Mated to my target

No one’s omega

DRAVEN'S POV

The territory maps were spread across my desk, the border report also stacked beside them, the ink still wet on three letters I had started and abandoned. I had not absorbed a single word of anything in front of me.

The third letter was meant for the council. I had written the date, the salutation, and then sat there with the pen hovering over the parchment like a fool, because somewhere between the greeting and the first line, my mind had gone back to her again.

My mind kept going back to her, not deliberately, I tried my best to focus, but it simply wasn't working.

I kept seeing the way she looked in that cage. Pale. injured. Dark hair loose around her face. And those violet eyes, God, those eyes, so deep and captivating, finding mine like something in her recognized in something in me.

I had carried hundreds of wounded wolves in my life, but I had never once felt what I felt the moment I lifted her.

My wolf wasn't helping, it had been restless since the night before, pacing, circling, wanting nothing more than to catch her scent again.

I kept pushing it down, but it kept coming back. And when it comes back, it shows me things, Flashes I had not asked for and couldn't seem to stop.

The way her breath had steadied against my chest when she finally stopped fighting consciousness. Her scent beneath all the blood and dirt burned itself so deep into me that I had no idea how to get it out.

I wasn't going to give it what it wanted.

I have a pack to lead. Borders to protect. A council is already watching my every move. I had spent years building something solid and I wasn't going to let it crack because of a woman in a cage.

A knock pulled me back before I could sink into my thoughts any further.

Two quiet taps. I knew that knock, I had been expecting it since dawn.

Lily.

"Come in," I gestured toward the door.

She closed the door behind her without a sound and stood at the centre of the room in the same pale blue dress she had been wearing when I came back from the war, hands folded in front of her, with a composed posture.

She had those dark patient eyes that Lily Ashveil was famous for, fixed on me.

She looked tired underneath the composure. Not physically, Lily was too disciplined for that to show.

She looked like a woman who had been holding something heavy all day and had finally decided to put it down, whatever the cost may be.

I felt guilty before she could utter a single word.

"Before I say anything," She began, " I need you to know that I am not here to make this harder than it already is."

She walked slowly to the window and stood with her back to me, like the words had cost her more than she wanted me to see.

"She is a war collateral," I said immediately, aware of the direction she was already heading. " A rescued slave. Nothing more than that."

"War collateral, Draven?" Her voice was still.

"You carried war collateral yourself, through the entire compound. Past Cael, past Garrison, past every warrior you have trained specifically to handle situations like that. You carried her yourself and you rode for hours with her in your arms and you stayed in that recovery room longer than any Alpha stays for war collateral."

She turned from the window and faced me fully.

"We have been married for years and you have never looked at me or anyone the way you look at that girl, Draven."

There was nothing I could say. She had not accused me, she hadn't exaggerated. She had simply laid my own actions in front of me and she wasn't wrong and we both knew it.

The silence that followed was the loudest thing in the room.

I looked at the fire, looked at the maps on my desk, and I looked everywhere except at the woman standing staring at me, dismantling every defense I had with nothing but the truth.

"I cannot explain it," I said finally.

"I know," She responded, " I know you cannot. I do not even think you understand it yourself yet." She was quiet for a moment.

"But I need you to understand something, Draven, Every person in that courtyard saw your face when you rode through that gate. Every person in that recovery room saw how long you stayed. I am not the only one who has questions.

I still did not respond.

Lily crossed the room and stopped just beside my desk. She did not push further than that.

"I am not asking you to fight it," she said quietly. "I am asking you to be careful. Because the pack is watching. And whatever this is, it cannot be allowed to make you reckless."

She moved toward the door. And then she stopped.

Her hand rested on the frame and she did not turn around, but her voice came back to me one last time, low and deliberate, the way it always was whenever she wanted to make her point noted.

"Don't forget the promise you made to my father, Draven." She didn't wait for my response and walked away.

The door closed and the room went quiet and I stood there with those words settling over me like ash after a fire.

The promise, the one I had made to a man who looked at me like I was the last person in the world he still trusted.

I had told myself that by morning the pull would settle and my wolf would quiet and everything would return to the way it was before I rode through those gates with her in my arms.

I had almost believed it.

Lily's words came back to me, soft. deliberate. Dropped like a stone that fell into still water.

I knew what the promise meant and I knew what it would cost me to break it.