All Chapters of Alpha's Desire: The Hidden Mate: Chapter 1 - Chapter 3

No, wait!Zaria Rose Carrington blinked, trying to make sense of what was happening.The afternoon light streaming through the window fell across Damian Aberforth’s face, sharpening the lines of his jaw. He was standing too close — so close that Zaria could hear his steady, deep breathing, almost matching the erratic rhythm of her own racing heartbeat.“Professor, I—”The sentence never made it out. Damian’s hand lifted and his long, cold fingers brushed her cheek so lightly that the touch barely made a sound. Yet it was enough to send a shiver rippling through her skin.For a moment, Zaria’s mind stopped working. She could only stare at his face, frozen in place and caught in his deep grey eyes that showed no emotion but reflected something she couldn’t name.Zaria wanted to step back, but the edge of the desk behind her held her in place. The wood pressed against her waist, grounding her trembling body.“Relax,” said Damian in a low voice, almost a whisper. ‘Why do you look so tense

To others, Damian was a psychology professor renowned for his brilliance and quiet authority. His field of expertise was perception, consciousness and cognitive control—three things that, ironically, had become a mask for his true self.Every day, Damian walked the faculty corridors with composed steps and an expression almost devoid of emotion. Students watched him with respect—some with admiration, others with unease. In the classroom, every word he uttered sounded precise and deliberate, as if the entire world were merely a collection of concepts that could be governed by thought.Yet beneath that calm exterior lay something far more personal: teaching was his escape. The university provided a space where he could pretend to be ordinary—a man who researched, wrote and lectured about consciousness as if he had never lost control of his own. In that room scented with paper and ink, he could forget, if only for a moment, what it truly meant to be himself.But such calm was always an i