The subsequent weeks dissolved into a silent, brutal war of physical endurance and psychological attrition. The campus of the university didn't change its frosty, academic routine, but beneath the surface, the air between Avery and Jake Crescent was constantly burning, thick with a volatile current of mutual resentment and unbridled carnal hunger.
Time fast-forwarded in a blur of forced, suffocating proximity. Avery adhered strictly to her mandate, becoming an inescapable shadow that tracked the True Alpha prince's every single move. She sat adjacent to him in the crowded lecture halls, her posture straight and unyielding, her newly uncovered Lycan scent—sharp mint and crisp winter frost—bleeding deliberately into his personal space as a constant, silent challenge.
For Jake, this constan
