Jamie POV
It had been weeks. Weeks of bruises, sweat, and stolen glances. Weeks of instincts honed, dodging punches, and pretending my heart didn't jump every time Andrew so much as looked in my direction. I'd learned to fight. To read a stance. To access something deep inside me, something I hadn't even known I possessed.
I still couldn't shift completely, but I could feel him now. My wolf. Close enough to touch the surface. Like a breath in the dark, a promise teetering on the tip of my bones. Some days, he was on fire. Other days, mist. But he was mine. Ours. And every night beside Andrew made him a little clearer.
Tonight was different.
The world was bathed in a velvet gloaming, still warm from the sun but silent as if holding its breath, anticipating something. The lake sparkled under the rising light of the moon, its surface silky smooth. Crickets sang. The scent of moss and pine curled through the air. Everything felt alive—and so did I.
Andrew stood before me on the dry ground at the lake's edge, his training t-shirt dark with sweat, clung to the grooved ridges of his chest. His hair was damp. His jaw was clenched. The golden light of the sun behind him made him look unapproachable. Mythic.
But I didn't want to worship him tonight.
I wanted to take him.
Even as he barked orders, forcing us through another series of fighting stances, I could barely focus. My body obeyed, but my mind was elsewhere—on the way his muscles creaked when he moved, the soft snarl in his voice when I got it wrong, the curl of his mouth when he set me right. The tension between us had become unbearable. A constant heat below my skin. I knew he felt it too. I saw it in the too-rapid turn away. The tension in the way his voice hardened when he touched me with holding.
And now… I couldn't contain it anymore.
"I want you."
The words were a whisper, gentle and bare, but seething with flame.
Andrew froze mid-step. His head turned slowly. Like he wasn't certain he'd heard me right.
"I said," I breathed again, inching closer now, heart flying into my mouth, fire in my chest. "I want you."
His eyes were shadowed—not with anger, but lust. The same, I thought I didn't notice once before. It now emerged in full, brutal force. His breathing stalled. He did not shift. He did not need to.".
"I think.." I leaned into him, tilting my face up to his, "I think I'm ready."
His fingers closed around my waist like he'd break, like he'd been holding back for years instead of weeks. And then he kissed me.
Gods, he kissed me.
Not the careful kind we'd shared before. Not the gentle, wondering touches of uncertainty. This kiss was fierce. A claim. His mouth crashed into mine like a wave that had finally found shore. My fingers tangled in his hair, and he groaned, deep and low, the sound vibrating through both our chests.
We collided, arms and limbs entwined in the light of the moon. The earth beneath is soft and pliable, the trees above creaking softly like shocked witnesses. Treehouse shadows swayed nearby, as if christening the instant.
His lips trailed down my throat, tracing every inch like he had to memorise it. And as he leaned forward over me, hand trembling millimetre by millimetre as he hovered at the waist, I felt it—the hesitation. The restraint.
I wasn't aware when the world around me started to blur—all I could sense was his hands on my hips, tight, reverent, his mouth on the nape of my neck, burning.
"Are you sure?" Andrew asked, for the second time, his voice trembling.
I locked eyes with him—this man, this Alpha, this mystery who'd become my grounding. And nodded.
"Yes. I want this. I want you.".
What followed was not merely sex. It was not fumbling or urgent. It was slow and respectful and deep—so deep that he was feeling areas in me that no one ever had, or ever would. His was a gentle touch. As though he was in fear of hurting me if he moved too fast. But I did not wish to be treated as if I'd break. I wanted him to lose control of me.
I wanted to experience it all.
And I did.
When he slid inside me, a gasp tore from my throat—harsh, raw, but not for pain. For the truth of it. For the smothering sense of rightness. The heat, the stretch, the way his eyes clung to mine like he couldn't believe I was real.
"Jamie," he groaned against my skin, and my name on his lips was like a confession.
Every movement awakened something primal in both of us. My wolf stirred, wild and energised beneath my skin, reacting to him as a mirror. We moved as if we'd practised it a thousand times. As if our bodies were remembering something we weren't.
I could feel his strength, the reserve he was keeping. The restraint was required not to take me fully.
But I felt it, too—his hunger. His need. The way he was disappearing, inch by inch, with every thrust, every moan, every whisper of my name.
And gods—I wanted him to. I wanted all of him.
His lips landed on mine as we both climaxed, the entire world melting into fire and stars until I pulled away from him, both of us gasping each other like we were the only things that mattered.
And then silence.
The kind that won't beg to be shattered.
Just us—naked, panting, turned in the grass under a moonlit sky.
Andrew's POV
I should have stopped it.
I should have waited.
But as soon as he said yes, the rest of it was lost.
His body welcomed me like it knew me all along. And even when I was in him, fully, deeply, I still held back. Even then.
Because I knew what this meant.
To mate, truly mate-an-an—an Alpha had to mark his partner. A bite to the neck, a permanent seal of bond and blood, and soul. Once done, there was no undoing it. Our thoughts would echo each other's. Our pain, our joy—shared. We'd be joined as one for the rest of our lives.
But Jamie hadn't shifted yet.
And biting an unshifted wolf could break something in them. It had before. The bond could tear, twist their magic, or burst the very thing that was meant to save them.
I wouldn't risk it. Not with him.
Not when we were so near the Trials. So near to everything changing.
But still, as I slid further into him, as our bodies found that old rhythm, I nearly gave in. His voice—whispery, panting, begging—nearly shattered me.
But I fought it.
And when I came, it was with a snarl half-bitten into his neck, releasing every ounce of myself into him, giving him all of me but the mark. All but the bite.
He deserved better than a wild bond in the grass.
He deserved forever.
We lay there later, wrapped and warm, the moon hovering above us. He wrapped around me like a lullaby, and I wrapped around him like he was the sole thing I'd ever required.
For the first time in weeks… I relaxed.
Until I felt it.
A change.
At first, it was weak—just a stirring beneath my chest, a hum along the bond that hadn't yet fully established but somehow still lingered.
Then I looked down.
Jamie's hands were glowing.
One a fierce red, pulsating like the flame's heart. The other was a chill blue snow, cold and gentle, mist rising from his fingertips. It was as if fire and frost had briefly kissed his skin. Smoke and fog curled around us, thickening. The haze rolled in after lightning like smoke. I could smell it. Feel it.
And Jamie wasn't awake.
"Jamie." I sat up, shaking him gently. "Jamie, wake up."
He didn't move.
"Come on, love," I told him, shouting even louder. "Wake up. Something's going on—"
Then his eyes opened.
And I stopped dead.
They weren't blue.
They were gold. Not hazel, not amber. Golden. Molten. Alive. Blindingly bright enough to burn straight through me. The same eyes I saw at the treehouse… but this time, they burned like a god had lit his soul on fire.
And then—
BOOM.
A thunderclap shattered the sky. The ground shook beneath us. The trees groaned. A storm unlike any I'd ever seen ripped through Furstone like the howl of a thousand wolves—and it wasn't storm season. Not even close.
I covered him with my body instinctively, shielding him from God knew what.
And then, just like that… it stopped.
The glow seeped away from his fingers. His eyelashes drifted closed. The mist receded as if never been there.
Jamie slowly opened his eyes. "Did I sleep?"
I looked at him, still teetering on the edge of reality and something much, much older, much more dangerous.
He seemed peaceful.
But I wasn't.
Because I'd felt it.
That burst. That power.
That spark of Lunaris.
And gods forgive me… I think it's begun.
I brushed hair back from his forehead, kissed the curve of his shoulder, and breathed the only words I could manage.
"We need to go back."
Before someone caught on.
Before the world caught up with the truth of what he was becoming.
Before the prophecy claimed him forever