"Figured I'd find you here," Austin said, stepping inside Camden's classroom. A few students were gathered around Camden's desk, but they lost all interest in their teacher when they saw their beta come in. Austin motioned with his head towards the door and they all trickled out, looking at Ryleigh over their shoulders. She was leaning against her desk, pretending not to have noticed his entrance.

She was talking to Carry, who was standing in front of her, her history book clasped against her chest as though it was something precious rather than one of the most despised objects in her life. Carry hadn't taken Ryleigh's betrayal – because belonging to Golden Dawn certainly counted as treason of the highest order – very well, though still better than Austin had expected. It would be an exaggeration to say she had already forgiven Ryleigh for being the enemy, but after a few days she had cooled down enough to stop blaming Ryleigh for all the transgressions of her pack. It helped that Ryleigh was the only exciting thing to have happened since forever.

"Hiya there," Carry said, taking note of Austin and beaming at him the way she always did.

Ryleigh didn't greet him with the same kind of enthusiasm, but she smiled at him when his eyes met hers. It could have been his imagination, but lately that smile had even seemed genuine.

"Good afternoon, Beta," Camden said, gathering his notes in a stack and tapping them against his desk to align them. "I haven't seen you in my classroom this much in years."

"I did always like it in here," he said.

"I remember." He glimpsed at Ryleigh. "He always used to hide out here, pouring over books and avoiding his responsibilities."

A smirk tugged at one corner of Ryleigh's mouth and her eyes flitted over him, coming to rest on his face. "Why am I not surprised?"

"I didn't hide from my responsibilities," Austin said, progressing further into the room.

"If you say so." Camden picked up his books and clasped them under an arm. "Well, I have a meeting with Ellis in a few minutes. Stay as long as you like."

"I'll walk with you," Carry said, sending Austin a wink before dashing out of the room. She gave the guards in the hallway a chipper greeting in passing.

Austin turned and nodded at the guards. They quietly retreated, leaving Austin and Ryleigh alone in the room and quite possibly the building.

"So, what did you need me for?" Ryleigh asked.

"Nothing. How was class?"

"It was good. He talked about Crimson Claw and all their failed rebellions. I like them."

He swallowed a chuckle. "Of course you do. They're sworn enemies of King Alder."

Ryleigh flashed him a grin and his heart fluttered, then sank. She sat down on top of the desk, kicking her feet. Sitting there, in the classroom, on that school desk, fidgeting like a teen, it was hard to remember the half-feral she-wolf he'd met in the Royal Prison. Surely this wasn't that woman.

"Any enemy of Alder has my respect," she said.

Alright, so maybe she was.

She raised her hands above her head and stretched, shaking her hair out of her face. Her scent enveloped him and he swallowed.

"You shouldn't speak like that about your king."

Her relaxed expression turned stern, her eyes burning with her wolf's passion. "He is not my king. I will never bow to him."

Austin glanced around him. He knew they were alone, but if she was going to talk like that, he'd better double check. If Ellis overheard her, he might turn her in to Alder again. Not that Austin would care, of course. But still.

"You can't speak like that."

"Just so?" Her legs stopped their wiggling, and her innocence washed away in the tide of her anger. "Then I guess I shouldn't say I hate his guts either? Or that I would like to sever his head from his body and feed him to feral rogues?"

He pushed a slow sigh past his lips. "Stop."

"What if I don't? Will you rat me out? What if I say that if I ever see him again, I'm going to kill him?"

"Stop." He stepped closer.

She threw her hands up. "Why? Why should I stop? He didn't stop. I've begged him. Did he tell you that? Me. I've begged him. I've begged him to kill me and he wouldn't even give me that." Her gaze pierced his and chased the air from his lungs. "I don't beg. I never beg." A breath escaped her. If it weren't for the mate bond, he might have believed her rage. Their connection bared the fear and pain beneath her words.

She raised a hand to her head, as if to cover her eyes, but balled it into a fist before it got there. "He took my pride, Austin. My pride was all I had left and he took it."

"I know," he said, grasping her wrist and pulling her hand down. His fingers traced the faint scars circling her wrist, a reminder of the chains she'd worn – chains he had put on her. His eyes flitted up. She was staring down at his hand, bewilderment lining her features. One moment, she allowed his touch. Then she pulled back.

"I don't want your compassion."

He sighed, his hand falling back to his side. "Look, I'm not saying Alder did the right thing in hurting you, but you can't talk about our king like that. He's our ruler, whether you like it or not."

"I don't like it." She pressed her lips together. "He's cruel and yet everyone loves him."

"You don't know him the way we do."

"You don't know him the way I do. I don't care how nice he's been to you. I don't care how good you think he is. You've never writhed on the floor in your own vomit, while he stood there and asked questions like there was any way you even had the breath to answer, let alone the presence of mind to form a coherent sentence. You haven't trembled in fear with half a dozen men standing around you, waiting for his order to silver you again. You haven't –" She broke off harshly and slid off the desk, slipping past him and pacing to the other side of the room. She halted there, standing with her back towards him.

He approached her, his footsteps the only sound in the room. "Hey." He reached for her, his hand resting on her shoulder. She shrunk away from his touch, but still let him turn her around. He might not even had noticed if she weren't that pale, but the rims of her eyes were tinged slightly red – the only testament of the tears she would never let herself cry in front of him.

His hand travelled upwards, cupping her face. She blinked, eyes fluttering down to his hand. He expected her to draw back, but she didn't. Her face fitted perfectly in the palm of his hand, like the Goddess had shaped his hands for that purpose alone.

Her gaze found his. There was such depth to the blackness of her eyes. In the light of the setting sun, her eyes revealed themselves to be more of a dark grey, like the sky right before a thunderous storm breaks out. It fitted her.

There was something eerily familiar to her features. The freckles scattered around her nose and across her cheeks revealed a pattern that he somehow knew like he'd painted them onto her skin himself. Her eyes were guarded, but he saw through them; saw the emotion that lingered underneath. He hardly knew her, and yet he knew her like he had never known anyone. He found comfort in that, for some reason he couldn't explain. But then he couldn't really explain any of it.

The mate bond was such an odd thing. He wondered what could possibly have moved the Goddess to have come up with something as ridiculous as soulmates. What did she even base her bonds on? Did she grab two souls at random and smash them together? No conscious thought could have gone into pairing him off with Ryleigh. There had never been two people less likely to come together. And yet. 

His lips met hers, or perhaps her lips met his. Her scent creeped around him, drifted into his very brain and single-handedly murdered every thought attempting to interrupt the moment.

She pushed him away, gasping for air. "What..." Whatever words she had meant to follow were lost in her shock.

He teetered back, blinking. "I..." He shook his head.

"I can't believe this." Ryleigh swivelled round and made for the door. He grabbed her wrist and stilled her.

"Wait."

She twirled back, confusion and anger marring her features. "No! What was that? Are you crazy?"

"Am I crazy? You were right there, you know."

"But I don't have a lover. O, Goddess." She pulled loose. "What came over you?" 

"I don't know!" he said, raising his hands and dropping them uselessly to his side again. "I don't know. I didn't mean it."

She drew in a sharp breath. "It sure felt like you meant it."

"Well, I didn't. It's just the mate bond messing with us. It was an accident. Just an accident."

"This isn't fair, you know," she said. She turned around again and almost made it to the door this time before he caught up with her.

He slipped past her and filled the doorway. "Who's to say you didn't initiate it?"

"You were the one that came close. You approached me. You touched me. I only have so much resolve."

"Well, so do I."

"This shouldn't have happened." She stressed every word. "This isn't fair. Not to Julie, not to me." She lifted her hands to her head, covering her face. "I just knew this was going to get messy! Why did you think you could be close to me and be with Julie at the same time? Why did you let Ellis trick you into this? You should have sent me away the moment she came back!"

"You know I couldn't."

"That's bullshit. You could have, you just didn't want to. You hide behind 'responsibility' and 'alpha's orders', but the truth is that if you cared enough about your relationship with Julie, you would have sent me away."

"It's exactly because I care about her that I let you stay. She told me to let you stay."

"And if you really loved her, you wouldn't have listened to her."

"I do love her, and you know that. This was just a mistake. A momentary lapse of judgment. She'll understand that."

"O, yes, she'll understand. She's understood from the start."

"Can you stop being so damn cryptic for once!" He was almost yelling, but in his defence so was she – as though an increase in volume would mean a decrease in emotion.

"You and Julie! It was never going to work and you both knew it, but neither of you wanted to admit it. And then I came in and immediately it all felt apart."

"Nothing has fallen apart. She will understand. She'll forgive me."

"Of course she will. She knows what the mate bond can do to a person. And she knows that there's nothing in this world that compares to it. She knows, and she knew long before you did."

"You're crazy. I want her. Not you. I don't care about the mate bond. I don't. I don't want you."

Ryleigh didn't even flinch at the words. "Then go ahead and mate her. After all, forbidden loves are the best kind, aren't they? That's how you survived for so long. Everyone was against you. Rebelling against that gave your relationship the passion it didn't naturally have."

He shook his head, his hands clenching into fists. "You're wrong. She's all I want. She's perfect for me."

"On paper! Goddess, Austin. Why do you think everyone is against you and Julie? Ridge, Ellis, Carry, Sky? It's not because of fate. It's not because they want you to end up with me. It's because they understand that you're only together out of convenience."

"You're wrong."

She shook her head, slowly, tragically. "I'm not the right person to be telling you any of this. Please get out of my way."

"You're right – you're not the right person to be telling me this. Are you jealous? Is that what it is? Is making my life miserable not enough for you? Do you have to drive a wedge between me and Julie?"

"How can I drive a wedge, when there's already a desert between you? Just talk to her, Austin. She knows. Even if she doesn't know she knows, she knows. You found each other because you were lonely, and you want to mate each other because you're afraid of change. You're not together because you love each other, you're together because it's easy. You're going to fall apart the moment it gets hard." She pushed him aside. He let her.

"You're wrong," he said, pouring all his conviction in the words. "We're not going to fall apart."

She paused beside him, glancing up. "Haven't you already?" 

______

A/N: Our fated mates have kissed! Only took them 35 chapters. Talk about a slow burn. Much drama ahead, so stay tuned ;) 

Thank you for reading!