40. Chapter Forty - Breathless Weight #3
“Oh, who cares, pet,” he drawled. “Being naked is the most natural state of humanity. I’ve seen plenty—hundreds of thousands of naked bodies in this long, fulfilling life. There isn’t a curve or crease or part I haven’t seen before.”
I opened my mouth, torn between laughing and crawling out of my own skin, but Soroush spoke before I could find the words.
“But I haven’t,” he said quickly, his voice calm but firm. His gaze flicked toward Culver, then softened as it returned to me. “And she clearly feels uncomfortable with it. Culver, why not take her back to your room? Let her change into something that feels more suited for her.”
The suggestion surprised me, not because it wasn’t reasonable, but because it came from him. I’d always figured there was an undercurrent of tension between Culver and Soroush. The kind that hid behind all their polite exchanges without ever breaking through.
“My apologies, little lamb,” Culver murmured, brushing his lips to my temple, his voice warm and gentle. “Have I made you uncomfortable?”
I shook my head right away, my hands curling into the fabric of his shirt as if the thought of being set down made me uneasy.
“Nope,” I said honestly. “I enjoyed… every second of it.” Heat crept up my cheeks, but I smiled anyway. “I just… wasn’t expecting it.”
He kissed me again, softer this time.
“You two enjoy your breakfast,” he said over his shoulder as he stood, lifting me easily into his arms.
I waved awkwardly at Rupert and Soroush, grateful that neither of them said anything else as Culver carried me out of the room.
In his arms, everything around us seemed to settle into a quieter rhythm, steadier somehow.
Even though my legs were still bare and my body hummed with lingering sensitivity, there was a solid pull to him that kept me anchored.
It made the whole weirdness of the situation feel like something I could actually handle without falling apart.
As we moved through the hall, my thoughts drifted back to Soroush.
At how he was still human, like I was, tied to Rupert in a way that probably meant more than just a relationship.
It all started to make sense now: the way he held back in conversations and the tired edge to his smiles that I hadn’t really clocked before.
Yeah, it looked like he was mated to Rupert, and that showed me I wasn’t the only one.
It left me wondering if I was okay with the path stretching out for me too, if I’d end up turning into one of them someday, or even if part of me would crave that shift when the time came. But I didn’t have any clear answers yet, just a haze of uncertainty.
Culver brought me back to his room, and I dressed slowly, my movements unhurried, thoughtful. He lingered close, offering lazy kisses and murmured apologies, but my mind needed space. Not from him, but from the storm swirling inside my head.
When I asked him to take me home, he didn’t question it.
He just did.
I told him I needed time and space to process everything, and he didn’t push. He only looked at me with his steady green eyes, the promise in them unmistakable.
He would wait as long as it took.
The days that followed slipped past like water through my fingers. I stayed home in the peace and quiet. I took time away from campus, feigning illness, though the truth was harder to name. It was a sense that something fundamental had shifted inside me.
I poured myself into my videos instead, editing until my eyes blurred, dancing until my muscles burned, moving like I was trying to remember the girl I’d been before Culver entered my life.
My fans loved it. Most of them already knew I was staying in the UK for good, and the excitement was overwhelming. Comments flooded in with duets and reactions, and my numbers climbed steadily.
Everything looked the same from the outside. But it wasn’t.
Something had flipped and turned inside out. Everything had changed since Culver. Since the moment he told me what he was. Since he took me, possessed me, and claimed me in ways I was still trying to understand—his mouth on my skin, the ache of his bite, the way he poured himself into me.
And he visited me often.
I loved that. The clinginess, the possessiveness.
All the things that would’ve sent me running if it had been anyone else.
With him, it reminded me that he was different because he was something more to me than just a passerby.
He was my soulmate, and I was finding out that soulmates weren’t meant to be soft.
They were meant to make you feel complete, and he definitely did that without a doubt.
His scent still clung to my sheets, and his voice was a low hum in the quiet hours.
I just didn’t know yet if I was ready to carve myself into his world in that way.
By the time I decided to return to campus, I thought I was ready. Ready for the whispers, the stares, the questions I couldn’t yet answer. Ready to walk the line between who I’d been and who I was becoming.
I wasn’t ready for Sienna.
She hit me like a force of nature, arms wrapping around me so tightly I nearly stumbled backward, breath knocked clean from my lungs.