1v10

Violet:

I woke to the morning drifting in again. I had no idea how long I had slept for, only that all the warmth that was once cascading around me had leached from me completely.

With a stretch I stood, I showered and dressed enjoying the morning quiet, trying to avoid wondering what Aleric thought when he woke up to find he had crawled on top of me. I tried to not let myself believe in the warmth of it, in the meaning I felt behind it. Instead, I braided my hair carefully, and headed toward the kitchen for coffee, trying to ignore the way I wanted to see him, to see those beautiful eyes and smell his all male scent. 

Just before I reached the Aleric’s study laughter caught my attention… male laughter. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. But then I heard Asher say, through a barely contained snort, 

“You climbed on top of her.” There was a pause. 

Then Aleric’s voice, flat and irritated. “Lower your voice.”

“Oh, I am never lowering my voice about this,” Asher shot back. “You were sprawled across her like a pup who’d just been weaned. Russ said you were purring.”

“I do not purr.”

“You absolutely do.” Heat crawled up my neck despite myself. I should walk away. I didn’t.

I moved closer instead, steps silent against stone until I reached the open archway of Aleric’s study. They hadn’t noticed me. Aleric stood near his desk, arms folded, jaw tight. Asher leaned casually against a bookshelf, grin wicked and unrelenting.

“You threatened me in your sleep for looking at her,” Asher continued. “And then you passed out on top of her like she was your personal mattress.” Aleric’s shoulders stiffened.

“I was exhausted,” he said sharply.

“Mhm.”

“And I needed grounding.”

“Oh?” Asher pushed, delighted. “Grounding. That’s what we’re calling it?”

A muscle feathered in Aleric’s jaw. “It meant nothing,” he said coldly. “Do not romanticize it.”

The words didn’t register at first… Not really.

Asher straightened slightly. “Nothing?”

“I drained my power restoring half the territory,” Aleric said, voice gaining steel. “My instincts sought the nearest stabilizing presence. That happened to be her. It was physical. Nothing more.” My lungs forgot how to work.

Those words… “Physical, nothing more.”... they reverberated through my bones, pulsing and aching until I thought I might cave in on myself. 

“I was not holding her,” Aleric snapped. “I was regaining strength. Do not reduce it to something sentimental. She is under my protection. That is all.” My head swam… I should have known better than to let myself believe I may be something to him, that he may… want something like me. He’s an alpha king for goddess sake. 

I felt like a fool. I hadn’t even realized I was crying until Neoma spoke loud in the silence of the hall.

“You will not weep for him.” she said with such power, such conviction I thought my head would burst. 

Something inside my chest split open. It wasn’t just pride that hurt, it was the memory of his hand tightening around me in sleep, the way he had breathed me in, the way I had believed it meant something… that I had meant something. 

The bond pulsed once between us, hard. Aleric stiffened mid-breath. I watched his head snap toward the doorway and then our eyes locked. I saw it for a moment, the regret that flickered there. But it was too late. I did not touch him physically. I drove straight through the connection we shared and slammed into his shield with everything I felt, the humiliation, the hope, the warmth I had allowed myself to believe in. The impact of it cracked through the room like thunder. Aleric gasped as if I had struck him in the chest. His shield buckled under the force of it, and his knees hit the stone floor with a sharp echo as he scrambled to reinforce his shields, but it was too late, I was already inside those golden walls.

Asher swore under his breath, stepping back.

Aleric braced one hand against the ground, golden eyes wide, not with anger, but with shock and pain, because through the bond, he felt it, I made sure he felt all of it.

“I—” he started, breath unsteady. I stepped into the doorway fully now, no longer hidden.

“So that’s all?” I asked, my voice frighteningly calm. “Strategic proximity?” His shield flickered weakly, but I already had his magic fisted, squeezing it tightly.

“No!”

“You needed warmth,” I continued. “Grounding. A stabilizing presence.” His jaw tightened, but he did not deny it. I wouldn’t dare give him the opportunity to.

“You made it sound so clinical,” I whispered.

Asher looked between us, realization dawning. “You absolute fool,” he muttered at Aleric.

Aleric tried to rise, but the echo of my power still reverberated through him. “Violet,” he said, and there was no command in it. No Alpha. Just my name raw with emotion.

I could not stand there any longer.

I turned and ran.

The corridor blurred as tears burned my vision. The bond between us thrashed wildly, unstable and aching.

Behind me, I felt him push to his feet, I felt him reach reach for me through the bond I had just latched onto.

“Violet!” His voice in my mind was strained, almost desperate. I slammed my shields down with brutal finality. The connection severed like a door slammed in his face, and the silence that followed hurt more than anything he had said.

I don’t remember reaching the outer gates. I only remembered the sound of my own breathing, harsh and uneven, and the way the world felt too tight around my ribs. The corridors had blurred, the stone beneath my feet barely registered. I ignored Marcus calling my name at the gates. I ignored the weight of what I had just done, of what he had just sais. I ran until the last boundary marker of Darkwater passed beneath my boots and the forest swallowed me whole.

The moment I crossed out of pack territory, the air shifted. The familiar scent of protection thinned, replaced by something feral and wrong. Neoma surged forward inside me, her awareness slicing through the trees before I consciously registered the danger.

“Ten.” The word struck through me like ice water the moment Neoma said it.

They stepped from the shadows almost lazily, circling, their eyes gleaming with opportunistic hunger. Scarred, lean, wild. Rogues. They had been waiting for someone foolish enough to wander beyond protection alone. One of them grinned, lips peeling back from yellowed teeth as he spoke about the Alpha’s pet straying too far from her leash.

The words barely landed.

My shields flared instinctively, like a living thing sensing blood in the water. My heart was still splintering from something far more personal, but survival sharpened everything at once. I forced the bond open just enough to send one single flare of warning through it.

“Aleric, rogues.” There was no time for more. The first one lunged, and the world detonated into motion.

I dropped low, pivoting as claws sliced the air where my throat had been. My elbow drove into ribs and I felt bone give beneath the impact. I twisted free, barely ducking beneath snapping jaws as another shifted mid-charge, fur rippling over muscle in a blur of transformation. The forest erupted in the sound of snarls, cracking branches, and the violent thud of paws tearing through earth.

Claws raked across my side, and pain flared hot. It should have slowed me. It should have frightened me. Instead, it fused with the ache in my chest and became fuel.

If I meant nothing, then I would be merciless.

Neoma surged fully into me, our vision sharpening, instincts aligning with lethal precision. A wolf lunged for my throat, and I caught its jaws mid-snap, magic detonating from my palm in a blinding burst of silver light. The force shattered its bones and dropped the body lifeless before it even hit the ground.

The others hesitated only a fraction of a second before swarming.

Two slammed into me from the side, driving me to the forest floor. Teeth snapped inches from my face as weight crushed my ribs. Dirt filled my mouth, and blood flooded my senses. I roared, not delicately, but with a sound of rage and hurt, and my shields burst outward in a violent concussive wave that hurled them off me as though gravity itself had reversed.

I rolled to my feet just as something struck my back. Claws sank deep into my shoulder, and I felt flesh tear. The pain was sharp and blinding, but instead of recoiling, I reached for it. I reached for the humiliation still raw in my chest and poured it into my magic.

Silver light spider-webbed across the forest floor like lightning seeking roots. The rogue clinging to me convulsed as the surge ripped through him. He fell smoking at my feet.

Blood ran freely down my side now, soaking into the fabric. My breathing grew ragged, my limbs heavier, but the more they pressed me, the more something darker rose to meet them. I moved without hesitation, blade flashing when I did not remember drawing it, steel biting through throat and muscle. A wolf tried to flank me, and I caught his foreleg mid-strike, snapping the joint with a pulse of power before driving my weapon home.

They began to falter then, snarling more in fear than dominance.

Three rushed me at once. I dropped to my knees and drove both palms into the earth, unleashing everything. The ground responded violently, dirt exploding outward in a shockwave that hurled two into trees hard enough to break them. The third staggered upright, disoriented and exposed, and I closed the distance before he could recover.

Claws tore across my cheek. Teeth sank into my forearm. I did not pull away.

I grabbed him and let him feel what I felt.

The magic that poured through me was not clean. It was not disciplined. It was grief sharpened into a blade. It surged through him in a blinding arc, and he collapsed twitching at my feet.

The last rogue tried to run.

I would not allow it.

I reached outward, catching him in an invisible snare of force, dragging him backward across leaves and dirt. He hit the ground hard, scrambling and whimpering, and I approached slowly, my body shaking now not from fear but from the sheer force I had unleashed.

It ended quickly.

When silence finally fell, it was suffocating.

Ten bodies lay scattered through the clearing. The scent of blood saturated the air. My own dripped from my fingertips, from the gash at my side, from the torn muscle at my shoulder. My vision swam slightly at the edges, but I remained standing.

That was when I felt them crashing through the forest.

Aleric first. Then Russ. Then Asher.

They broke through the trees in a blur of urgency and power, halting abruptly at the sight before them. Aleric’s gaze moved over the carnage and then found me. He went utterly still.

The fury that ignited in him was not directed at me. It was directed at the proof of what had touched me.

He crossed the distance in seconds, stopping just short of grabbing me outright. His hands hovered near my face, my shoulder, my side, as if he feared I would shatter if he moved too quickly. His voice was low and rough when he noted the blood, and I could feel the panic he was suppressing through the bond even with my shields still raised.

“You should not have been out here alone,” he said, and the statement carried more fear than reprimand.

I laughed softly, and it broke apart halfway through. I told him he had made it very clear I didn’t matter back in his study, and the words landed between us like another corpse.

His expression changed instantly.

“That is not what I meant,” he said, but the damage had already been done.

“I’m leaving Darkwater,” I said breathlessly. The certainty of it settled into me as heavily as the exhaustion creeping into my limbs. I would not remain somewhere I was reduced to strategy. I would not be proximity.

“No,” was all he said before grabbing my wrist.

“I was wrong.” His voice cracked slightly at the edges, like something inside him had splintered.

“I said what I said because Asher was laughing at me. Because I do not know how to stand there and let someone see me like that.”

“Like what?” I asked quietly.

“Needing you.” He admitted.

“I have never needed anyone in that way. Not for strength. Not for grounding. Not for… peace. And when he mocked it, I reacted the only way I know how to react. I made it tactical. I made it sound clinical. I reduced it to strategy because that is safer than admitting I climbed on top of you because you are the only thing that steadied me.”

I swallowed and swayed, but he kept going.

“I was not thinking about pride last night. I was not thinking about how it would look. I was not thinking at all. I just… went to you. My body did. My magic did. And that terrified me when I woke up and realized it. Because I do not lose control. I do not expose weakness. And what I felt with you was not controlled. It was instinct. It was trust. It was… relief. And I did not know how to explain that without sounding like I was giving you leverage over me.”

“I don’t want leverage,” I whispered.

“I know that,” he said hoarsely. “But I have lived too long in a world where closeness is exploited. Where softness is punished. I spoke from pride because pride has protected me for centuries. I spoke from discomfort because I have never had to admit that I need someone, and I did not know how to say that I needed you without feeling like I was surrendering something. I did not mean to hurt you,” he said, the last part more quietly. 

“You are not proximity. You are not convenience, you are not a strategy. I said that because it is easier to sound cruel than it is to sound vulnerable.” His eyes found mine again.

“I’m sorry, Violet.”