[POV: Hayden]
“You’re my Alpha… not my something else.”
The words landed harder than a blade. Worse than seeing her kiss this man. Worse than hearing her scream at me in the training field, or watching her walk away with tears in her eyes.
This… this was a line. A wall. A command to stay on my side of it. To stay in the box she’d put me in—Alpha. Leader. Untouchable.
It should’ve stopped me. But it didn’t. Because it wasn’t the truth.
I knew it. Felt it. Smelled it.
She was lying. And Sirius… he was howling inside me. Pacing like a caged beast, snarling with every breath she took that wasn’t followed by surrender.
“Ours,” he kept growling. “Mate. Our mate.”
I didn’t move at first. Didn’t let the fury show on my face. But inside, my control was slipping. The leash I’d wrapped around my desire, my wolf, my instincts—it was fraying.
And then I stepped forward. Slowly. Deliberately. Not like a man trying to convince a frightened girl to stay.
Like a predator, moving toward what he’d been chasing for far too long.
She didn’t back away. But her breath caught. I could hear her heartbeat—faster now. Unsteady.
Not afraid. Just overwhelmed.
“Tell me then what the hell I am to you, Aria,” I said, voice low and rough. “Because I swear, if I’m only your Alpha…”
I stopped just a step away from her, close enough to feel the heat of her skin.
“…then why do I burn like this every time I breathe near you?”
She stared up at me, wide-eyed, trembling. Not from fear. Not even from shock.
From the truth. And I let the mask fall. All of it.
No more restraint. No more pretending she was just a warrior in my pack.
That I didn’t see her when she wasn’t looking. That I hadn’t needed her from the first moment she collapsed into my arms, broken and crying, and made me feel like my world had narrowed down to the shape of her pain.
“I’ve tried,” I said. My voice was hoarse. “Goddess see, I’ve tried to keep my distance. To treat you like everyone else. To keep this clean.”
My hand lifted, hovered near her face, shaking with the need to touch.
“But you’re not like everyone else. You never were.”
I stepped even closer. Our bodies are barely apart now.
“I don’t care who touched you first. I don’t care what name used to be tied to yours.” My hand finally landed, brushing her hair back behind her ear, my thumb trailing over her cheek.
“You’re mine, Aria. And I’ll tear apart anyone who tries to take you from me.”
Her breath hitched. Her lips parted. Yet still she didn’t pull away. She was trembling again.
“You’re wrong,” she whispered, voice cracking. “This is reckless. You shouldn’t… want this. Shouldn’t want someone like me.”
I leaned in, close enough for my breath to stir the hair near her temple.
“I’ve wanted you,” I murmured, “since the moment you fell apart in my arms and I had to pretend I didn’t feel like I was built just to hold you.”
My fingers moved to her jaw, tracing the soft curve, memorizing the feel of her.
Her body leaned forward—just enough to give herself away. And then she whispered, so softly it almost broke me:
“You’re not supposed to be mine.”
I closed the distance between us. My lips brushed against hers—not a kiss. Not yet.
Just a breath. A promise.
And I said, voice low and rough and filled with everything I’d never said before:
“Then why do you taste like fate?”