Jason's POV
I could feel the distance Lysa had been putting between us over the past week. She had grown colder—not openly distant, but restrained.
Normally, I wouldn't care.
If someone pulled away, I let them.
If someone lost interest, I lost it faster.
That had always been my rule.
But this time—
I couldn't.
I found myself checking my phone obsessively, waiting for her messages. Driving past the library at odd hours, hoping to catch a glimpse of her through the windows. Making excuses to be near the physics building when I knew her classes let out.
"This is pathetic," I told myself, staring at my phone for the fifteenth time in an hour. "You're acting like a lovesick teenager."
"She's our mate," Crimson rumbled. "Of course, we want to be near her."
"Tha
