[POV: Atlas]
I had never felt like this before. Not once in my life. Not when Evan had smiled at me for the first time, back when we were children and I'd thought maybe someone could see me. Not during the festival dances or the awkward brush of hands with anyone who'd ever dared to try to flirt with me, rare as those moments had been.
Not even during those lonely, quiet nights when I dared to wonder what it might be like to be wanted, to be chosen, to matter to someone the way I'd always wanted to matter.
But this? This was a wildfire. This was consuming. This was everything I'd never known I needed and everything I'd been too afraid to reach for.
Draven's hands on my body. His voice in my ear, rough and commanding. His lips barely grazed mine, hovering so close I could taste his breath. Every touch, every word, every breath between us had lit something inside me that I couldn't put out, a flame that threatened to burn through every wall I'd ever built.
My skin still burned from the places he'd claimed. The ghost of his touch lingered on my throat, my waist, my jaw. My legs barely held me upright, trembling from more than just the sprint through the forest. My heart was in my throat, pounding so hard I thought it might burst.
And I wanted it. I really wanted him. Wanted more. The way he looked at me, like I belonged to him already, like it was inevitable and written in the stars. The way he said my name like it was something dangerous and sacred, like a prayer and a curse rolled into one.
The way his hands gripped me, his mouth hovered at my neck, like he was on the edge of losing control, like he was fighting himself as hard as I was fighting myself.
I would've let him. Goddess, I wanted to let him. I was ready to say yes to whatever he asked, ready to surrender completely. But it all shattered the moment he turned, distracted by a noise in the trees, his body going rigid with alertness.
And then… time froze. My eyes locked with Piper's. She stood at the edge of the clearing, arms crossed over her chest, her mouth tight with disapproval and something that might have been concern. At Draven’s feet lay what looked like a large, jagged rock—clearly the object Piper had just hurled at Draven's back with impressive aim.
My stomach dropped. Horror and embarrassment flooded through me in equal measure.
"Esteemed Alpha," she said, her voice flat as steel, dripping with barely concealed sarcasm, "if you wouldn't mind removing your mouth and hands from my trainee, he's due back at the packhouse for patrol."
Draven stiffened. I did, too, heat flooding my face. Piper wasn't done. "And you have a letter waiting—the one you specifically said you wanted the moment it arrived."
I opened my mouth, then closed it, words failing me completely. Then, gently—carefully—I pushed against Draven's chest, feeling the hard muscle beneath my palms, the heat still radiating from his skin.
He let me go, slowly and reluctantly. His eyes burned into mine for one long moment before he stepped back.
My skin still tingled where he'd touched it, every nerve ending still alight. My lips still buzzed where his breath had lingered, where he'd almost kissed me. I took a shaky step away from him, straightened my shirt with trembling hands, and turned toward Piper.
"I'm sorry," I managed to say, my voice rougher than I expected. "I didn't mean to be late."
Piper raised a brow, her expression unreadable. "Then I suggest you run." I didn't need to be told twice.
I shifted mid-step, white fur replacing skin in a flash of light and power, and bolted through the woods back toward the packhouse, putting distance between myself and what had just happened.
Leaves and dirt flew beneath my paws, the wind cold against my face, rushing through my fur, but nothing could cool the heat still coiling in my stomach, the want still thrumming through my veins.
"What just happened?" Inside my head, Hyde was already pacing, restless and confused. "You should've stayed."
"Don't start," I growled through our shared link, my mental voice sharp.
"He wanted you. You wanted him. We wanted it. What's wrong?" Hyde's frustration bled through the bond.
I grumbled, leaping over a fallen log. "It wasn't supposed to go like that. I didn't even plan to talk to him tonight, let alone—"
"Let him lick your neck?" Hyde teased, amusement coloring his tone. "Or let him pin you to a tree and make you moan?"
"Shut up!" Heat flooded my face even in wolf form.
"Oh, now you're shy?" He laughed, the sound echoing in my mind. "After the way your legs went weak when he touched your waist? After the way you arched into him?"
"It wasn't like that," I muttered, though we both knew it was a lie.
"It was exactly like that. You melted, Atlas. Like snow in sunlight." Smug bastard.
"It got out of control!" I protested, my paws hitting the ground harder.
"It got perfect," Hyde corrected, his voice softening with satisfaction.
I let out a growl as I ducked under a low branch, trying to outrun both the conversation and the blush still burning under my fur, still feeling the phantom touch of Draven's hands on my skin.
"What exactly did you expect me to do, Hyde? Tell Piper to leave? Ask for ten more minutes so the Alpha could finish kissing me? That's insane."
"You could've told him how you felt," he said, softer now, more serious. "You could've been honest."
"I don't know how I feel!" I shot back, the admission tearing out of me. "That's the problem. It's not just attraction. It's not just a heat. It's not just physical. It's… him." And he terrified me.
Because Draven wasn't just some reckless warrior. He was the Alpha. Power incarnate. Wild and dangerous and haunted by ghosts I couldn't see. And for some unfathomable reason, he looked at me like I was the thing he couldn't tame, the one thing his control couldn't master.
And I liked it. Goddess help me, I loved it. Loved the way he looked at me like I was precious and dangerous all at once.
I slowed as the trees thinned, the packhouse coming into view, breath coming faster now from confusion more than the run. His touch had been too much. Not enough. Everything I'd ever wanted and everything I'd never dared to dream of.
And it scared me. Because I knew that if he pulled me into his arms again, whispered my name in that gravel-coated voice of his, and asked—not demanded, but asked—I would say yes. Without hesitation. Without question.
I would fall. Not just into his bed. Into him. Into whatever this was between us, this pull that felt like fate and choice tangled together. And there might be no climbing back out. That terrified me most of all.