Mine In The Dark

The First Break

Elara woke with the phantom feeling of Riven’s hand on the doorframe above her head.

She lay still for a long time, staring at the ceiling, replaying the way he had leaned in, the roughness in his voice when he gave her one last chance to take her words back, and the almost pained sound he made when he forced himself to step away. Her skin still felt too warm. Her pulse still remembered him.

When she finally reached for her phone, there was already a message waiting.

Riven:

Did you sleep?

She stared at the three words longer than necessary before typing back.

Elara:

Not really. You?

The reply came almost immediately.

Riven:

No.

That was all. No explanation. No soft words. Just the bare truth of two people who had spent the night on opposite sides of the same wall, both wide awake and thinking about the same moment.

Elara pressed the phone to her chest and closed her eyes.

She was in trouble.

She found the gift when she opened her door to leave for work.

A small paper bag sat neatly against the doorframe. Inside was a still-warm pastry from the bakery two streets over — the exact kind she always stared at but never bought for herself — and another note written in his sharp handwriting.

Eat something.

You forget when you’re nervous.

— Riven

Elara’s throat tightened. She stood in the hallway holding the bag like it might disappear, the scent of sugar and butter rising between them. Three doors down, Riven’s apartment was silent, but she could feel him. The awareness had become a constant low hum under her skin.

She texted him before she could overthink it.

Elara:

Thank you.

You didn’t have to.

His answer arrived before she reached the stairs.

Riven:

I wanted to.

Four words. That was all. Somehow they felt heavier than an entire conversation.

Maya took one look at the pastry and the note during their morning break and declared a state of emergency.

“He’s feeding you now?” she said, eyes wide. “Elara. This man is in so deep he’s buying you breakfast and telling you to eat because he notices when you’re too nervous to remember food. I’m going to need to sit down.”

Tessa gently pulled the note closer, reading it twice. “It’s… caring. But it’s also a lot. He knows your habits too well.”

“That’s the point,” Maya said. “He’s been watching long enough to learn the small things. The coffee order. The late walks. The way she forgets to eat when her head is full. That’s not casual.”

Elara picked at the edge of the pastry. “I asked him to make me ready.”

Both of her friends went quiet.

Maya recovered first, leaning forward with sudden seriousness. “Okay. New rule. You don’t walk anywhere alone for a while. Not even during the day. Tessa and I will take shifts if we have to. And if he does anything that scares you — really scares you — you tell us immediately.”

“I will.”

Tessa reached over and squeezed her hand. “We just don’t want you disappearing into whatever this is without a safety net.”

Elara nodded, grateful and overwhelmed at the same time. The pastry tasted sweeter than it should have.

Riven met her outside her office building again that evening. He was already there when she stepped out, leaning against the same low wall, dark clothes, bubblegum moving slowly between his teeth. Several people walking by glanced at him and then looked again. He only straightened when he saw her.

The walk home felt different. Charged. Every time the crowd thickened he shifted closer until her shoulder brushed his arm. Once, when a motorcycle backfired loudly nearby, his hand settled on her waist without thinking, pulling her slightly behind him before he seemed to realize what he’d done and released her. The heat of his palm lingered through her clothes.

At her door he didn’t lean in the way he had the night before. He kept a careful distance, but the look in his eyes was heavier.

“You ate the pastry,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“I did. Thank you.”

Riven nodded once. His jaw was tight, like he was holding something back with effort. “I’m going to start checking the building at night. Just for a while. If you hear someone in the hallway after midnight, it’s me.”

Elara’s heart skipped. “Okay.”

He held her gaze for another second, then stepped back. “Lock the door, Elara.”

She did. All of them. Then she stood with her back against the wood and listened to his footsteps move to his own apartment. The quiet sound of his door closing felt final and not final at the same time.

Riven lasted less than ten minutes before he was back against the shared wall.

He pressed both palms flat to the plaster and dropped his forehead against it, breathing hard. The scent of her was stronger tonight — warmer, sweeter, threaded with the nerves she tried so hard to hide. His control felt like a fraying rope. Every kind thing he did for her only made the need worse. Every soft look she gave him only made the treaty feel more like a cage.

He could still feel the shape of her waist under his hand from when the motorcycle had startled her. He could still hear her quiet “thank you” when she accepted the pastry. He could still see the way she had looked up at him in the hallway that morning, eyes open and trusting and far too ready.

Riven let out a low, frustrated sound and pushed away from the wall before he did something irreversible.

He didn’t know that three streets away, Ronan Voss stood in the shadows of an empty lot with a phone pressed to his ear.

“You’re sure?” Ronan asked, voice mild.

The voice on the other end confirmed it. The strongest wolf in the clan had been seen walking the same human girl home two nights in a row. He had scared off one man already. He was leaving gifts. He was breaking the spirit of the treaty even if the letter still technically held.

Ronan’s smile was slow and sharp.

“Good,” he said softly. “Let him keep playing protector. It’ll make it more interesting when I take her from him.”

He ended the call and looked up at the dark windows of the building in the distance.

“Soon, little human,” he murmured. “Very soon.”

Inside her apartment, Elara sat on the edge of her bed with the newest note in her hands, reading it again even though she already knew every word by heart. She reached for her phone, typed a message, deleted it, typed another, and finally sent one that felt both too small and too large.

Elara:

I’m glad it’s you.

The typing bubbles appeared almost instantly, then disappeared, then appeared again. When Riven’s reply finally came, it was only two words.

Riven:

Sleep, Elara.

She smiled at the screen even as her chest ached with everything still unsaid. She placed the note in the drawer with the others, turned off the light, and lay down facing the wall that separated them.

On the other side, Riven sat on the floor with his back to the same wall, phone still in his hand, the message I’m glad it’s you glowing in the dark.

He closed his eyes and whispered the truth he still wasn’t allowed to say out loud.

“I’ve always been yours.”

The first real c***k in the treaty had already formed.

And neither of them knew how fast the rest of it was about to break.