Freya’s POV


    +8 Pearls


    Ss‘ body stiffened when my words left my lips. His head, which had been bowed low, lifted slowly until his eyes locked with


    mine.


    “I don’t make jokes about things like this,” he murmured, his voice low, raw. His gaze–dark as the abyssal depths of the sea we’d just fought against–reflected only me. “Freya, I don’t know if what I feel for you is what you’d call love, but I know this -when I realize there is someone I cannot lose, I name that feeling love.”


    My breath caught. His wordsnded heavy in my chest. Could he mean… me? Was he saying he could not lose me?


    “Perhaps at first,” he continued, his tone almost confessional, “you were simply interesting. A spark I couldn’t look away from. You didn’t abandon me when danger loomed, and that made me want to keep you close. But when I saw you throw yourself into the sea after that child… something shifted. Everything changed.”


    Ss leaned closer, the shadows sharpening the nes of his face until he was all predator, all Alpha, his presence swallowing


    the air between us.


    “I felt fear. Terror, The bone–deep dread that you would be taken from me. I don’t ever want to feel that again. And before I even realized what I was doing, I was in the water after you.” His voice grew husky, brushing my ear, vibrating against my skin..


    “I was following you, Freya. Always following you.”


    My heart mmed in my chest at the desperation threaded through his tone. His dark, lupine eyes gleamed with hunger, with need.


    “So give me a chance,” he whispered, almost pleading now. “Be mine. I’ll treat you well. Everything I am, everything I have–I willy at your feet.”


    His voice cracked like smoke and spellcraft, thick and intoxicating. Dangerous, addictive. And gods help me, to hear such words from a wolf like him–from Ss Whitmor, the Irond Alpha himself–was shattering. He was the one wolves whispered about in fear, the one enemies broke against like waves on stone. And now he spoke to me with a raw humility, almost supplicant, as though I were the one who held power.


    My heart gave a painful stutter.


    I forced myself to steady, to breathe, to think.


    14


    “We’ve barely known each other,” I said, tamping down the pulse racing beneath my skin. “And already you speak of love? Of giving me everything? Don’t you think that sounds… reckless<b>?</b><b>” </b>


    “Time has nothing to do with it,” he replied without hesitation, his words striking with Alpha certainty. “There are wolves who fall in love in a single heartbeat. One nce, and they are mated for life.”


    I lifted my chin, unwilling to yield to the storm of his conviction. “That’s not love, Ss. That’s lust. A spark of flesh, nothing


    more.”


    His eyes red, feral and unyielding. “Not for me. If I look at someone once and know they are mine, that will never be desire alone. It will be forever. A bond, unbreakable.”


    “You speak in absolutes,” I countered, though his certainty left me rattled.


    “The Whitmor line has always loved this way.” His voice softened, but the weight of truth pressed heavy in it. “Even my father -damn him though I may–loved my mother until his dying breath. She was gone, but he never looked elsewhere. He remained bound to her, heart and soul, until the end.”


    His gaze snapped back to mine, sharp as a de. “And I… I know I carry the same curse, the same devotion.”


    Then, like a caress, he spoke my name again. “Freya.” The way he said it, rich and low, sank into my bones. “Understand this -it isn’t even sudden for me. Not truly. Not lightning at first sight, but something that has grown in the shadows between us. Day by day, moment by moment. Perhaps it would’ve been easier had it been immediate. At least then I wouldn’t have wasted time pretending I could ignore it.”


    I bit down lightly on my lip. His nearness burned. Too close. Close enough that every exhale of his breath skimmed across


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    my cheek, searing the edges of my control.


    “Day by day.” I echoed, my voice softer than I intended. “Ss, we’ve barely had that many days together at all. Whatever you feel now–it could be nothing more than a rush, an illusion sparked by adrenaline. You jumped into the sea beside me, and now your blood is singing too loud to tell the truth from the fever.”


    He didn’t even blink. “Then tell me this. If weeks pass, months pass, and I still feel the same–will you give me what I ask?”


    The steel of his tone shed against the fragile, traitorous beat of my heart. I lifted my eyes to him, holding his gaze with mine, refusing to be cowed.


    “No,” I whispered.


    His eyes flickered, shadow cutting across their depths. “Because you don’t love me.”


    “Yes,” I admitted. “I don’t. Not like that. I told you already–I only just severed myself from Caelum Grafton. The Lunar Severance Phase is barely behind me. I’ve bled for years in that bond, Ss. I have things I need to rebuild, dreams of my own I must chase before I surrender my heart again. I don’t want to step into another tangle of passion so soon.”


    The words left my mouth firm, final. And yet the silence that followed quivered between us, alive.


    “You should dry your own hair,” I added, desperate to steer the storm elsewhere. My hands were still wrapped in the towel draped over his head, caught against his, trapped by the weight of him.


    I moved to pull away. But Ss’s hand snapped up, covering mine with his own, holding me there. His touch was firm, searing, tethering.


    “I will not stop you from doing what you need to do,” he said, his voice a rasp against the quiet. “Pursue your path, chase your ambitions. But let me be your shield. Your spear. I will walk at your side, shoulder to shoulder, through every fire. I will bind my life to yours, in blood, in battle, in storm. Whateveres, I will not betray you. Not now, not ever.”


    Every word struck like thunder in my chest.


    Those were my words. The ones I had spoken, long ago, about what I dreamed love would be. A wolf who would not falter. A wolf who would not abandon me.


    And he had remembered. All of it.


    I froze, breath caught sharp, unable to mask the tremor that ran through me.


    “Or is it,” he whispered, eyes dark and solemn, “that I truly am what <b>I </b>feel?”


    The question cut like a de, straight into me.


    “No,” the protest burst from me before I could stop it.


    unworthy? That no matter


    As a p


    His eyes, which had dimmed with shadow, red suddenly bright. “Then you will love me?”


    you could never return


    storm


    Heat scalded my face. My throat locked, words tangling. <b>I </b>coughed lightly, trying to reim ground, to steady the storm inside.


    “I only meant,” I stammered, forcing the words past the rush in my chest, “that you are not unworthy. Alpha Ss… you are many things, but never that.”


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