Claimed By The Captain

CHAPTER 4 - SIX DAYS TO MAKE IT REAL

Drave was leaning against the wall outside like he had been there all evening and intended to be there all night.

Not hiding. Not pretending. Just there, in the way of something that wanted to be seen, that wanted you to know it had been watching.

He straightened when we came through the door and his eyes went to me first, then to Cael, and something moved between them without words and without any need for them.

Cael didn't stop walking.

"Keep up," he said, quiet, and I kept up.

I didn't look back. The prickling at the back of my neck was something I had a name for now, even if I was still working out the full shape of what it meant. I kept my eyes forward and walked beside Cael through the east campus path, the lights spaced far enough apart that we moved through alternating bands of yellow and dark.

He didn't speak.

Across the lawn, two girls were walking in the opposite direction. One of them saw Cael and slowed, that particular slowing that was less about pace and more about attention, the kind of pause I had watched happen around him a hundred times on this campus without ever expecting to be on this side of it.

Her eyes moved from him to me and I watched her recalibrate in real time.

She kept walking. But she looked back once.

"Your resonance," I said.

"Can everyone feel it. The way you feel mine."

"No. Only Alphas at a certain level sense it. To everyone else you're just a person."

"But to them I'm a target."

"To the wrong ones, yes."

We walked.

"Drave," I said. "How long has he been watching me."

"Since this morning. You lit up to him the moment your ex created a scene and your stress response spiked. Emotional intensity amplifies the resonance

temporarily." He said it evenly.

Informational. "He would have approached you by the end of the week if I hadn't moved first."

I thought about my routines. The print shop.

The early mornings. The predictable pattern of my days, documented and regular as a tide chart.

"I'm not easy to corner," I said.

"I know. It would have taken him longer. Not stopped him."

We reached my building. I turned to face him in the thin light above the entrance.

He was watching me with that careful attention. Not unkind. Not warm, exactly. More like the focus of someone who had decided I was something worth taking seriously.

"The stipend," I said. "How much."

He told me.

I kept my face very still because the number was enough to cover my meal plan, my print shop hours, and three months of commission stress in one move, and I was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing what that meant.

"First of the month," he said. "Separate account."

"And what does being seen together actually look like. Specifically."

"Breakfast Tuesdays and Thursdays, east dining hall. Visible interactions on campus daily. You come to at least two games a month." Something shifted in his expression at that last one.

"The team notices who's in the stands. Pack members on the team will be watching for you specifically."

"Your teammates are werewolves."

"Some. Not all."

I filed that away.

He reached into his jacket and held out a phone. Plain case. Warm from being against his chest, which I noted and immediately set aside.

"Pack-encrypted line. Use it if anything feels wrong. Any hour."

I took it.

"The tribunal," I said. "Six days. What does it actually require."

"A panel of six senior pack members. They'll assess the bond through scent and formal questioning. By day six, if we've been in close enough proximity, you'll carry my scent. To the panel it reads as real because chemically it will be real."

"Close proximity meaning what."

He looked at me steadily. "Sharing a space. Meals together. Being seen leaving the same building. Nothing performed. Performed reads false to us immediately."

"Where do I stay."

"My apartment. Starting tomorrow." He watched my face.

"You have the bedroom. I have the couch. The arrangement is practical, not personal."

"Practical," I repeated.

"Yes."

I looked at him for a long moment. Cael Ashford, who every girl on this campus had tried to reach and none of them had. Standing outside my residence hall at ten at night telling me I was moving into his apartment tomorrow.

"If I'm uncomfortable at any point," I said,

"I leave."

"Yes."

"No argument."

"No argument."

I turned to go inside. I was halfway through the door when the pack phone in my hand lit up. I stopped and looked at the screen.

A message. From his number. Sent while he was standing three feet away from me.

Drave filed a challenge notice twenty minutes ago. Pack tribunal in six days. They'll want to verify the bond is real.

I turned back around. He was still standing there, watching me read it.

"You sent this while we were talking," I said.

"I wanted you to have it in writing."

"What does verify mean. Exactly."

"It means six senior pack members in a room deciding whether what we have is genuine." He held my gaze.

"The primary method of verification is scent. Secondary is observation and questioning. They will be looking specifically for anything false."

I stood in the doorway with the cold coming in behind me.

"And if they find it."

"They won't," he said. "If we do this right."

He said it with the same certainty he probably used when he called plays on the court. Flat and absolute and leaving no room for the alternative.

I went inside and let the door close behind me and stood in the lobby for a moment doing nothing at all.

Six days. One room. A panel of werewolves deciding whether I was convincing enough.

I took the stairs and counted them and when I reached my floor I sat on my bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about forty dollars and a rabbit's coat I had repainted four times this morning, which already felt like it had happened in a different life.