I take my usual seat near the middle and pull out my notebook. The bond hums between us like a live wire and I have to work to keep my expression neutral. No one else can feel this. No one else knows that the distant professor at the front of the room claimed me in his office two nights ago and left apermanent mark on my shoulder that's currently hidden under my shirt.
Julian turns from the board and his eyes sweep over the class. They pass over me without pausing, without any hint of recognition, and if I couldn't feel his emotions I would believe he'd forgotten I existed.
"Today we're covering the Council's formation in 1847," he says, his voice perfectly professional and completely detached. "The treaty that ended the territorial wars and established centralized shifter governance. Who can tell me what sparked the peace negotiations?"
Hands go up around the room. Mine stays down. I'm too busy trying to manage the bond pulling tight every time I look at him, trying to hide how my body responds to just hearing his voice.
He calls on someone in the front row and the student stumbles through an answer about border disputes. Julian nods and expands on the point, pacing slowly across the front of the room. His voice is steady and measured and gives away absolutely nothing.
But I can feel what he's really feeling. The effort it's taking him to maintain this distance. The way he's hyperaware of exactly where I'm sitting even though he's not looking at me. The desperate need to touch me warring with the terror of being discovered.
"Miss Bardot."
My name in his mouth makes the bond pull so tight I almost gasp. I look up and find him watching me with those Professor eyes that give nothing away.
"Can you explain the structure of Council representation as established in the original treaty?"
His voice is cool and impersonal. As though I'm just another student he's testing. As though his hands weren't in my hair two nights ago while he claimed me on his office couch.
I force my voice to stay steady. "The Council was structured with seven seats. One representative from each major territory, elected by regional Alphas, serving ten-year terms."
"Adequate." The single word is delivered with the same cool professionalism. "See me after class for supplemental reading on regional governance structures."
A few students around me smirk. They think I'm in trouble, think the Professor is singling me out for a subpar answer. They have no idea he just manufactured a reason to get me alone for thirty seconds after everyone leaves.
The rest of class drags. Julian lectures and I take notes and neither of us looks at each other directly but I can feel every shift in his emotions. The fear is constant, thrumming underneath everything else. But so is the possession, the satisfaction that I'm his even if no one else can know it.
When class finally ends, students file out talking about the upcoming full moon and training schedules. I stay in my seat, gathering my things slowly until the room clears. Then I walk up to Julian's desk.
He's writing something in a grade book and doesn't look up when I approach, instead reaching for a textbook on the corner of his desk and holding it out.
"Chapter seven covers the governance structures in more detail."
His voice is still perfectly professional but when I take the book our fingers brush. The bond flares so intensely that we both freeze. For half a second I can feel everything he's feeling. The desperate need to pull me against him. The fear that someone will notice. The love and terror and possessive pride all crashing together.
Our eyes meet and I see his control wavering. See the Professor mask slipping for just a moment.
Then he pulls his hand back and the professional distance slams back into place. "That's all, Miss Bardot."
I turn and walk out carrying the textbook and the secret of what we are to each other. The bond settles back to its constant low hum. I can still feel him as I leave the building, his emotions following me across campus.
This is what our life is now. Careful distance in public and stolen moments in private. A bond that connects us constantly while we pretend to be nothing more than professor and student.
I just hope we can keep it up without breaking.
The training hall is empty when I arrive that evening. Everyone else is at dinner but I can't sit in the dining hall feeling three different bonds pulling at me from different directions. The broken one with Nico that aches like a bruise. The pack claim from Caspian that feels like weight pressing on my shoulders. And the mate bond with Julian that hums constant and alive and terrifying.
So I train instead. Push my body until it's too exhausted to think.
I'm working through combat forms with a practice staff when the air in the room changes. I turn and find Caspian leaning against the doorframe. His arms are crossed and his eyes track every movement I make with focused intensity that makes my pulse jump.
"You're training differently," he says, pushing off the wall and walking into the room.
I lower the staff. "Trying to get stronger."
"That's not what I mean." He circles me slowly and I have to resist the urge to track his movement. "Your technique is the same. But something about you has changed."
"I shifted. Everything changed after that."
