18. Lynn
— ? —
Lynn
Something’s wrong with Milo.
I noticed it this morning when I woke up in his bed, alone. He was already dressed, already at his desk, already staring at papers with an intensity that seemed more like avoidance than focus.
“Hey,” I’d said, stretching. “You okay?”
“Fine.” He didn’t look at me. “Just pack stuff. Nothing to worry about.”
“You don’t look it,” I press. “You look like something’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong.” He’d finally met my eyes, and his smile was… off, like he was performing reassurance instead of feeling it. “I have to prepare for my seminar. You should get ready for class.”
That was three hours ago.
Now I’m sitting in my dorm room, spiraling.
He doesn’t want you anymore.
The thought is irrational. I know it’s irrational. Last night was, god, last night was everything. The way he looked at me. How he touched me. The whispered promise that he’d spend the rest of his life making things up to me.
But this morning he couldn’t meet my eyes.
One night. You gave him one night and he’s already pulling away.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror. Same face. Same body. Same everything that apparently drove him wild twelve hours ago.
So why is he acting like I’m furniture?
My phone buzzes with a text from Maya: Girl, are you coming to Draven’s seminar? I heard he’s discussing lycan mating bonds today and I NEED moral support because this topic makes me want to SCREAM.
Lycan mating bonds.
An idea starts forming in my head. A terrible, wonderful, absolutely deranged idea.
If Milo wants to be distant, I’ll give him something that makes distance impossible.
I dig through my closet until I find it, the shirt I bought last year for a party I never attended. It’s technically professional. Technically appropriate. Technically a top that covers all the necessary parts.
But the neckline plunges in a way that makes “technically” do a lot of heavy lifting.
I put it on, adjust my bra for maximum effect, and check my reflection.
Yeah. That’ll do.
I dress for war, or the closest thing to it, and head to class. The seminar room is packed when I arrive, mostly with girls who signed up just to stare at Professor Draven, but also a handful of actual mythology students. I slide into a seat near the front, ignoring Maya’s raised eyebrows.
“That shirt is… new,” she whispers.
“Is it? Hadn’t noticed.”
“You’re going to give him a heart attack.”
“That’s the plan.”
Milo enters a moment later, and I watch him scan the room, watch his eyes land on me, watch them drop to my neckline-
His jaw tightens.
Good.
“Today we’re discussing lycan pair bonding,” he says, moving to the podium. His voice is steady, but there’s a strain in it that wasn’t there before. “The various forms of connection within pack structures, and how they differ from human relationship models.”
He’s not looking at me. Very deliberately not looking at me.
I lean forward, elbows on the desk, and rest my chin in my hands. The position does interesting things to my cleavage.
“Lycan bonds exist on a spectrum,” he continues. “Social bonds, pack bonds, chosen partnerships, and” - his voice catches almost imperceptibly - “fated connections.”
I raise my hand.
He hesitates. “Yes, Miss Crowe?”
“Professor, I have a question about knotting.”
The room goes silent.
Maya makes a sound like a dying seal beside me.
Milo’s knuckles go white on the podium edge. I can hear the wood creak.
“That’s… not relevant to today’s discussion.”
“Isn’t it?” I keep my voice innocent, academic. “You mentioned pair bonding. Knotting is a bonding mechanism, isn’t it? I’d love to understand the biological and emotional aspects. For scholarly purposes.”
His eyes do the thing, that gold flicker he can’t control, the one that tells me the wolf is very, very close to the surface.
“Knotting,” he says through his teeth, “is a physiological response during intimate pair bonding. It serves to ensure… successful connection.”
“Successful connection,” I repeat. “And how long does this connection typically last?”
“Variable. Depending on… factors.”
“What kinds of factors?”
“Miss Crowe-”
“I’m just trying to understand.” I shift in my seat, leaning forward a bit more. “The literature is vague on specifics. Does emotional intensity affect duration? Does the strength of the bond matter?”
Someone in the back whispers, “Is she asking what I think she’s asking?”
Milo’s jaw is working like he’s grinding his teeth to powder. “The emotional component is significant, yes. The deeper the connection, the more… prolonged the response.”
“Fascinating.” I tap my pen against my lips. “And what about partners? How does someone know if they’ve found the right one? Is it instinctual? Physical? Or is there some kind of cosmic element?”
The gold in his eyes isn’t flickering anymore. It’s steady. Burning.
“Lycans recognize compatible partners through scent,” he says, and his voice has dropped an octave. “Through instinct. Through a pull that transcends rational analysis.”
“A pull,” I repeat. “How romantic.”
“It’s not romantic.” His voice is tight. “It’s primal. Overwhelming. A connection that makes a man want to-”
He stops himself. But not before I see it, his eyes flash, the green swallowed whole by gold, wolf-bright and wild for the length of a held breath before he wrestles them back.
His grip on the podium hasn’t eased. Whatever he’s holding on to is slipping, and everyone in this room can feel the temperature change even if only I know what it means.
“I need to take a call,” he says, low and rough. “Five-minute break.”
He strides out of the room, fast and rigid, a man outrunning his own skin.
Maya grabs my arm. “What are you doing?”
“Testing a theory.”
“What theory? That you can make Professor Sex Object spontaneously combust?”
“Something like that.”
The minutes tick by. I’m starting to wonder if he’s actually coming back when-
The fire alarm starts screaming.
The sound is deafening, a metallic shriek that drills straight through my skull, accompanied by flashing lights in the hallway. Everyone around me scrambles to their feet, grabbing bags, heading for the exits in the practiced chaos of evacuation drills.
Maya tugs my arm. “Come on!”
“Go ahead, I’ll catch up.”
“Lynn-”
“I forgot something. Just go.”
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, which, fair, but the crowd sweeps her toward the door before she can argue.
The room empties in thirty seconds.
I stay in my seat.
The alarm keeps howling.
The door opens.
Milo stands in the frame, eyes full gold, chest heaving. He spots me immediately, and his expression shifts from relief to fury to something much more dangerous.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“There’s a fire alarm.”
“I know. I can hear it.”
He crosses the room in three strides, catches my wrist, and hauls me to my feet. The door closes behind him, I didn’t even see him push it, and then my back is against it and his mouth is on mine.
The kiss is bruising and desperate, furious with everything neither of us has said.
“What,” he growls against my lips, “were you thinking?”
“That you’ve been avoiding me all day.”
“I wasn’t-”
“You couldn’t look at me this morning.”
Every word comes out steadier than I feel, and I hate how much it costs me to keep my voice level, to not let him see how badly the silence gutted me.
“That’s not-”
“You treated me like a stranger.”
“Lynn-”
“After last night-”
He silences me with another kiss, this one deeper, his tongue claiming my mouth with a possessiveness that makes my knees buckle.
“I wasn’t avoiding you,” he says when we break apart. “I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“Pack stuff. Complicated pack stuff.” His hands are on my waist, sliding lower. “I should have explained. I was going to explain. And then you walked into my classroom wearing that-”
“You like it?”
“I want to tear it off you with my teeth.”
“That would be expensive.”
“I’ll buy you a new one.” His mouth finds my neck, biting down just hard enough to make me gasp. “You’re playing with fire, darling.”
“I know.”
“You’re a menace.”
“Probably.”
“A hazard.” He’s walking me backward now, toward his desk, the alarm still screaming in the background. “I should cite you. Write you up. Have you expelled for arson.”
“Arson?”
“Of my entire nervous system.” He lifts me onto the desk, stepping between my legs, and I can feel how hard he is through his pants. “You asked about knotting in front of my entire seminar.”
“I was curious.”
“You were trying to destroy me.”
“Did it work?”
He answers by pulling my shirt over my head.
“We shouldn’t do this here,” I gasp as his mouth finds my collarbone. “The building is being evacuated-”
“Fire drill.” He unclasps my bra with one hand. “Happens once a month. We have at least fifteen minutes before they clear the building.”
“Is that enough time?”
He looks at me, eyes burning gold, and smiles. “For what I have planned? We’ll make it work.”
He pushes me back onto the desk, papers scattering, a stapler clattering to the floor, and drops to his knees.
“Milo-”
“Shh.” He pushes my skirt up around my waist, pulls my underwear down my legs. “Let me taste you.”
His mouth finds my center, and I stop thinking entirely.
The alarm howls.
Milo’s tongue works me with a focus that borders on cruel, licking and sucking and teasing until I’m writhing on his desk, one hand tangled in his hair, the other braced against the wood to keep from sliding off.
“God - yes-”
“Quiet.” He adds two fingers, curling them hard. “Whole department’s outside and you’re dripping down my hand. Filthy girl. My filthy girl.”
“The alarm-”
“Good thing no one can hear you over it.”
I come with a cry that’s swallowed by the screaming of the fire alarm, my body arching off the desk, my vision going white.
Before I can recover, he’s standing, unbuckling his belt, freeing himself. I watch through half-lidded eyes as he strokes his cock, already leaking at the tip, and positions himself at my entrance.
“Fast,” he says. “We’re doing this fast.”
“Yes - please-”
He pushes in with one hard thrust, and I scream.
The desk shakes with the force of his movements. Papers fly. A cup of pens tips over and scatters across the floor. He fucks me like we’re running out of time, which, technically, we are, his hips snapping forward with urgent, desperate precision.
“You drive me insane,” he grunts. “Absolutely insane.”
“Good-”
“Walking in here with that neckline-”
“You liked it-”
“Asking about knotting-”
“Educational purposes-”
“I’ll show you educational-”
He hitches my legs higher, folds me nearly in half, and drives into a spot that makes me forget the fire alarm, the building, my own name.
“There - god, right there-”
“Yeah?” He pounds into that spot, relentless. “That what you wanted when you asked your scholarly questions?”
“Milo-”
“Say it.” His hand finds my clit, rubbing in tight circles. “Say what you wanted.”
“I wanted - ah - I wanted you to look at me-”
“I’m looking.”
“I wanted you to want me-”
“I always want you.” His pace increases. “Every second. Every minute. You’re all I think about-”
“Then why were you distant-”
“Pack stuff.” He’s close, I can tell by the tension in his jaw, the strain in his voice. “Stressful pack stuff. Not about you. Never about you.”
“Promise?”
“On my crown.” He kisses me, hard and desperate. “Now come for me. Come on my cock while the fire alarm covers your screams.”
I come around his cock with my teeth in his shoulder to keep from screaming the walls down.
The orgasm rips through me, and I feel him follow, his whole body tensing, his cock pulsing inside me. And then the knot swells, locking us together, and we’re both gasping, laughing, pressed together on his desk while the alarm screams bloody murder around us.
“We’re insane,” I pant.
“Completely.”
“We just had sex during a fire drill.”
“Best fire drill I’ve ever experienced.”
He’s still catching his breath, shirt half-buttoned, looking so smug and so thoroughly wrecked that I want to throw something at him and climb him again in equal measure.
“Someone could have walked in-”
“They didn’t.”
“The fire department-”
“Will clear the building in about ten minutes. We should be fine by then.”
I look at him, disheveled, panting, looking at me like he can’t believe his luck, and feel the knot behind my ribs let go.
“You really weren’t avoiding me?”
“I was stressed.” He presses his forehead to mine. “Pack politics. The council. Nothing to do with us.”
“You could have told me.”
“I know. I should have.” His hands cup my face. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
“You promise?”
“I promise to always tell you when I’m stressed. And I promise to never make you feel like I don’t want you.” He kisses me softly. “Because I always want you. Every version of you. Even the version that asks about knotting in front of my students.”
“That was good?”
“That was torture.” He grins. “Do it again sometime.”
The alarm finally stops, leaving my ears ringing in the sudden silence.
“We should get dressed,” Milo says. “Before the all-clear.”
We separate reluctantly, and I realize my shirt is inside out. My bra is hanging from his desk lamp. His hair looks like someone’s been pulling it, which, to be fair, I was.
“My shirt is backward.”
“Your shirt is backward,” he confirms.
“And you have-” I look at his neck and start laughing. “You have a love bite. A very visible love bite.”
He touches his neck, finds the mark, and smiles. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Let the other girls see.” His eyes meet mine, possessive and warm. “Let everyone see I’m taken.”
My heart stutters.
Taken.
But what are we, exactly? Are we together? Dating? Is “ritual partner” the same as “girlfriend”? Do lycans even have girlfriends, or is it all fated mates and bonding ceremonies?
The questions crowd my head, but before I can ask any of them, there’s a knock at the door.
“Building’s clear, Professor Draven,” a voice calls. “Fire department’s done.”
“Thank you,” Milo calls back.
He finishes adjusting his clothes, smooths his hair back into place, and looks at me.
“We should probably leave separately. For propriety.”
“Right. Propriety.” I’m still buttoning my shirt. “I’ll wait a few minutes.”
“Okay.” He moves toward the door, then pauses. “Lynn?”
“Yeah?”
“Tonight. My apartment. We need to talk.”
Something in his voice makes my stomach clench.
“Talk about what?”
“Everything.” His expression is serious now, all the playfulness gone. “There are things I should have told you. Things about us. About what you are to me.”
“What I am to you?”
“More than you know.” He opens the door, glances back. “I’ll explain everything tonight. I promise.”
And then he’s gone, leaving me alone in his office with swollen lips and a racing heart.
Things about us. What you are to me.
The words echo in my head as I fix my clothes, as I slip out into the hallway, as I walk across campus with my shirt probably still slightly crooked.
He’s going to tell me something. Something big.
I should be excited.
So why do I feel like the other shoe is about to drop?