The Professor's Mate Clause novel Chapter 140

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

AURORA’S POV

Three weeks before the transport, before the briefing folders and my parents’ matching worried faces, there’s a festival, and a night I still haven’t told anyone the full truth about.

I think about it now, watching the territory blur past the window as Kai reviews logistics beside me, because it’s easier than thinking about what’s waiting for us in Ashveil. So I let myself go back to it, the last night I had before all of this became real.

The Unity Festival had been going for six hours and I’d shaken what felt like four hundred hands.

“You’re doing the smile again,” Kai had said, appearing at my elbow with two drinks. He’d handed me one without asking if I wanted it, which was fair, because I did.

“What smile?”

“The one that says you’re two seconds from setting something on fire.”

“I don’t have a smile like that.”

“You absolutely do. Mom has the same one.” He’d grinned. “Go take a break. I’ll cover for you.”

I’d slipped away before anyone could catch my sleeve, out past the pavilion where the music was loudest, down toward a row of taverns at the edge of the grounds. For one night, I wasn’t standing next to my parents. I wasn’t wearing the crest. I was just a woman in a plain green dress who wanted a drink that didn’t come with a toast in her honor.

The tavern I’d picked was loud and a little grimy and exactly what I was looking for. I’d ordered whiskey, which I don’t even like, because it felt like the kind of thing you do when you’re trying to prove something to yourself.

That’s when I’d seen him.

Dark hair pushed back like he’d run his hands through it too many times. A jaw that could cut glass. And when he’d glanced up and caught me staring, his eyes had been silver…actual silver, pale and bright even in the low light.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he’d said.

“Excuse me?”

“Whiskey neat. You’re wincing every time you drink it.” He’d nodded at my glass. “That’s not enjoying a drink. That’s punishing yourself.”

“Maybe I like being punished.”

The words had come out before I could stop them, and something had flickered across his face-

Chapter

– Bonus

surprise, interest, both. He’d picked up his own drink and crossed the room like he had all the time in the world.

“I’m Kade,” he’d said, sliding onto the stool beside me.

“Just Kade?”

“Just Kade.” He’d studied me a second too long. “You don’t want to tell me your name either. I can see it on your face.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No. It’s refreshing.” Something almost soft had crossed his expression. “Everyone here wants you to know exactly who they are. Whose son, whose daughter, whose territory. You didn’t even flinch when I said ‘just Kade.”

I hadn’t told him what I wanted that night… one evening where nobody needed anything from me-but somehow he’d understood it anyway. *I’m very good at not needing things from people,* he’d said, leaning close enough that I caught the scent of him, pine and something darker underneath. *Tonight you’re not anybody’s daughter. You’re just a woman who doesn’t like whiskey and won’t tell me her name

“One night,” I’d said.

“One night,” he’d agreed.

We’d ended up in the forest at the edge of the festival grounds, because it was quiet there and neither of us wanted to go back toward the noise. I remember the moon high and full through the leaves, and the way he’d stopped walking once the music faded to a distant hum.

“Second thoughts?” he’d asked.

“No.” I’d stepped closer, close enough to hold his eyes. “Are you?”

“None.” His hand had come up to my jaw, slow, giving me every chance to pull away. I hadn’t. I just wanted to be sure.”

I don’t let myself finish the memory. Not the parts after that… his mouth on my throat, the low sound he’d made when I arched into him, the way I’d fallen asleep against his chest without ever learning his last name. It’s not useful right now. It’s not relevant to anything.

“You’ve been staring out that window for twenty minutes,” Kai says, snapping me back. “You okay?”

“Fine. Just thinking about the briefing.”

“Uh-huh.” He gives me a look I don’t love. “You’ve had that same faraway face since the festival, you know. Whatever happened that night, it’s still rattling around in there.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Sure.” He doesn’t push, which I’m grateful for, and turns back to his tablet, scrolling through Ashveil

273

Opter 2

+15 Bonus

border reports.

I look back out the window, at the mountains rising in the distance, sharper and wilder than anything in Council territory. Somewhere past that ridge line is Ashveil Wilderlands, a court full of Lycans who’ve spent twenty years refusing everything my parents built.

I tell myself the man from the festival has nothing to do with any of it. He was just a stranger. One reckless night, already fading into something I’ll think about fondly in a few weeks and then mostly forget.

I almost believe it, right up until the transport crosses the border and the forest outside the window turns dense and dark and achingly, impossibly familiar.

Comments

Support

Share

Chapter

+15 Bonus