Patience felt like a slow kind of suffocation.
Three days passed under the elders’ quiet watch, and each one stretched tighter than the last. At home, Tristan’s father remained civil but distant, his eyes tracking us with the careful attention of a man measuring risk. My mother tried to soften the edges—small smiles, quiet check-ins—but even she couldn’t erase the tension that now lived in the walls of the Alpha house. We were being observed. Evaluated. Allowed to exist together only as long as we didn’t disturb the surface of the pack.
At school the rules were clearer and somehow harder.
No unnecessary contact.
No lingering.
No giving anyone a reason to carry stories back to the elders.
Tristan followed the letter of the agreement. He did not touch me in the hallways. He did not
