It had only been two weeks since the ceremony, and still it felt like the world had flipped upside down and landed in a place I wasn't sure I was ready for, but somehow, belonged in all the same.
I was Draven's bonded mate now.
Officially and unquestionably. Bound to the Alpha, bound to the pack.
And it showed in everything.
I felt it in the way the others looked at me when I passed. Not just curiosity anymore—respect.
Sometimes awe. Occasionally something cautious, wary, like they weren't sure what to make of the silver wolf mark still glowing faintly at my brow. And once or twice, something like quiet pride.
I felt it in the weight of my footsteps when I walked through the territory, in the whisper of leaves and the beat of paws and the way every presence in the pack now brushed against the edge of my senses.
A web of threads pulled tight across my mind: each one warm, breathing, alive. A mate's bond.
It hadn't been easy getting used to it. Every emotion in the pack rippled faintly inside me now, like echoes at the back of my skull. A pup's laughter and a warrior's unease. The buzz of anticipation before a patrol.
It came in waves: sometimes soft enough to ignore, other times loud enough to make me grip the edge of a table and breathe through it until the noise settled.
It was like learning how to listen without drowning.
Draven had been the anchor I didn't know I needed.
He'd taught me how to separate what wasn't mine. How to let their voices hum without letting them roar.
Each night, after patrol or training, I fell asleep in his arms in our shared den—his warmth pressed to my back, the broad plane of his chest rising and falling against my shoulder blades, his breath slow and steady against the nape of my neck, and I thanked the Moon that he was mine.
The den wasn't just his anymore. It was ours.
And as strange as it sounded, the place that once felt intimidating—Alpha territory, the home of power—now felt like home. My clothes hung beside his.
My boots sat next to his by the door. The scent of pine and snowdrops had woven itself into every surface alongside his leather and woodsmoke until the two were inseparable.
Even if my friends refused to take me entirely seriously.
"Oh, my great and powerful mate of the Alpha, may I offer thee water from thine most humble waterskin?" Levi called dramatically, tossing me a bottle during training.
Ava let out a snort and collapsed into the grass beside me, wiping sweat from her brow. "Your radiance, would you be so kind as to bestow us commoners with a second sparring session?"
Kobe offered a mock bow. "We live to serve your shimmering wolfness."
I groaned, catching the bottle midair. "You're all impossible."
"You love us," Ava grinned.
And I did.
The title hadn't changed who we were—not really. If anything, it made our bond stronger. They respected what I was becoming, but they also made damn sure I didn't forget where I came from.
Ava still punched my shoulder when I said something stupid. Kobe still beat me in arm-wrestling without mercy. Levi still told the worst jokes at dinner and expected me to laugh.
I liked that balance. I needed it.
What I didn't need was the heat that began to simmer low in my body one afternoon during combat drills.
At first, I thought it was just the sun—too much running, too many hours on the field, not enough water. The sweat running down my back felt hotter than usual, and my skin prickled with a sensitivity that made even the brush of my shirt collar feel abrasive. But then the heat thickened. Deepened and moved.
It wasn't in my skin. It was in my blood.
Hyde stirred inside me, restless and urgent. His presence pushed against my thoughts like the edge of silk and fire, his energy coiling tighter with each passing second.
"It's coming," he growled. "You weren't paying attention."
"To what?"
And then it hit me. The rut.
I hadn't even considered it since the bonding ceremony. Not through the chaos of changes and training and emotional overload.
The silver wolf awakening had thrown every cycle in my body into disarray, and I'd been too consumed with learning to manage the pack bond to notice the warning signs building beneath the surface.
And now it was too late.
The ache bloomed deep in my gut like wildfire: a low, throbbing pressure that radiated outward through my hips and down my thighs.
Every scent sharpened until I could taste the individual wolves on the training field. Every sound turned too loud, too close.
My skin prickled with a desperate, crawling awareness, and the bond tethered to Draven yanked tight in my chest like a wire pulled to its breaking point, as though every cell in my body had locked onto his location and refused to think about anything else.
I stumbled mid-step, clutching my ribs as my pulse pounded.
Kobe turned. "Atlas? You okay?"
No. No, no, no.
"Yeah," I said quickly, too quickly. "Just overdid it. I'm gonna head back to the den."
I barely heard them call after me as I shifted and ran.
The forest blurred around me, my senses focused on one thing and one thing only. Him. Draven. My mate. My Alpha.
The only one who could quench the fire now tearing through my veins like molten lightning. Hyde drove me forward, his urgency bleeding into my own until I couldn't tell where his need ended and mine began.
By the time I reached the den, I was already shaking.
My shift broke just outside the entry and I nearly collapsed on the stone steps, sweat slicking every inch of my skin, muscles trembling, lips parted.
My chest heaved with ragged breaths that did nothing to cool the inferno raging beneath my ribs.
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely grip the door handle. The rut had hit me like a freight train—faster and harder than anything I'd experienced, the silver wolf blood amplifying everything until my entire body felt like a live wire stripped of its casing.
I shoved the door open.
Draven was there, seated at his desk in the office adjoining our bedroom, a stack of patrol reports spread before him. His dark eyes snapped to mine the instant I crossed the threshold, and his nostrils flared once.
I watched the recognition move through him: the way his pupils dilated, the way the muscles in his shoulders locked, the way his hands went flat against the desk like he was bracing himself against something enormous.
He knew. He felt it.