket felt suffocating, the fabric rasping against the fresh claiming bite every time I swallowed. The mark burned—not with pain, but with memory. With *him*.

Jason approached slowly. Measured steps. Not the predatory prowl of last night when he had torn my clothes open and bent me over his desk. This was deliberate, controlled, the stride of a man who knew the power he held and chose not to wield it like a weapon.

His charcoal jacket sat perfectly across his broad shoulders, the crisp white shirt beneath it open at the collar just enough to reveal the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw that hadn’t been there when I slipped away at dawn. His silver eyes were calm on the surface—professor mode, the mask he wore for lecture halls and faculty meetings—but I felt the undercurrent through the bond. Resolve. Concern. The quiet ache of waking to cold sheets and an empty space where his mate should have been curled against him.

He stopped just close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from him, that familiar blend of pine smoke and cold iron wrapping around me like an invisible embrace. Still not touching. Giving me space even now, because that was who he was—my professor, my alpha, my mate who had always seen *me*, not just the omega in heat or the student who needed discipline. The bond hummed between us, golden and alive but still strained at the edges, like a thread pulled taut across the distance I had forced this morning.

“Why?” he asked simply. No anger. No demand. Just the single word, heavy with everything unsaid. It landed between us like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through the bond that made my wolf lift her head inside me, ears pricked, tail low and uncertain. She didn’t understand why I was still fighting this. To her it was simple: *Mate. Safe. Home. Go back.*

I swallowed hard, throat dry as ash and rough as the stone walls around us. “You could lose everything,” I whispered, the words tumbling out before I could cage them. My voice cracked on the last syllable, raw from the screams I had swallowed down all morning. “Your position. Your research grants on border-pack claiming rites. The respect of every colleague who’s ever looked up to you—gods, Jason, they *admire* you. The tactical program you rebuilt from the ground up after the last war, the papers that changed how the academy teaches consent and consequence. All of it. Gone. Because of one night with a *student*. Because I was too weak, too selfish, to walk away when the heat broke and reality crashed back in.”

My hands clenched at my sides until my knuckles whitened, nails digging crescents into my palms. Tears burned behind my eyes, hot and insistent, but I blinked them back fiercely. I wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not where the bond could carry every fracture straight to him and make him hurt more than I already had by leaving.

“So could you,” he countered quietly, voice low and steady, each word carved from stone. He didn’t move closer, but the bond did—warmth brushing against the raw edges of my guilt like a gentle hand smoothing ruffled fur. “Expulsion. Blacklisting from every academy in the territory. Your future pack prospects shattered before they even begin. Your family disgraced in every council hall from here to the northern borders. The whispers would follow you for years, Rose. ‘The omega who ruined Professor Voss.’ ‘The student who seduced her instructor.’ They’d paint you as the predator, or worse—as the victim who didn’t know better. I won’t let that happen to you.”

“That’s different,” I insisted, the words sharper than I intended, echoing off the empty desks. My wolf whined inside me, pressing against the bond as if trying to nuzzle him through the distance I’d forced between us. She sent me a flash of last night: his forehead pressed to mine, silver eyes glowing as he whispered *“You are mine to cherish, not to hide.”* She didn’t understand why I was still running. To her it was simple. *He chose us. We chose him. Stay.*

His silver eyes flashed faintly—not with temper but with something fiercer. Conviction. Love so deep it hurt to look at directly, like staring into the heart of a forge. “No,” he said, each syllable deliberate, unyielding, yet threaded with a tenderness that made my chest ache. “It isn’t. We chose each other knowing the risks. Or at least *I* did. I told you last night—every word, every vow—I understood the cost. I meant it, Rose. Every single one. When I sank my teeth into your throat and felt the bond snap into place, I wasn’t thinking like a professor. I was thinking like a man who had finally found the missing piece of his soul. I am not some naïve pup risking everything on impulse. I am a grown alpha who looked at the woman who completes him and decided she was worth every consequence. The question is whether you trust me enough to let us face them *together*.”

My hands clenched harder. Tears spilled over now, hot tracks down my cheeks that I couldn’t stop. “I didn’t regret it,” I rushed out, words tumbling over one another like water over rocks in a spring flood. “Gods, Jason—the bond feels like coming home after years lost in the woods. Like I was only half-alive before you touched me. Before you looked at me like I was something worth claiming, not just an omega in heat who needed seven suppressants and a cold shower. Before you made me feel *seen*. But the guilt… it’s crushing me. If the board finds out, they won’t just fire you. They’ll make an example. Revoke your tenure in a public hearing, strip your titles, drag your name through every council hearing in the territory until even the northern packs know the story of the professor who fell for his student. They’ll say you abused your power. They’ll say I was manipulated. And I can’t—I *won’t*—be the reason your entire life collapses. I love you too much for that. I love you enough to walk away before the world forces us apart.”

The word *love* hung between us, bright and terrifying and raw, like a blade pulled from its sheath for the first time. The bond reacted instantly—golden light flaring warm and bright, carrying his answering surge of emotion so strongly my knees nearly buckled. Pride. Tenderness. A fierce, protective ache that mirrored my own so perfectly it stole my breath. His wolf brushed against mine inside the bond, massive silver shadow leaning down to nuzzle my smaller russet one, not demanding, just *present*.

Jason exhaled slowly, the sound measured, controlled. He closed the last few feet until only inches separated us. Still not touching. Giving me space even now, because that was who he was—my professor, my alpha, my mate who had always seen *me*, not just the omega or the student. “Look at me, Rose.”

I hesitated, eyes burning with unshed tears. Then I lifted my gaze.