[POV: Draven]
"You're my Alpha… not my something else." The words landed harder than a blade. Sharper than steel, cutting deeper than anything physical ever could.
Worse than seeing him kiss that man. Worse than hearing him scream at me in the training field, or watching him walk away with tears in his eyes, shoulders shaking with emotion I couldn't soothe.
This… this was a line. A boundary with a wall. A command to stay on my side of it. To stay in the box he'd put me in—Alpha. Leader. Authority figure. Untouchable.
It should've stopped me. Any rational wolf would have respected that boundary, would have backed away, would have let it go.
But it didn't stop me. Because it wasn't the truth. I could hear the lie in his voice, taste it in the air between us. I knew it. Felt it and I smelled it.
He was lying. And Sirius… he was howling inside me. Pacing like a caged beast, snarling and snapping at the bars of my control with every breath Atlas took that wasn't followed by surrender, by acknowledgment of what we both knew was true.
"Ours," he kept growling, his voice a constant rumble in the back of my mind. "Mate. Our mate. Claim him. Make him understand."
I didn't move at first. Didn't let the fury show on my face, didn't let him see how close I was to losing control completely. But inside, my control was slipping. The leash I'd wrapped around my desire, my wolf, my instincts—it was fraying. Thread by thread, it was coming undone, and I wasn't sure I wanted to stop it anymore.
I'd been so careful. So restrained. Keeping my distance, treating him like any other pack member, pretending the bond I felt didn't exist.
But that kiss. Watching him with Evan. Seeing someone else's lips on his, someone else's hands touching him—
It had shattered every ounce of restraint I'd built. And then I stepped forward. Slowly. Deliberately. Each step measured, controlled, even as everything inside me screamed to close the distance faster. Not like a man trying to convince a frightened boy to stay, trying to reason or plead.
Like a predator, moving toward what he'd been chasing for far too long. What he'd finally decided to claim.
He didn't back away. But his breath caught, sharp and audible in the quiet night. I could hear his heartbeat—faster now. Unsteady. Thundering like drums in my enhanced hearing.
Not afraid. I'd know that scent, that particular spike of adrenaline. This wasn't fear. Just overwhelmed. Conflicted. Wanting and denying in the same breath.
"Tell me then what the hell I am to you, Atlas," I said, voice low and rough, barely controlled. "Because I swear, if I'm only your Alpha…"
I stopped just a step away from him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin, close enough to smell his scent—pine and snowdrops, mixed with something uniquely him that drove Sirius wild.
"…then why do I burn like this every time I breathe near you? Why does my wolf recognize you as ours?"
He stared up at me, those blue eyes wide and luminous in the moonlight, trembling. Not from fear. Not even from shock.
From the truth. From the weight of what hung unspoken between us. And I let the mask fall. All of it. Every carefully constructed wall, every pretense of indifference.
No more restraint. No more pretending he was just a warrior in my pack. Just another wolf under my protection.
That I didn't see him when he wasn't looking. That I hadn't needed him from the first moment he collapsed into my arms, broken and crying, and made me feel like my world had narrowed down to the shape of his pain. Like protecting him, caring for him, was the only thing that mattered.
"I've tried," I said, and my voice was hoarse, raw with emotion I'd suppressed for too long. "Goddess knows I've tried to keep my distance. To treat you like everyone else. To keep this clean. Professional. To not cross the line between Alpha and pack member."
My hand lifted, hovered near his face, shaking with the need to touch, to make contact, to prove he was real and here and mine. I'd held back for so long, denied myself even the smallest touches.
"But you're not like everyone else. You never were. From the moment you stumbled across my borders, you were different."
I stepped even closer. Our bodies barely apart now, the space between us charged with electricity, with tension, with everything we'd been fighting.
"I don't care who touched you first," I said, voice dropping to something more primal, more possessive. "I don't care what name used to be tied to yours. I don't care about your past or his claim on your history."
My hand finally landed, trembling slightly as I brushed his hair back behind his ear, my thumb trailing over his cheek, tracing the crescent moon mark that made him uniquely, devastatingly beautiful.
"You're mine, Atlas. And I'll tear apart anyone who tries to take you from me. Anyone who tries to claim what's been mine since the moment our eyes met."
His breath hitched audibly. His lips parted, but no words came out. Yet still he didn't pull away, didn't flinch from my touch. He was trembling again, his whole body taut with tension.
"You're wrong," he whispered, voice cracking with emotion. "This is reckless. Dangerous. You shouldn't… want this. Shouldn't want someone like me. I'm cursed. The prophecy—"
"I don't care about prophecies," I cut him off. I leaned in, close enough for my breath to stir the hair near his temple, close enough that our bodies were almost touching, that I could feel his warmth seeping into me.
"I've wanted you," I murmured, voice dropping to something intimate, confessional, "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. Like every instinct in my body wasn't screaming that you were mine to protect, mine to cherish."
My fingers moved to his jaw, tracing the soft curve, the delicate lines, memorizing the feel of him under my hands. Strong but vulnerable. Fierce but fragile. Perfect in every contradictory way.
His body leaned forward—just slightly, barely perceptible, but enough. Enough to give himself away, to show me what his words wouldn't admit.
And then he whispered, so softly it almost broke me, almost shattered the last of my control: "You're not supposed to be mine."
The words carried the weight of prophecy, of destiny, of fear. But also longing. Also hope.
I closed the distance between us, eliminating the last inch of space that separated us. My lips brushed against his—not a kiss. Not yet. I was giving him a chance to pull away, to stop this, even though every fiber of my being hoped he wouldn't.
Just a breath. A promise. A question and answer all at once. And I said, voice low and rough and filled with everything I'd never said before, everything I'd kept locked away: "Then why do you taste like fate?"