Chapter 4
The next few days passed in a blur.
Ian didn’t speak to me. He didn’t even look my way. It was as if that moment in the woods never happened.
But I couldn’t forget it.
His words echoed in my mind, again and again—“If fate made you mine, no one else gets a say.” My heart would skip every time I remembered the heat of his breath on my skin. And yet, here he was, ignoring me like I didn’t exist.
Maybe I imagined it. Maybe I dreamed it.
By the third day, I couldn’t take the confusion anymore. After classes, I cornered Abigail and confessed everything.
She stared at me like I’d just told her I met the moon goddess herself.
“He what?” she whisper-yelled.
“I know,” I said, hugging my bag to my chest.
“And now he’s ghosting you?”
I nodded. “Like nothing happened.”
Abigail groaned. “Okay, first—this is big. Second—you have got to be careful, Ava. If people find out… I mean, if Ian really thinks you’re his mate…”
“I don’t know what he thinks,” I cut in. “I don’t even know what I think.”
She softened. “Do you want him to be?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My heart screamed yes, but my head warned me of everything else—of my mother’s words, of my place in the pack, of the way people looked at me like I was nothing.
That night, I stayed up late, flipping through one of my old notebooks. I used to write when I couldn’t sleep. I found a poem I wrote years ago—one about being invisible. About wishing someone would see me.
And now someone had.
But was that worse?
The next morning, things only got more complicated.
I was walking through the quad when I heard yelling. Two boys were fighting near the gym. A crowd had already formed, cheering them on. I tried to avoid it, but I heard one name that made my stomach twist.
“Ian!”
I turned. He was in the middle of the chaos, holding another boy by the collar, eyes wild with fury.
“Say it again,” he growled.
The boy looked terrified. “I—I didn’t mean it like that—”
“I SAID SAY IT!”
“I said… you could do better than some loser omega! That’s all, man!”
Gasps. Whispers. All around me.
He heard them.
Ian let go of the guy, who crumpled to the ground, coughing. Then his eyes swept over the crowd—and landed right on me.
Time froze.
Everyone turned to look.
My heart dropped into my stomach.
He started walking toward me, fast. Focused. Dead silent.
I panicked. Turned to leave.
But it was too late.
He grabbed my wrist—not hard, but firm. “Come with me.”
“Ian—” I whispered, but he was already pulling me away from the crowd.
He didn’t stop until we were behind the gym, alone. Only then did he speak.
“I’m not hiding it anymore,” he said.
“Hiding what?”
“You.”
My heart thudded against my ribs.
He looked at me like he was about to fall apart, and somehow, I knew—it wasn’t just lust. It wasn’t just possessiveness. It was real.
“I don’t care who sees,” he said. “You’re mine, Ava. And if I have to fight the whole damn pack to prove it, I will.”