Third Person Narrative:
Night had not yet reclaid its stillness when the knock ca again.
Selena had barely settled against her pillows, her thoughts still racing of her encounter with Silas, when the sound echoed through her chamber once more. It was softer this ti, but no less deliberate.
Her body tensed instantly.
For a brief and disbelieving mont, she wondered if Silas had returned. Had he reconsidered? Had suspicion taken root despite her careful performance? The thought made her pulse quicken.
She rose from the bed again, the floor cool beneath her feet, and approached the door with far more caution than before. This ti she did not rely on sound alone.
She inhaled.
The scent that t her was not sharp and controlled like Silas’s. It was warr, edged with forest air and sothing distinctly wilder.
Edris.
Her hand tightened briefly on the handle before she opened the door.
He stood there in the dim corridor light, his broad shoulders casting a long shadow against the stone wall. His dark hair was slightly disheveled, as though he had run his hand through it repeatedly. His expression was calm on the surface, but there was sothing firm beneath it, sothing coiled.
"What was he doing here?" Edris asked without preamble.
His voice was low, controlled, yet threaded with restrained intensity.
Selena stepped aside to let him in and closed the door behind him. "He ca to test ," she replied simply.
Edris turned toward her fully, his brows drawing together. "Test you? How?"
"He wanted us to be intimate," she said evenly. "He thought it would prove sothing."
The words settled heavily between them.
Edris’s jaw tightened. "So he touched you."
It was not a question. It was a demand for confirmation.
She hesitated — not because she was ashad, but because she knew what the answer would do to him.
His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth, as if imagining it.
"Yes," she answered, eting his gaze without flinching. "He did."
The air shifted.
"And you allowed it?" His voice sharpened despite his effort to restrain it.
"I did not have much of a choice," she said quietly.
"There is always a choice," Edris insisted. "It begins with not opening the door."
She exhaled slowly. "If I had refused to answer, he would have grown suspicious. He would have made a scene. That would not have kept safe."
"It would have kept him from touching you," Edris replied, his control slipping just slightly. "It would have kept from walking past your door and catching another man’s scent on you."
The space between them grew taut.
He had told himself he would not react like this. He had told himself he trusted her judgnt. Yet the mont the foreign trace reached him, sothing territorial had risen in his chest.
She had not realized he had been near enough to notice.
The tension in his posture was unmistakable now. His hands were clenched at his sides, his shoulders rigid, as though he were restraining sothing far more primal than irritation.
"I did not invite him," she said softly. "He walked in before I could refuse."
"And you could not push him away?"
"And confirm his suspicion?" she countered gently. "You know as well as I do that he ca looking for weakness."
Edris looked at her for a long mont, the fire in his eyes warring with reason.
Then, as if recognizing the unfairness of his tone, he drew in a slow breath and looked away briefly.
"I should not have raised my voice," he said at last, quieter now. "That was not my intention."
She stepped closer, her expression softening. "I understand how this must feel for you. For all of you. But I am doing the best I can with the position I am in."
He lifted his gaze to hers again. The anger had not disappeared, but it had shifted into sothing deeper and more complex.
"I do understand," he said. "I know what you are trying to protect. I know why you answered the door. But you must understand sothing as well."
She waited.
"Even if we understand the position you’re in, even if we respect the strategy behind it, you are still our mate," he said, his voice lowering. "You’re ours, Selena. Of course it gets to when another man cos close to you. Especially him."
His honesty was raw in a way Silas’s affection had never been.
"I understand," she said quietly.
"What did you say to him that made him stop?" he asked.
"I told him I was in my cycle," she replied.
"Are you?"
"No," she said calmly.
For a mont neither of them moved. The distance between them felt charged, heavy with unspoken thoughts and restrained instinct.
Then Edris stepped forward and drew her into his arms. His hand slid into her hair before he caught himself.
The movent was not calculated. It was instinctive.
His embrace was firm but not possessive, his hands settling at her back as though anchoring himself as much as her. She felt the tension in him gradually ease as he held her.
"You should have told he was coming," he murmured against her hair.
"I did not know," she replied softly.
He tilted her chin upward, his gaze searching her face for any lingering distress. Finding none, he bent his head and kissed her.
The contrast was imdiate.
Where Silas’s touch had felt rehearsed and distant, Edris’s kiss was unguarded and real. There was heat in it, but also restraint, as though he were constantly aware of her comfort, waiting for the smallest sign that she wished him to stop.
She relaxed completely beneath his touch, her hands rising naturally to rest against his chest. The steady strength of him, the absence of calculation in his movents, allowed the tension that had lingered in her shoulders to dissolve.
The kiss deepened gradually, unhurried, the world beyond the chamber fading into insignificance.
When at last she pulled back slightly, it was not from reluctance but from awareness.
"Soone might walk in," she whispered.
Edris glanced toward the door as if considering the possibility. Without releasing her entirely, he crossed the short distance and turned the lock with a quiet click before returning to her.
"They can’t," he said gently.
She searched his face. "You look like you need sothing," she teased, a smile hanging on her lips.
"I need my mate," he replied in a voice that carried warmth, but also sothing deeper, sothing that had been held back too long.
The words did not feel like a performance. They did not feel like a claim spoken to assert dominance or soothe wounded pride.
They felt honest, stripped of calculation, and that honesty sent a different kind of heat through her.
Edris stepped closer, his hands sliding from her waist to rest at her hips. His touch was steady, grounding rather than demanding.
He did not pull her abruptly toward him. He gave her the space to close the distance herself.
And she did.
Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt as she drew nearer, her body fitting naturally against his. There was no revulsion, no need to mask her reaction. The contrast between the two encounters was so stark that it almost startled her.
Where she had forced stillness beneath Silas’s touch, she felt her muscles soften now without effort.
"You are certain?" he asked quietly, his forehead brushing against hers.
She understood what he was truly asking.
Not whether she desired him.
But whether this was about reclaiming sothing after Silas’s presence had lingered in the room.
She rose on her toes and kissed him first.
"I am certain," she answered.
Her fingers slid beneath his shirt, slow and certain.
Whatever control he had walked in with began to unravel.
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