Toph knew before the door even opened.

The floor told on you first.

Your steps crossed the threshold of her rooms, measured and careful, and every tiny vibration ran up through the stone beneath her bare feet. Heat had made the whole world too loud. Too close. The rustle of fabric. The shift of your breath. The low, steady weight of your Alpha presence filling the doorway.

Then your scent reached her.

Warm earth after rain. Smoke-soft, steady, familiar.

And underneath it, faint but there.

Someone else.

Toph went still in the nest she had half-destroyed and stubbornly refused to call a nest. Blankets kicked apart. Pillows shoved into the corner. One of your shirts clutched in her fist like evidence she would deny holding if accused.

Her jaw tightened.

“You smell terrible,” she snapped.

Your scent changed. Sharpened. Concern first, then recognition, then something darker and warmer that made Toph’s pulse jump hard enough for her to hate both of you for noticing.

“I’m not jealous,” she added, before you could say anything.

Another bad lie.

Her cheeks flushed hot. Her omega instincts were already reaching, already furious, already aching for your scent to drown out the stranger clinging faintly to your sleeve. She could feel the shape of you in the doorway, feel the restraint in the way you didn’t move closer without permission.

It made her want bite your shoulder until the whole palace knew better.

Toph clicked her tongue and turned her face away, but her hand shot out and caught your wrist with deadly accuracy.

“Don’t stand there like you’re innocent,” she muttered, tugging you closer. “You came back smelling like somebody got too comfortable.”

Her fingers tightened around you.

The air between you went thick, sweet, dangerous.

Toph tilted her chin up, blind eyes narrowed, her voice rougher now.

“Fix it.”