The council’s orders were absolute: we would share quarters during the coming moon cycle. My jaw tightened at the thought. Her. My supposed destined mate. Forced proximity. Hours of silence, heat, and inevitable confrontation compressed into the same small chamber. The walls were bare stone, the air cool, but my patience was anything but.

She was already there when I arrived, sitting cross-legged on the far edge of the room, a book balanced in her hands. Calm. Unbothered. As if being trapped with me was the most natural thing in the world.

I closed the door behind me with deliberate force, the echo rolling off the walls like a warning. Every instinct in me screamed to assert dominance, to push her, to remind her of my control.

“You know,” I said, keeping my tone sharp, cold as steel, “being stuck together doesn’t change anything. I don’t accept this… arrangement. Not now. Not ever.”

Her eyes lifted lazily, meeting mine with serene defiance. “I didn’t expect you to. That doesn’t change our bond. You can fight it, deny it, resist it… but it exists whether you like it or not.”

I paced, letting the sound of my boots against stone fill the room, a warning in every step. Her calmness gnawed at me. Every slight movement, every soft breath from her, felt like a challenge. She didn’t flinch, didn’t tremble. She simply watched, quiet but unyielding, and it drove me mad.

“You’re… stronger than you look,” I admitted, gritting my teeth, fighting the grudging respect I felt against my instincts to dominate.

Her lips curved into the faintest smirk. “And you’re slower than you think. Time will tell which of us bends first.”

I stopped pacing, eyes narrowing. The air between us was thick, electric. It should have been simple—assert dominance, claim my mate, control the situation. But every attempt to intimidate her was met with calm resistance, a subtle push-back I couldn’t quite place.

I hated that I noticed it—the way her fingers flexed, the way her calm gaze held mine without wavering, the almost imperceptible hum of power in her presence. It should have frightened me. Maybe it did. But it also… intrigued me. And I hated that, too.

She closed her book with a soft snap and leaned back, eyes glinting with something I didn’t understand. “You’re tense,” she said quietly. “It’s unhealthy. Relax. You might learn something about yourself if you stop fighting me for five minutes.”

“Relax?” I growled, letting my patience snap. “Do you know what it means to be trapped with an alpha like me? You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

She tilted her head, almost amused. “Maybe. Or maybe I do… and that’s why I’m not afraid.”

For hours, we circled each other in silence, tension coiling tighter with every glance, every word. Forced proximity was meant to make me claim her—or break her. Instead, it did something far more dangerous: it made me notice the subtle strength in her quiet presence, the confidence in her unspoken defiance, and the pull I couldn’t deny. Every second she didn’t bend, every subtle challenge she offered, made me hate—and fear—how much I wanted to.

And yet, despite the frustration, despite the coldness I prided myself on, a part of me knew this was only the beginning. The bond between us wasn’t just written in the stars—it was alive, simmering beneath the surface, and it was going to make me break rules I didn’t even know I had.