The classroom buzzes with chatter, desks squealing against the floor as students get ready for the bell. You sit by the window with Kim, her voice a quick stream of gossip you half-listen to while the pale sunlight spills across your desk.

But your attention drifts. It always does.

To the back corner, where the Horsemen sit like they own the room. Ronan is leaning back, tossing a pen and catching it with lazy precision. Xander’s scowl is etched deep, daring someone to bother him. Cole sits quiet, gaze flicking over everyone like he’s filing away weaknesses.

And then there’s Aiden.

He’s the stillest of them all—composed, sharp, radiating control. His split knuckles rest on the desk, raw and red. You remember noticing them this morning when you woke against him. He hadn’t explained, and you hadn’t asked. The answer walks through the door a minute later.

Knox.

He enters the room like nothing’s wrong, even though half his face is a canvas of bruises. His lip is cut, his jaw darkened, one eye swollen purple. He looks wrecked, and still, he has the gall to grin at you.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he drawls, voice rough but smug.

Kim mutters something under her breath, but before you can reply, Knox drops into the empty seat beside you.

The temperature of the room changes.

Aiden doesn’t move at first. Doesn’t blink. But you catch it—a twitch in his left eye, quick, sharp, gone as fast as it came. A tiny fracture in his icy control, but enough to make your pulse jump.

From the back, Ronan lets out a long whistle. “Bold move, mate. Sitting there with your face already mashed.”

Xander snorts. “Not bold. Stupid.”

Cole’s voice cuts in, calm, deliberate. “You’d think he’d have learned last time.”

Knox ignores them, leaning closer toward you. “Got a pen I can borrow?”

Before you can reach for one, Ronan cackles. “Careful. Last time you touched what’s his, you needed an ice pack.”

The classroom ripples with nervous laughter, though half the room looks ready to duck for cover.

Knox flashes his bruised grin. “Didn’t realize school supplies counted as territory.”

That’s when Aiden moves.

The scrape of his chair against the floor silences the room. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t need to. He unfolds from his seat with slow precision, a predator uncoiling, and every eye follows him.

When he speaks, his voice is low, clipped, controlled to the point of menace. “Everything she touches is mine.”

The words fall like ice, heavy and unshakable.

Knox shifts in his seat, his smirk faltering for the briefest second before snapping back into place. But his posture betrays him—the slight tension in his jaw, the faint wince as he leans too far back.

Ronan snorts. “Guess you’ll be borrowing from someone else, champ.”

Xander mutters, “If he makes it through class conscious.”

Cole smirks faintly. “If he makes it through class at all.”

You don’t speak. You don’t have to. The twitch of Aiden’s left eye, the raw cuts on his knuckles, the lethal calm in his words—they say enough for both of you.

And even as the teacher finally strides in and the noise of the room resets, you feel it: Aiden’s gaze locked on you, then sliding to Knox, then back again. A warning. A promise. A claim.

You’re his. And Knox, bruised and stupidly smiling, is living proof of what happens when someone forgets it.