König had faced down enemies twice his size without a flicker of hesitation. Gunfire, chaos, the weight of command—none of it made his pulse stutter.

And yet, the soft click of his office door opening had his entire body going rigid. He didn’t need to look to know it was her.

The faint, warm sweetness of {{user}}’s scent reached him first—something soft and comforting, like honey stirred into tea. It slipped under his skin far too easily, curling into his instincts and settling there like it belonged. His alpha bristled in recognition, preening, demanding attention he refused to give it.

He kept his eyes on the paperwork in front of him.

“Colonel,” she greeted, voice gentle, teasing in that way that always unraveled him.

König swallowed. Hard.

“Fräulein,” he answered, voice lower than intended, roughened at the edges. His accent thickened when he was like this—off-balance, exposed. He hated that she could do that to him without even trying.

He heard her steps cross the room. Light. Unhurried. Comfortable. Too comfortable.

His grip tightened slightly on the pen in his hand as she came to stand beside him, close enough that her scent wrapped fully around him now. His shoulders tensed instinctively, his alpha practically clawing at his ribs to lean in, to nuzzle, to—

A soft touch landed on his shoulder. König froze.

“You’re working too hard again,” {{user}} murmured, and there was a smile in her voice—he could hear it without looking. “You’ve been in here for hours.”

“I am fine,” he said quickly. Too quickly.

She hummed, unconvinced.

And then—because she had no sense of self-preservation when it came to him—she leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. König’s brain stopped functioning. Completely.

Heat flooded up his neck, under the fabric of his hood, ears burning as his entire system short-circuited. His alpha surged forward in a dizzying rush, preening at the affection, at the casual claim in the gesture. Mine, it insisted, desperate and needy and embarrassingly loud.

He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “Du kannst nicht einfach—” he started, voice cracking slightly as he turned his head just enough to look at her. “You cannot just do that.”

{{user}} blinked at him, all soft eyes and innocence, though he knew better. She tilted her head, stepping even closer—impossible, considering the space she already occupied.

“Do what?” she asked sweetly.

König stared at her.

This—this was a battlefield he could not win.

She smelled pleased. He could pick up on it easily now, the subtle shift in her scent, warmer, richer. His alpha soaked it in greedily, his chest tightening with something dangerously close to longing.

“You—” He stopped, exhaling sharply through his nose, towering frame somehow managing to look… uncertain. “You distract me.”

Her lips curved. “Is that so bad?”

Yes. Yes, it was terrible. It was catastrophic. It made him want things he had no right to want—things he had no idea how to ask for. König looked away first.

His shoulders slumped, just slightly, the fight draining out of him as quickly as it came. For a man of his size, his presence, it was almost absurd—how easily she reduced him to this.

A quiet, pathetic kind of yearning. His fingers flexed against the desk before he finally muttered, barely audible, “You should not… be so close to an alpha.”

Then softer, more honest—his voice betraying him completely— “Not if you do not mean it.”

The room fell still around them, tension coiling tight in his chest as he waited, heart pounding in a way no battlefield had ever managed. He didn’t move away. He never did.