You feel that?

Rose’s POV

“Lesson one,” he said, voice low and almost conversational, yet laced with unbreakable steel beneath the calm. “Stillness.”

He lifted his hand.

Slowly. Deliberately. Giving me every agonizing second to anticipate the contact, to feel the weight of it building in the air before it even grazed my skin. The room seemed to hold its breath with me—the candle flames freezing mid-flicker, the shadows pausing their restless dance across the walls, the ancient books on the shelves watching like silent witnesses to whatever ritual was unfolding.

I didn’t flinch outwardly. I couldn’t. My body was locked in the posture he’d commanded—spine straight as a blade, shoulders rolled back until my chest ached with the strain, chin level in forced neutrality, hands open and loose at my sides like surrendered weapons. But inside, everything quaked violently. My wolf surged against the barriers of my suppressants, a frantic pacing that clawed at my ribs, its energy coiling and uncoiling in confused waves—fear, defiance, and something darker, hotter, that made my stomach twist with shame.

His knuckles brushed the line of my jaw—barely a graze, lighter than breath, more suggestion than actual touch. Yet it burned like molten silver poured across my skin. A slow, deliberate line of heat that ignited every nerve ending in its path, racing down my throat in electric pulses, spreading across my chest like wildfire licking across dry tinder until my nipples tightened painfully against the thin cotton of my shirt. My heartbeat exploded into a frantic, chaotic gallop—thump-thump-thump-thump—so loud and wild I was certain he could hear it echoing through the quiet room, certain he could feel the vibration humming through the scant inches separating us.

“You feel that?” he asked softly, his silver eyes locked on mine with unrelenting force, stormy depths swirling with shadows that pulled me deeper, drowning me in their intensity. There was no escape in that gaze—no mercy, no softness, only raw, predatory focus.

I managed a tiny nod, terrified that opening my mouth would shatter the fragile control I clung to, that words would spill out as confessions I wasn’t ready to voice.

“Words, Rose,” he corrected, voice velvet-rough, the command gentle in tone but absolute in demand—like a leash tightening just enough to remind me who held the end. “Always words when I ask. I want to hear your voice acknowledge it.”

“Yes,” I whispered, the sound barely audible, hoarse from the prolonged silence and the vise gripping my throat. My wolf whined—a deep, internal sound of raw confusion and burgeoning want, pressing harder against the chemical barriers, testing them with growing desperation, craving more of this intoxicating, terrifying presence.

His thumb settled beneath my chin then, a subtle but firm pressure that tipped my face up further, forcing me to hold his gaze without any relief, exposing the vulnerable column of my throat completely. The contact was warm, steady, possessive in its calculated restraint. Sparks skittered across my skin like static, down my neck in hot trails, radiating outward until they pooled low and insistent in my belly, an unwelcome ache that made my thighs clench together instinctively. Sweat beaded anew along my hairline, trickling slowly down my temple, and I felt the flush deepen across my chest, betraying me further.

“That’s power,” he continued, his voice dropping even lower, a subtle growl threading through it that vibrated straight into my bones, resonating in my core like a distant howl calling to my wolf. “Not brute force. Not pain—yet. Just presence. Unfiltered alpha presence pressing against you, demanding space in your mind, your body, your wolf. And you’re going to learn to stand perfectly still inside it. No visible trembling. No inward retreating. No pleading for release you haven’t yet earned. You will hold until the burn becomes familiar. Until it reshapes you.”

His touch lingered, warm and unhurried, tracing the sharp edge of my jaw to the sensitive hollow beneath my ear with agonizing, deliberate slowness. Not a tender caress. Not affectionate stroking. Mapping. Claiming territory with ruthless, clinical precision, as if memorizing every weak point, every shiver, for future exploitation. The air between us crackled audibly—or perhaps that was just in my head—thick with tension that made every breath feel like drawing in live sparks, scorching my lungs.

My wolf surged again, a low rumble vibrating through my chest—part protest against the invasion, part desperate plea for more. It didn’t understand why this felt simultaneously safe and utterly devastating, why his dominance soothed its most primal, buried edges even as it stripped away every layer of defense I’d built over years of hiding. Heat flushed through me in relentless waves, sweat prickling along my hairline and down my spine, my thighs pressing together harder against the building, shameful ache that throbbed in time with my heartbeat.

Jason’s eyes darkened dramatically, pupils dilating until only thin rings of molten silver remained, as if he’d scented the subtle shift in me—the spike of fear-laced arousal breaking through my suppressants, the way my omega sweetness sweetened the air ever so slightly, a betrayal I couldn’t control. “Your wolf is responding strongly,” he murmured, thumb pausing at my pulse point and pressing just enough to feel the frantic hammer beneath my skin, counting every betraying beat. “It’s listening intently. Pushing back against those suppressants. Good. Mine is listening too—and it’s… hungry. Ravenous, even, for what you’re offering without realizing.”

The admission hung raw and jagged between us, a rare crack in his iron control that sent my heart stuttering erratically, skipping beats before resuming its wild thunder. His wolf. The beast that academy legends painted in blood and shadow—the one that had crushed challengers without mercy, that carried the weight of the ruthless Voss dynasty like a crown forged in fire and loss. Hungry for me. For a suppressed, desperate omega who had lied and stolen her way into his orbit, who had nothing to offer but debt and defiance.

My throat worked around a difficult swallow, the motion visible under his thumb. “What… what does it want from mine?” The question slipped out before I could cage it, breathless and trembling, my voice cracking on the words like fragile ice under too much weight. My wolf perked up at the query, leaning forward metaphorically, eager for the answer despite the fear twisting in my gut.

He considered me for an endless, weighted moment that stretched time into agony, thumb still resting lightly yet possessively against the frantic flutter of my carotid—he could feel every betrayal, every thunderous confession of my body’s unwilling surrender. “To test you,” he said finally, voice roughened at the edges with something darker, more primal, a growl edging the words like claws unsheathed. “To push until that tremor you’re fighting becomes perfect stillness. Until raw fear bends and reshapes into trust—earned, not given blindly. Until you hold steady not because you must obey to survive… but because you choose to stand in my presence. Because my wolf’s hunger calls to yours, and yours answers willingly.”

My breath hitched sharply, a helpless, audible gasp that betrayed the molten heat coiling tighter, hotter, in my core—an ache that spread like liquid fire through my veins. My wolf rumbled in response—a low, shockingly eager sound that reverberated through my chest, its approval shocking me to my core, its instinctive craving for that push, that testing, that reshaping under his hands and will both terrifying and intoxicating.

He withdrew his touch slowly, deliberately, letting the sudden, aching absence speak louder than any continued contact, louder than words. The air felt colder, crueler, emptier where his warmth had been, leaving me swaying almost imperceptibly forward, my body chasing instinctively what my mind screamed to reject, to run from before it consumed me entirely.

“Enough for now,” he said, stepping back with controlled, predatory grace, the sudden distance a deliberate punishment that left me reeling, off-balance in more ways than one. “Sit.”