After the touch
852 Words
The courtyard was empty but the air didn’t clear.
Cedar and ice clung to my skin. His scent. The fake mark pulsed like it had a heartbeat now. Like his palm had woken it up.
We walked back in silence. Six feet between us. The same distance he kept during heat. The same distance he shattered in front of fifty wolves.
“Don’t,” Zevran said when a guard stepped forward. One word. The guard retreated.
" excuse us". Then he turned to me: “Come.”
His quarters was Cold stone. But the air felt used. Like the room remembered what happened in the courtyard and couldn’t forget.
He poured water but Didn’t drink. Back still to me.
“The ink won’t hold forever,” he said. “Heat, sweat and with time it will fades.”
“Fourteen days,” I said. “It’ll have to.”
I touched my neck. Skin hot. Mark dark. “Mara smelled the difference.”
“She smelled hesitation,” he corrected and Turned. His Eyes silver looking tired. “You didn’t give it to her. Neither did I.”
“Didn’t we?” The words came out raw. “You touched me like you meant it. Like your palm wanted to stay there.”
His jaw locked. He crossed the room in two steps. Stopped at three feet. Same rule. But his heat hit me harder than any scent before.
“You think I wanted to,” he said calmly but Rough. “You think I liked being forced to put my mouth at your throat, my hand on your skin, while they all watched?”
The word _mouth_ made my knees weak. Heat flashed through me, low and traitorous. Not the moon. Him. The memory of his thumb dragging over the mark, slow, like he was memorizing it.
“I think your body didn’t care it was a lie,” I whispered.
Something in his eyes broke. Just for a second. Hunger. The Alpha he kept chained.
He moved closer. Two feet now. Close enough that his heat washed over me. Close enough that I could feel his breath on the mark.
“Don’t,” he said. But his voice wasn’t steady. “Don’t say things like that when the moon is still in your blood.”
“Why not?” My pulse hammered against the fake mark. Under his gaze it burned hotter. “You felt it too. When your palm covered me. The world went quiet,Just skin. Just you.”
His hand lifted. Hovered at my jaw. Didn’t touch. The air between us went thick. Heavy. Like the moment before a storm breaks.
Zevran was still. But I could see it — the tension in his shoulders, the way his nostrils flared at my scent. Omega in heat two days gone, marked by his hand, standing too close in a locked room.
One inch. That’s all it would take.
My body leaned forward without permission Not much with a breath. But his eyes dropped to my mouth. Then back to my eyes. And he stepped back.
Like he hated himself for wanting it
“Stop,” he said. Voice like gravel. “This is how Omegas die, Veyra. They mistake restraint for invitation.”
My chest rose and fell too fast. The mark throbbed. My skin wanted more of that pressure. More of him. Biology didn’t care about contracts.
“I’m not asking you to claim me,” I lied but it was Truth. Both. “I’m asking if it felt real to you.”
He turned to the window. Hands gripping the stone ledge until his knuckles went white.
“It felt like fire,” he said finally. “It felt like I wanted to press you to the wall and remind every wolf in that courtyard that you were mine. Even though you’re not. Even though you never will be.”
The confession hit harder than the touch.
A knock from the door interrupted,Three hits. Mara.
“Lord Alpha. Diner is served ,The pack waits.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched until my skin prickled.
“Understood,” he said at last. Voice flat again. Mask back on.
Footsteps faded.
He faced me his Eyes cold but he looked Controlled. But his scent said otherwise. Cedar, sharp with want.
“Dinner,” he said. “At my side. No flinching. No leaning. You’ll let them look and smell and doubt, and you won’t give them a reason.”
“What about this?” I touched the mark. Still burning.
“Cold water,” he said. “After dinner Not now,If you wash him off now, Mara will know.”
He meant his scent. _Him._
I swallowed and Nodded. Turned to leave before I did something stupid like close that last two feet myself.
At the door I paused. “When you touched me… did you want to stop?”
He didn’t answer. The silence was answer enough.
The mark burned all the way to dinner. And fourteen days felt like a death sentence.
- Writer
