Chapter 20

The air inside Room 204 was suffocating, thick with a dark, crackling energy before I even reached my seat in the back row.

Professor Dante Black stood at the front of the lecture hall, but the polished, unflappable composure he usually wore like armour was noticeably frayed. His dark suit jacket was discarded over the back of his chair, his crisp white sleeves pulled up past his elbows, and his jawline set in an iron-hard, unforgiving line. He had already reduced a timid freshman in the front row to near silence over a minor question about the syllabus before I had even pulled out my notebook.

The moment I slid into my seat, the heavy wooden legs scraping softly against the floor, Dante’s head snapped up.

His icy blue eyes cut through the dim room, locking onto me with a lethal, terrifying intensity. His nostrils flared slightly as the thick, unmistakable scent of his brother—pine, cedar, and raw, possessive wolf—washed over the front podium. Then his gaze dropped down my body, taking in the oversized charcoal hoodie swallowing my frame, the fabric carrying Ryder’s imprint all over me.

A dark, dangerous flicker passed across his aristocratic face. His knuckles went stark white where his hands gripped the edge of the wooden podium, his broad chest rising and falling in tight, controlled breaths.

It wasn’t just Alpha authority radiating off him anymore. It was pure, unadulterated fury. And beneath that icy rage, something far more volatile simmered—a dark, possessive jealousy that made the air in the room feel thin.

“Turn to page 114,” Dante growled, his voice a low rasp that sent a sharp chill down my spine. He didn’t break eye contact with me for three long, agonizing seconds before looking down at his lecture slides. “Today we are discussing the destruction of composure—how classical artists depicted men completely ruined by primal, unchecked impulses.”

He paced the front stage like a caged predator, his voice cutting through the silent room like a razor. Every word felt like a subtle, venomous strike aimed directly at me. Every time his gaze swept over the upper rows, his eyes lingered on Ryder’s sweater draped over my shoulders, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle pulsed violently in his cheek.

Dante hated that Ryder had claimed me. But as his dark, burning gaze met mine across the rows of students, a terrifying realization settled in my gut: he hated even more that he couldn’t bring himself to look away.

The rest of the lecture felt like a slow-motion execution. Dante shifted his focus to Bernini’s sculptures, blasting a massive slide of The Rape of Proserpina onto the screen behind him—marble fingers digging brutally into soft, helpless skin, immortalizing pure, unyielding possession.

“Notice the grip,” Dante drawled, his deep voice carrying an edge sharp enough to draw blood. He stood right at the edge of the stage, his dark gaze locked directly onto mine. “The sculptor understood that true instinct doesn’t ask permission. It takes. It marks. It claims.”

He didn’t break eye contact as he posed a question to the silent room: “What happens when the object of desire belongs to someone else, yet invites the ruin anyway?”

Dead silence hung over the lecture hall. My cheeks burned like fire under Ryder’s heavy hoodie, my fingers clutching the oversized cuffs until my knuckles turned white. I kept my mouth shut, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction, even as the wolf inside me stirred uneasily, caught between the protective pull of my mate and the suffocating, dark gravity radiating from the front podium.

When the clock on the wall finally hit ten, the relief in the room was palpable. Students began shoving notebooks into backpacks and shuffling toward the double doors. I moved with the crowd, keeping my head down, desperate to escape into the crisp autumn air where Ryder’s scent still lingered outside.

“Miss Green. Remain in your seat.”

The command was quiet, but it hit me like a physical wall. A few students glanced back, whispering under their breath, but they hurried out all the same. The heavy oak doors clicked shut, locking the two of us inside the quiet, shadow-draped hall once again.

I didn’t sit. I stood my ground near the back aisle, my chin lifted, forcing every ounce of Beta defiance I had into my posture. “I have somewhere to be, Professor Black.”

Dante didn’t answer right away. He slowly walked up the terraced steps of the aisle, his dark leather shoes tapping a slow, rhythmic cadence against the floorboards. Up close, the icy composure he usually wore like armour was fractured, replaced by a dark, predatory aura that made the small hairs on my arms stand up.

He stopped just inches away, towering over me, his broad frame completely blocking the exit. The sharp, metallic scent of winter ozone and raw Alpha dominance radiated off his skin, clashing violently with the warm pine-and-leather scent of Ryder soaking my sweater.

Dante reached out, his long, calloused fingers casually catching the thick collar of Ryder’s charcoal hoodie. He pulled gently, bringing me a fraction of an inch closer, his icy blue eyes dropping to the faint, dark mark Ryder had left on the side of my neck earlier this morning.

“He marked you like an animal,” Dante whispered, his voice dangerously low, a dark, venomous thread running through every word. “And you let him. You parade around my lecture hall wearing his clothes like a collar.”

“He’s my mate, Dante,” I rasped, my pulse hammering so loud in my throat I knew he could hear every ragged beat.

Dante’s thumb brushed the edge of my jawline, his touch cold, deliberate, and terrifyingly firm. His gaze flicked up to my eyes, burning with a complex, dark fury that made my breath catch in my chest.

“He might be your mate, Haven,” Dante growled softly, leaning down until his lips almost grazed the shell of my ear, his breath hot against my skin. “But don’t pretend for a single second that you don’t look at me and wonder.”