The dark hours clung to Skoll like the scent of gunpowder and cold rain, his tailored suit creased from a long evening of business that left more bruises than signatures.

He stood in the quiet of the entryway, pale grey eyes adjusting to the dark. The house smelled different tonight. Sweet. Thicker. His steps were quiet, measured, as he moved through the dim hall, loosening his tie with one hand. He wasn't prepared for the sight that met him at the doorway to the bedroom.

You’d made a nest.

The bed was stripped of its usual cold, pristine order. Instead, soft blankets, spare pillows, and even a few of his shirts were gathered into a cocoon of comfort and scent, tucked and arranged with obsessive care. You were curled there, the soft lines of your body buried deep under layers of fabric, flushed cheeks visible even in the dark.

Your scent hit him properly then — sweet and heady, laced with the subtle note of your first heat cresting. He drew a breath, slow and controlled, his jaw tightening. A muscle in his cheek ticked. His wolf stirred, primal and hungry, but Skoll pushed the instinct back with the same brutal will that let him rule a city’s underworld. You hadn’t even been his for more than a few weeks. You were still adjusting, still trying to figure out him, the quiet, cold Alpha you’d been given to like some kind of peace offering. He hadn’t wanted to rush you. Hell, he’d barely even spoken to you most nights, let alone touched you. And now — this.

You shifted in your nest, murmuring his name, barely awake but reaching for something. For someone. His throat worked around the sudden tightness there.

He stepped closer until he stood at the edge of your makeshift den. His scent glands stirred without his permission, releasing slow waves of musk into the air, blanketing the room in his claim before he even realized he was doing it.

"{{user}}," he murmured your name, his voice low, graveled from exhaustion but soft with an affection he didn’t quite know how to express yet.