POV Matthias
Something's seriously fucked up here.
I'm lying in bed, watching my now wife sleep with the soft, steady breathing of someone at peace. But there’s no peace in me.
Not when my wolf won’t shut the hell up.
He’s been pacing inside my skull like a caged animal ever since the moment Amelia appeared at the end of that aisle. The second her scent hit me, he lost his damn mind—howling, snarling, clawing at the edges of my control.
Mate. Ours. MINE, MINE, MINE.
It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t sane. And it sure as hell wasn’t part of the plan.
Goddess help me, I can’t stop watching her.
Not just because of the bond or whatever the hell this is, but because something feels off, like a song played in the wrong key.
And here's the thing: I've known Amelia Bishop for four years.
We've had exactly eight meetings, eight dinners, and approximately zero moments of actual chemistry. Nice girl. Smart. Witty and sometimes too confident. Would actually make a solid political partner in marriage.
But mate material? My wolf never even twitched.
Until tonight.
The second she got close at the altar, it was like getting hit by a freight train made of pheromones and primal recognition. My wolf went from zero to psychotic in about three seconds flat.
I barely kept it together through the vows.
Now she's curled up beside me, the same face I've been looking at twice a year since we were sixteen and nineteen. Same dark hair spread across my pillow. Same delicate features. Same scent of lavender and sea salt.
But there's this pull now. This gravitational force that makes me want to wrap myself around her and dare the world to try taking her away.
What. The actual. Fuck.
I catalog the differences, trying to make sense of the chaos in my head.
During our meetings, Amelia was confident bordering on cocky. Tonight? She was shy, almost scared or even terrified, to the point that it even influenced her smell slightly.
When I kissed her at the altar, she trembled.
When I touched her in our bed, she looked at me like I was about to eat her alive.
Which, fair. My wolf certainly wanted to.
The ceremony itself was weird too. Two-month delay because of her sister's death—a tragic accident, they said.
Blake Bishop, the powerless twin, young she-wolf without a wolf.
Amelia used to talk about her from time to time, always with this guilty affection. "Blake's stronger than anyone realizes," she'd say. "She just hasn't found her power yet."
Grief does strange things to people, indeed.
Maybe losing her twin changed something fundamental in Amelia. Activated something dormant. Twin bonds are intense—one dies, and the other might never be the same.
I became Alpha at nineteen when my dad kicked it unexpectedly. Heart attack during a pack run, dead before he even hit the ground.
And suddenly I'm inheriting a pack, a huge territory with people to protect, and a sixteen-year-old fiancée I'd never met.
Our first meeting was awkward as hell. Me trying to be the responsible young Alpha, her trying to be the perfect political bride. Both of us dancing around the fact that we were strangers planning a life together.
But we made it work. Found common ground. Built something like friendship.
We talked strategy, pack politics, territory management. She had a brain like a steel trap and ambitions that matched mine. I respected that.
Figured respect could grow into affection, affection into something sustainable.
Love was never part of the equation.
Now my wolf is trying to claw its way out of my skin to get closer to her, and I don't know what to do with that.
Amelia shifts in her sleep, making this tiny wounded sound that hits me right in the chest. I pull her closer on instinct, and she burrows into me like she's seeking shelter.
My wolf purrs at it. Actually fucking purrs.
Maybe the mate bond was always there all the time, waiting.
Maybe the official ceremony, the blessing under the moon, activated something that was dormant.
Maybe her grief cracked something open, made her vulnerable in a way that called to my protective instincts.
Or maybe I'm just overthinking this.
She stirs, those bright blue eyes fluttering open, and the moment she realizes where she is—pressed against me fully naked—panic flashes across her face before she schools it into something calmer.
"Hi," she whispers.
"Hey." I brush hair from her face, noting how she leans into the touch despite her obvious anxiety. "You okay?"
"I'm… Yes. It's just... a lot."
Understatement of the century, but I let it slide. "We can take things slow. There's no rush."
She looks at me like I just offered her the moon. "Really?"
"Really." I study her face, looking in those familiar features. "I know the past few months have been hard. Losing Blake..."
Something flickers in her eyes—pain, guilt, something else I can't name.
"I don't want to talk about that…"
"Okay." I file that reaction away for later analysis. "What do you want to talk about?"
She bites her lip, a gesture I've never mentioned her making before. "Tell me about the pack? Your plans?"
Safe ground. I can work with that.
As I launch into pack dynamics, she listens with an intensity that's both familiar and not. Same intelligent questions, same strategic thinking, but there's something underneath.
A hunger that has nothing to do with politics.
My wolf recognizes it, even if my human brain is still playing catch-up.
Whatever changed in the months we were apart, whatever grief and loss carved out of her, it revealed something new. Something that calls to the deepest parts of me.
For now, I'll let her have her secrets. Let her process whatever's going on behind those careful eyes.
But eventually, we're going to have to talk about why my wolf is convinced he's found his mate in a woman he barely noticed before tonight.
Because mate bonds don't lie, even when everything else might.