His Student, His Mate

The Mate Bond

Chapter 2

Ryker

I'd lived a hundred and fifty years, and in all that time, I'd never lost control.

Not during the Wars. Not through decades of hunting. Not even when my wolf clawed at my ribs, demanding release.

Control was everything—the only thing separating me from the monsters humans feared in their bedtime stories.

And then Aria Pierce walked into my lecture hall, and control became a word I barely remembered.

I sensed her before I saw her—caught her scent the moment I opened the door. Vanilla and something wild, like night-blooming jasmine. My wolf went instantly, viciously alert. Every instinct I'd spent centuries mastering roared to life, primitive and demanding.

Mine.

For a moment, I froze with my hand on the doorknob, my entire body locking up as the mate bond slammed into me with the force of a freight train.

This was impossible.

I'd had a mate once. Ophelia. She'd died a hundred and twenty-six years ago, torn apart by hunters who discovered what we were. I'd held her as she bled out, felt our bond shred into nothing, wanted to die with her.

The Moon Goddess only blessed each wolf with one fated mate. Everyone knew that. When your mate died, you lived the rest of your immortal life alone—half a person, forever incomplete.

I'd spent nearly a century believing I'd had my chance at happiness and lost it. Had convinced myself that the hollowness in my chest was permanent, that I'd never feel whole again.

And there she was, sitting in the back row wearing jeans and a soft sweater, completely unaware that she'd just upended my existence.

I forced myself to scan the room like always, professional and detached. But when my eyes found her, everything inside me went still—then exploded into chaos.

Dark hair that caught the light. Sharp, intelligent eyes. A mouth curved in curiosity and defiance. But it wasn't her beauty that made my wolf surge against its cage.

It was recognition. Absolute and terrifying.

The Moon Goddess had given me a second chance. Something that shouldn't be possible. Something that went against everything I knew about our kind.

I should have looked away. Treated her like every other student.

Instead, I held her gaze and watched her pupils dilate, her breath catch, her fingers tighten on her pen. She felt it too, even if she didn't understand why.

My first mistake.

The lecture was an exercise in self-discipline I hadn't needed in decades.

I could hear her heartbeat—that steady rhythm that jumped and quickened whenever I came near her row. Could smell the subtle shifts in her scent when something I said affected her. Every cell in my body tracked her movements, her attention, the way she leaned forward and stopped taking notes entirely.

For years I'd cultivated a reputation for disliking prolonged eye contact. Students learned quickly not to stare too long. It was a defense mechanism—the more someone looked, the more they might see that flash of gold, that predatory stillness that marked me as other.

But with her, I wanted her eyes on me. Wanted her to look and look until she saw everything I was hiding.

Dangerous thinking.

"Werewolves," I heard myself saying, "are often reduced to mindless beasts in modern media. But the original legends describe something far more complex."

I was talking about myself. Teaching a room full of humans about what I actually was, watching my mate absorb every word. The irony would have been funny if it wasn't so terrifying.

A student in the third row raised her hand. "Professor Wolfe, why do you think every culture developed some version of the werewolf myth? It seems too universal to be coincidental."

"Because some of them were real," I wanted to say.

"Because humans have always feared what they can't control," I said instead. "The idea that someone could be both human and animal, both familiar and monstrous—that plays on our deepest anxieties about trust and identity."

My gaze drifted to Aria. She was watching me with an intensity that made heat prickle behind my eyes.

When I mentioned the mate bond—that instant recognition that defied logic and ethics—her pulse jumped so sharply I nearly lost my train of thought.

She felt it. Maybe she was telling herself it was just attraction, but some part of her recognized what was happening between us.

By the time I dismissed the class, heat burned behind my eyes and my hands were clenched to keep claws from extending.

I should have let her leave. Should have put distance between us before I did something catastrophic.

I called her back instead.

"Miss Pierce."

She turned, and up close she was even more devastating. I could see the flutter of her pulse at her throat, smell fear and attraction mingling into something that made my wolf want to soothe and claim her simultaneously.

I made myself lean casually against the desk while every molecule in my body screamed to close the distance between us.

"Political science," I said, as if I hadn't memorized every detail of her file last night. Dean's list every semester. Refugee advocacy volunteer. Debate club president. Twenty-one years old and completely, devastatingly human.

When she lifted her chin, unafraid despite the tension radiating off her, something in my chest tightened.

"I like understanding what people believe," she said. "Myths shape culture, culture shapes politics."

The defiance in her tone made my wolf bare its teeth in approval. She wasn't fragile. Wasn't easily cowed.

Of course she wasn't. The Moon Goddess wouldn't give me a mate who couldn't handle what I was.

"Idealism can be dangerous," I said, straightening to create space, "especially when confronting truths that challenge your view of the world."

A warning wrapped in academic rhetoric. The only one I could give her.

We stood five feet apart, the air charged between us. I could smell the conflict on her—ethics warring with curiosity, the part of her that knew she should leave fighting the part that wanted to step closer.

My wolf wanted her closer too. Wanted to touch her, mark her, make sure every other male on this campus understood she was taken.

Instead, I dismissed her. Watched her walk away, noting the curve of her neck, the unconscious grace in her movements.

Then I let my wolf rise close enough that heat prickled behind my eyes—gold flickering through brown for just a second. Long enough for her to see, if she was paying attention.

The only warning I could give without words.

"Don't believe everything you've been told about myths," I said. "Some legends are more real than you think."

The door closed, but she lingered in the hallway. I could hear her heartbeat through the wood, smell her confusion mixed with jasmine and vanilla.

I gripped the edge of my desk until wood creaked.

She was my student. She was human. And I was a predator masquerading as a professor, every boundary I'd built to keep my secret safe crumbling the moment the mate bond snapped into place.

The bond didn't work like human attraction. It was absolute, undeniable. Now that we'd been in the same room, it would only grow stronger. More insistent. More impossible to resist.

I pulled out my phone.

We have a problem.

Marcus's reply came within seconds. What kind of problem?

He'd known me since before the Wars. Had been there when Ophelia died, had stopped me from following her into death.

I found her. She's in my class.

Three dots appeared, vanished, reappeared.

Fu*k.

I shoved the phone in my pocket and moved to the window. Students crossed the quad in small groups, laughing, living their ordinary human lives. They had no idea creatures like me walked among them. That their myths were real, that monsters taught their classes.

Aria Pierce was probably out there right now, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Trying to rationalize the pull she'd felt.

My wolf wanted to track her scent. To find her, guard her, make sure she was safe.

The urge was so strong my muscles ached from restraint.

Thirteen weeks. Thirteen weeks of standing in front of her, smelling her scent, hearing her heartbeat, wanting her with an intensity that made the last century feel meaningless.

My phone buzzed.

What are you going to do?

I looked out at the autumn campus, at all the humans living in blissful ignorance.

Stay away from Aria Pierce. Keep my distance. Protect her from the truth of what I was.

Nothing. I'm going to do nothing.

Another lie to add to the centuries of them.

Because the mate bond didn't accept distance or noble intentions. She was mine, written into my DNA, and sooner or later, she would be mine in truth.

The only question was whether I'd be strong enough to resist until she was ready.

Or whether my control would finally, catastrophically fail.

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass.

This was going to get messy.