13. Milo
— ? —
Milo
I’m a disaster.
A complete, utter, catastrophic disaster walking across the Ashevale campus at nearly ten o’clock at night, and the only coherent thought in my mind is her.
I’ve just walked Lindsay to her dormitory building, watching until she made it through the front door, until the light in her third-floor window flickered on, and now I’m standing in the shadows like a lovesick fool, unable to make myself leave.
The scent of her is everywhere.
Her release, specifically. Sweet and warm and impossible to shake. My lycan is prowling beneath my skin, demanding I go back, climb through her window, finish what we started.
I’ve never been this affected. Not by anyone, ever.
And this, standing in the dark outside her building, her scent still on my hands, the taste of her release still ghosting my mouth, this is the worst it’s been.
The rut sits right behind my teeth. My whole body is a fist. I could go back up there.
The wolf is very sure I should go back up there.
It has a list of reasons, all of them the same reason, all of them her.
I make myself breathe. Count nothing, think of nothing, hold. Nobody warns you what a rut called up early by a mate you haven’t claimed does to the leaving. Every time I walk away from her I have to do it one muscle at a time.
My phone rings.
I fish it from my pocket with fingers that are still slightly unsteady, and the contact name on the screen makes me close my eyes.
Mother.
I answer on the third ring.
“Miles.” My mother’s voice is warm and worried in equal measure. “You sound out of breath.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. You sound like you’ve been running.”
“Just walking. Quickly.”
“At ten o’clock at night?”
“Mother-”
“Is it her? The girl?” A pause. “You’re with her, aren’t you?”
“I just walked her home.”
There’s a muffled sound, and then a new voice comes on the line, younger and sharper and openly delighted.
“Miles! You dog! You absolute dog!”
I drag a hand down my face. “Hello, Isla.”
“Mother said you’d found your mate and I thought, no, that can’t be right, our emotionally constipated brother actually experiencing a feeling? But you have, haven’t you? You’ve found her!”
“I’m putting you on speaker,” my mother says. “Your sister has been insufferable since I told her, and I need backup.”
“I have questions,” Isla announces. “So many questions. First: what does she look like?”
“Isla-”
“Is she pretty? She has to be pretty. Actually, that doesn’t matter, you’d think she was pretty regardless. That’s how the bond works.” A gasp. “Is she human? The council said they’d heard rumors she might be human-”
“She’s human.”
“Oh my god.” Isla sounds like she’s just won a prize. “A human! Miles, you romantic, you’re going to have to explain everything to her. The transformation, the moon cycles, the whole-” She drops her voice dramatically. “-knotting situation.”
“I’m not discussing the knotting situation with my baby sister.”
“I’m twenty-six!”
“You’re still my baby sister.”
“Children.” My mother’s voice is patient but firm. “Perhaps we could let Miles actually speak?”
“Fine, fine.” Isla subsides, but I can hear her vibrating with excitement through the phone. “Tell us everything. And I mean everything. What’s her name? How did you meet? Have you kissed her yet?”
“Her name is Lindsay Crowe. I’m teaching at her college-”
“Wait.” Isla’s voice sharpens. “You’re her teacher?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s scandalous! Mother, are you hearing this? Our brother, the straight-laced alpha heir, seducing his student-”
“I’m not seducing anyone.” The lie tastes bitter on my tongue. I think of the library, of books raining down around us, of the mark I left on her throat. “I’m… courting her. Properly.”
“Courting.” Isla snorts. “What century are you in?”
“Miles.” My mother’s voice has gone soft. “You sound alive.”
The words hit me somewhere tender.
“What?”
“The last few years-” She pauses, and I hear the emotion she’s trying to hide. “You’ve been going through the motions. Doing your duty, leading the pack, but there’s been no light in you. No joy. And now…”
“Now you sound like yourself again,” Isla finishes quietly. “The brother we remember from before.”
Before. They don’t need to say more. Before Father died. Before the crown. Before I spent three weeks building walls around my grief so thick I forgot there was anything inside worth protecting.
“She makes me feel…” I struggle for words. “Real. Present. Like I’m not just waiting for the next crisis.”
“Oh, Miles.” My mother’s voice is thick. “I’m so glad. When you first told us about her - when the goddess gave you her name - I wept.”
“You wept?”
“You’d given up.” The words are simple and devastating. “You’d accepted that you would spend your reign alone. And then the goddess gave you this gift, this girl, and I thought - finally. Finally, he has a chance at happiness.”
I have to stop walking. Have to brace myself against a nearby tree because my chest is staging a small rebellion.
“I wanted to go slow,” I admit. “She deserves slow. She deserves to be wooed, not pressured.”
“But?” Isla prompts.
“But tonight got away from me.”
“Miles.” My sister’s voice is gleeful. “What did you do?”
“Nothing - it wasn’t - we didn’t-” I drag a hand through my hair. “We kissed. Extensively.”
“Extensively,” Isla repeats. “Is that a euphemism?”
“No. Maybe. We didn’t - there was no actual-” I’m a king, a grown lycan male, and I’m stumbling over my words like a teenager. “We kept our clothes on.”
“But you wanted them off.”
“Isla.”
“I’m just saying! The bond affects both parties. If you’re feeling it this strongly, she probably is too.”
She’s right. That’s the terrifying part. Lindsay responds to me with an intensity that matches my own, melting into my touch, pulling me closer, making sounds that will haunt my dreams for centuries.
“There’s another problem,” I say.
“What kind of problem?”
“My rut.” The word comes out rough. “It’s coming early.”
Silence on the line.
Then my mother: “How early?”
“I don’t know. Weeks, maybe. It’s been stirred up by - by her. By being near her all the time and not being able to-”
“You’re white-knuckling it,” Isla says. “Oh, Miles. That’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“I’m aware.”
“Can you hold off the council until after? They’ve been demanding updates, you know. Asking questions about your progress, suggesting lycan alternatives-”
“Lycan alternatives.” My laugh is bitter. “Let me guess. They have a list of acceptable candidates who would strengthen political alliances and ensure a purebred heir.”
“Twelve candidates, actually. Mother has the files somewhere.”
“I don’t want the files.”
“Didn’t think so.” Isla’s voice softens. “What should we tell them? They’re getting impatient.”
I think of Lindsay, her sharp wit, her stubborn courage, the way she’d looked at me with fire in her eyes when she told me I had to earn her. No political alliance could compare. No purebred lycan could make me feel a fraction of what she does.
“Tell them their king is grading papers,” I say. “And that he’s catastrophically in love with a human woman who doesn’t yet know she’s his mate.”
“Catastrophically,” Isla breathes. “Miles. That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late. I’m telling everyone.”
I can hear the grin in her voice, the particular glee of a little sister who has just been handed a lifetime of ammunition.
“Isla-”
“The whole pack is going to know that our terrifying alpha king used the word catastrophically in relation to love-”
“I’ll end you.”
“You love me too much.”
“Debatable.”
My mother clears her throat. “Children. I believe Miles has somewhere to be.”
She’s right. I’ve been standing in the shadows near Lindsay’s dormitory this whole time, watching her window like a sentinel.
“I should go.”
“Call us again soon,” my mother says. “And Miles? Don’t be afraid to tell her the truth. All of it.”
“I will. When she’s ready.”
I end the call and pocket my phone, and then the goddess’s voice slides through my mind like cool water.
You could simply tell her she’s your mate.
I stiffen. The goddess rarely speaks directly, her guidance usually comes through ritual, through dreams, through the ancient songs of our people. But she’s been more present since Lindsay entered my life.
I can’t, I reply silently.
Cannot? Or will not?
Won’t. The word removes her choice.
She chose to sign your contract. She chose to kiss you in the library. She chooses you again and again, pup.
But she doesn’t know what she’s choosing. If I tell her we’re mates, true mates, the kind that happens once in a millennium, she’ll feel obligated. Trapped.
Or she’ll feel chosen. Treasured. Wanted beyond measure.
I can’t risk it. I stare up at Lindsay’s window, watching the warm glow of her lamp. I’d rather earn her the slow, human way, and have her fall in love with me because she wants to, not because some cosmic force tells her she should.
The goddess is silent for a long moment.
You have your father’s stubbornness, she finally says. And your mother’s heart. Very well, pup. Court your human the slow way. But don’t wait too long. The rut won’t be patient, and neither will your enemies.
Her presence fades, leaving me alone in the darkness.
And that’s when I sense it.
Someone watching.
I go still, my lycan rising to the surface, senses sharpening. The scent reaches me a moment later, pack, but not my inner circle. One of the outer ring. A scout, by the smell of him.
He’s in the trees about fifty yards east, and he’s been watching Lindsay’s window.
I move without thinking.
One moment I’m standing by the oak tree; the next I’m across the clearing, my hand wrapped around the scout’s throat, pinning him to a tree trunk three feet off the ground.
“Give me one reason,” I say quietly, “why I shouldn’t tear out your throat.”
The scout, young, terrified, clearly sent by someone higher up the chain, makes a strangled sound.
“I was just - the council sent me - they wanted to confirm-”
“Confirm what?”
“That she’s real. The human. They wanted proof that you’d actually found her-”
“You were watching her.”
“I wasn’t going to do anything! I was just supposed to report-”
“Report.” My grip tightens, and I feel my claws begin to extend. “You were spying on my mate while she undressed for bed. While she was vulnerable. Unprotected.”
“I didn’t see anything, I swear-”
“Go away.” The words come out in the alpha register, the one that compels obedience. “Tell the council that if they send anyone else - anyone - within a mile of this woman without my express permission, I’ll consider it an act of war.”
The scout’s eyes go wide. “You can’t - the council just wants-”
“Go. Away.”
I release him.
He drops to the ground, scrambles to his feet, and runs.
I stand there for a long moment, breathing hard, my lycan snarling beneath my skin. The possessiveness is overwhelming, sharper and more primal than anything I’ve felt before. This woman is mine, and I’ll destroy anything that threatens her.
But I can’t stay here all night. I should go back to my quarters, try to sleep, give her space.
Instead, I find myself walking toward the oak tree near her building.
The old one with the thick trunk and the spreading branches. The one that has a perfect sightline to her window.
I settle against it, tucking myself into the shadows, and look up.
She’s at the window.
Looking out into the darkness like she can sense me there.
My phone buzzes.
i know you’re out there
I stare at the screen, a smile spreading across my face despite everything.
How?
i can feel you. is that weird? i can just… feel when you’re close.
The bond. It’s already forming, even without the ritual.
I’m sorry. I should have left.
why are you sitting under a tree like a creep outside a girls’ dorm?
I laugh out loud, then quickly muffle it.
I like this particular tree. Good bark. Excellent shade coverage.
it’s literally nighttime. there’s no shade.
The coverage is still excellent.
milo.
Yes, darling?
why are you really out there?
I consider lying. Consider some deflection about fresh air or evening walks. But the contract is clear: honesty always.
I couldn’t leave. I tried. But my feet kept walking back here.
A long pause. Then:
that’s either really romantic or really stalker-y
I prefer to think romantic.
you WOULD.
Is it a problem? Me being here?
Another pause. I watch her silhouette in the window, see her bite her lip the way she does when she’s thinking.
are you offering to come up so no one sees you down here like a campus security risk?
My heart stops.
I could come up. If you wanted.
not tonight. i’m… i need to process. tonight was a lot.
Of course. I understand.
But then, just as I’m preparing to stand and leave and do the honorable thing:
you could come up tomorrow though.
I stare at the screen.
and you know. maybe start the classes already?
The knotting lessons. She’s asking about the knotting lessons.
My hands are shaking as I type back:
Tomorrow it is, darling.
good.
Good.
There’s a long moment where neither of us types anything. I can see her at the window, phone in hand, looking down at where I’m sitting.
She waves.
I wave back, feeling like a teenager with his first crush.
goodnight, professor.
Goodnight, Lindsay.
She steps away from the window. The light goes out.
And I sit there under the oak tree, grinning like an idiot at my phone, more nervous than I’ve been in centuries.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
The rut stirs in my blood, urgent and demanding, but I push it down. This has to be done right. She has to come to me willingly, wanting, fully informed.
But god, I want her.
More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
I finally stand, brushing bark from my clothes, and begin the walk back to my quarters, already counting the hours until tomorrow.