30. Lynn #2
I brace my forearms on the desk and he pushes into me in one long stroke and we both have to bite down on the sound, and then his hand comes up to cover my mouth entirely, his chest against my back, his voice ragged in my ear.
“Every time you licked that thumb,” he grits, hips snapping forward, “I thought about this. Every time. Two months of watching you in that seat, being clever, being untouchable, and knowing-” a thrust that whites out my vision “-knowing you’re mine.
That you go home to my bed. That every person in that room wants what’s already, completely, unarguably mine. ”
“Yours,” I gasp against his palm.
“Say it again.”
“Yours - Milo - I’m-”
“I’ve got you.” His free hand slides down, finds my clit, and the second orgasm hits before I’m ready for it, tearing through me while I sob soundlessly into his hand and he follows a beat later, forehead dropping between my shoulder blades, my name coming apart in his mouth.
We stay like that a moment, both of us wrecked over the furniture of my own education.
“Three more weeks,” he says against my spine, breathing hard, “and I never have to pretend you’re just my student again.”
“You say that like it’s a hardship.”
“It is a hardship. Do you have any idea what it costs me? Watching you across that room, knowing I can’t touch you, knowing that if anyone found out-”
“The scandal would be immense.”
“The paperwork alone would take months.” He turns me back around, tucks a strand of hair behind my ear with a tenderness that’s somehow filthier than everything that just happened. “But god, Lynn. There’s a part of me that’s going to miss this. The wanting-what-I-can’t-have of it.”
“We can pretend,” I say. “Later. When it’s legal.”
His eyes flash gold. “Miss Crowe. Are you propositioning your professor?”
“Constantly,” I say. “It’s a whole thing. You should see the intrusive thoughts.”
He kisses me, and this one is slow, and it tastes like a promise.
That night I take my reading to the great hall, the way I have most nights since the ceremony, three guards asleep in wolf form against my chair, guarding me even in sleep. Isla finds me there with tea and a question she’s clearly been holding. “Do you ever miss it?” she asks. “Being normal?”
“I was never normal,” I tell her. “Broke scholarship kid, ADHD, a hamster with delusions of grandeur. Normal was never on the table.” I take a sip of tea.
“And honestly? I miss parts of it. The grocery store without a security detail. But I found something better. I found this. I found him. I found a family that actually wants me.”
“We do want you,” Isla says, and her eyes go soft. “The whole pack. The bonding just made it official.”
I blink back the sting of tears and go back to my thesis, because it turns out you can fact-check a mythology paper with actual lycans, and it’s a genuinely unfair academic advantage.
Friday comes too fast and not fast enough.
I turn in my final essay, a frankly brilliant analysis of transformation myths across Indo-European cultures, and walk out of the literature building lighter than I’ve been in months.
It might be the best thing I’ve ever written, and the reason it’s the best has nothing to do with him.
Nobody knotted this out of me. No goddess wrote it in moonlight.
I read the sources and made the connections my scrambled, pattern-hungry brain is actually built to make, at two in the morning, with a hamster judging me.
Four years I fought for this degree. In tenth grade they told me I was too stupid to finish high school.
Whatever queen ends up meaning, it’s going to have to make room for the woman who wrote that essay.
My last library shift is a small farewell that turns into a crowd in the reading room and a hand-painted ceramic Mr. Darcy that Diane presses into my hands, because apparently he has, and I quote, main character energy.
Maya’s there in the front, the only person here who knows what I actually am now, she pulls me into a hug and tells me she expects visits, secret werewolf compound or not, and that if the king ever makes me cry she’ll fight him, and we both know she means it.
An hour later, the lecture hall is packed.
Word has spread that Professor Draven won’t be returning next year, that the previous mythology professor is coming back from her European backpacking adventure, and apparently the student body has opinions about this.
Strong opinions.
Grief-stricken opinions.
“I can’t believe he’s leaving,” someone whispers behind me. “He’s the best professor in the department.”
“Did you see what the fan account posted? A literal memorial.”
“Complete with black-and-white photos.”
“And a poem.” A sniffle punctuates it.
“The poem was good.”
I have to look at the ceiling to keep from laughing.
The campus fan account, an anonymous Instagram dedicated to documenting Ashevale’s most attractive faculty, has indeed posted a memorial.
I saw it this morning. There’s a photo of Milo from a guest lecture last month, all dramatic lighting and intense expression, with the caption: In loving memory of our semesters together.
You will be missed, Professor Draven. May your next institution appreciate your bone structure.
There were 1,700 likes in the first hour.
Milo found it “disturbing.”
I found it hilarious.
The door opens, and he walks in.
The whispers intensify.
He’s wearing his usual uniform, dark slacks, white button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbow, but there’s something different about him tonight. A lightness. Like a weight he’s been carrying for months has finally lifted.
His eyes find mine immediately.
Ready?
For what?
The end. And the beginning.
He steps to the podium.
“Good evening,” he says, and the room falls silent. “As many of you have heard, this will be my final lecture at Ashevale. Professor Hargrove is returning from her travels abroad, and I’ll be moving on to… other responsibilities.”
King responsibilities.
Hush.
“I’ve enjoyed my time here more than I expected,” he continues. “You’ve been excellent students. Engaged. Curious. Willing to argue with me about interpretive frameworks even when you were clearly wrong.”
A ripple of laughter.
“For our final topic, I want to return to something we discussed early in the semester.” He pauses. “Fated bonds in wolf mythology.”
My heart skips.
“We’ve talked about transformation. About the beast within. About lunar cycles and the inevitability of change.” His eyes drift to the third row. “But we haven’t fully explored the idea of fate. Of two souls bound together by forces beyond their control.”
The room is utterly silent.
“In the old myths, the fated bond was considered sacred. A gift from the gods. Two beings who were always meant to find each other, no matter the obstacles between them.” He smiles, not his usual restrained professor smile, but something warmer, something real.
“The skeptic might call it coincidence. The romantic might call it destiny. The mythologist calls it a narrative device.”
“What do you call it?” someone asks.
His eyes meet mine.
“Lucky,” he says. “I call it lucky.”
The lecture continues, but I barely hear it.
I’m too busy feeling, the bond humming between us, warm and certain. The future spreading out ahead like an open road. The knowledge that this chapter is ending, but the story is just beginning.
When the final minute arrives, Milo sets down his notes.
“That’s all I have for you,” he says. “Thank you for a memorable semester. Thank you for your questions, your insights, your truly creative interpretations of the reading assignments.” A pause. “And thank you for reminding me why I love this subject.”
The class applauds.
He gathers his materials, says a few final words to students who approach with questions, and eventually makes his way toward the door.
He doesn’t look at me as he passes.
He doesn’t have to.
Through the bond, clear as speech: Meet me at the car. We’re going home.
Home?
Home.
I wait until the room clears, then walk out into the evening air.
His last lecture is done. The double life is over.
And somewhere in the distance, the compound is waiting.