My fingertips grazed the heat of his neck.
Not hard. Not enough to press. Just barely — the softest touch, as if my skin had simply lost its way and drifted to the place it had always wanted to be.
His mating gland pulsed beneath my touch, and it was all I could do not to lean in and bury my teeth in it. The scent coming off him was staggering — sweet, earthy, tinged with something too innocent to belong in this place.
Ours, Nyx murmured, breathless. He's ready. He wants it.
No. He trusted.
There was a difference.
Nine didn't move. Didn't flinch. Just sat there with his head tilted slightly, hair falling like starlight over his shoulder. His chest rose and fell with the softest rhythm, eyes on mine, mouth parted in quiet expectation.
He would've let me bite him.
Let me mark him.
Not because he understood what it meant.
But because he thought it was what I wanted.
That trust was a knife in my ribs.
I leaned closer—half to scent him again, half to lose myself in the comfort of his warmth.
And then—
The door hissed open.
I didn't move.
Didn't blink.
But every muscle inside me went sharp with tension.
An instructor stood in the doorway.
Clipboard in one hand, expression unreadable. One of the newer ones — clean-cut, clinical, the kind of man who didn't see people so much as programs. His gaze moved from me, kneeling beside Nine, to Nine himself — and then paused.
Long enough to register that we weren't exactly following protocol.
"Time for his scheduled session," he said crisply.
I didn't answer.
Didn't acknowledge him.
Couldn't.
Because something had shifted.
Not in me.
In Nine.
His scent, once sweet and warm and open, soured the moment the instructor stepped into the room. It coiled up on itself like burned sugar, going bitter at the edges. Not loud, not dramatic — but wrong.
He didn't move at first.
But the change was immediate. Subtle, yes, but distinct to someone like me. Someone bonded.
His shoulders drew inward just slightly. His hands curled together in his lap. His chin lowered, like he was shrinking. Hiding.
Not from the instructor.
But from what he knew was coming.
I could smell it.
Fear.
Not panic. Not screaming terror.
But a quiet, simmering discomfort.
A kind of resignation.
The instructor walked across the floor without pause. He didn't look at me again. Maybe he thought I would move. Maybe he thought I was irrelevant now.
"Come," he said, stopping in front of us. "We're late."
And then he reached for Nine.
Just a hand on the arm.
No grab. No yank. Nothing violent.
But Nine tensed.
Faint.
Almost invisible.
But I noticed.
Because I felt it ripple through the bond like a tremor.
His scent twisted again. That warm, aching sweetness wilted under something sharper — something raw. A flash of memory. A reaction from sessions past.
I recognized that scent.
Not just because it was his.
Because once, it had been mine.
I stood, slowly, still between them. Not blocking, not lunging. But present.
Nine turned his eyes to me.
And it was different this time.
He didn't blink in passivity. Didn't watch like a silent doll waiting for commands.
He looked.
And I saw something in his face that hadn't been there before.
Recognition.
Confusion, too. Hesitation.
But recognition all the same.
Like something inside him had finally started piecing it together.
Not logic.
Not names or definitions.
Just instinct.
That I was safe.
That I was his.
That maybe… he was mine.
The instructor didn't notice.
Didn't care.
He tried to pull Nine gently to his feet.
But Nine didn't budge.
He just stared at me.
And then—
Then came the scent.
That delicate curl of something new.
Not just recognition.
Hope.
My throat closed.
Because I knew exactly what he was feeling.
Not that he understood the mate bond. Not that he knew what I was. But that he felt something when I was near that he didn't feel around anyone else.
That when I touched him, he didn't fold.
He breathed.
The instructor frowned and tugged again.
"Subject. You're scheduled."
Nine flinched.
And that was it.
That one flicker of hurt—sharp and involuntary, buried so deep he probably didn't even know it was there—was enough to burn through me.
I stepped closer.
Not to touch.
Just to be there.
To remind him that I saw it.
That someone knew.
He didn't move away from me.
Didn't even glance at the instructor.
His eyes stayed on mine.
And something in his scent began to shift again—slowly this time. Tentative. Hesitant. But clearer than ever before.
Desire.
Not sexual.
Not carnal.
But yearning.
A hunger for safety. For place. For me.
My hand curled into a fist at my side.
Nyx was eerily quiet now. Watching. Waiting.
He knows.