(Amara's POV)

Oh Moon Goddess, what do I do?

The thought screamed through my head in a desperate loop.

I stared at the mark on Alexis's neck. My mark. The bruising was already darkening around the edges, and the sight of it made my stomach drop straight through the floor.

I tried to tell myself this wasn't real.

That I had drunk too much and I was still passed out somewhere on a barstool.

That none of this had actually happened.

"Hey." Alexis's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. "Little healer. Are you even here right now?"

He was still leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me with an expression that was unmistakably amused.

"What's wrong?" he asked, tilting his head slightly. The smirk on his face sharpened. "Don't tell me you're thinking about denying your own handiwork."

My mouth opened. Nothing came out.

He pushed off the doorframe and walked into the room.

He sat down on the edge of the bed.

His scent hit me immediately - cedar and mint, clean and grounding and unbearably close. Every nerve in my body pulled taut.

He tilted his head again, studying me the way a wolf studies something it hasn't decided what to do with yet.

"You do remember who I am, don't you?" he asked.

The question dragged me back.

Five years ago. The Werewolf Academy.

Alexis Storm had been impossible to ignore, even then. Top marks in every subject. Combat scores that made instructors stop and stare. A constant orbit of she-wolves trailing after him wherever he went, like he generated his own gravity.

I remembered my best friend Lucas nudging me once during a training session, nodding toward Alexis with wide eyes.

He's basically a demigod, Lucas had said. You have to admit it.

I had barely glanced up.

Dorian is all I need, I had told him, completely certain.

Lucas had laughed and called me hopeless.

I had thought I was devoted. Loyal. Sure of what I wanted.

Now, sitting in Alexis Storm's bed with his bite mark on display and his eyes fixed on me, I understood exactly how blind I had been.

But that memory opened a different question, one that had been quietly forming in the back of my mind since I woke up.

If he was my fated mate - if this was real, if Cora's reaction last night was real - then why hadn't I felt it five years ago?

We had been in the same building for months. The same training grounds. The same dining hall. Cora had never made a sound. Not once.

Why now? Why here? Why last night, in a dark hallway, when I was half-drunk and falling apart?

I didn't have an answer.

Alexis waved a hand slowly in front of my face.

"Amara," he said, his voice quieter now. "Are you scared?"

"No," I said immediately.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Your heartbeat says otherwise," he said. "It's loud enough to disturb the neighbors."

My face went hot.

I needed to say something useful. Something that demonstrated I was a functional adult who had a plan and was not completely unraveling.

"I can treat the bite," I said quickly. "I'm a healer. I'll clean it properly and make sure there's no scarring. And I can offer free medical services to your warriors - routine checkups, injury treatment, whatever they need. Consider it compensation."

The words came out in a rush.

Alexis went very still.

Then he slowly repeated my words back to me.

"Free medical services," he said. "To my warriors."

The smile he was trying to suppress was losing the battle.

"Do you know," he said, leaning back slightly, "who runs the largest medical network in the Eastern Territory?"

I said nothing.

I already knew where this was going.

"Me," he said simply.

The word landed like a stone.

Of course. Of course he did. The Alpha King of the Eastern Territory, with resources that dwarfed anything our pack could offer, and I had just proposed to compensate him with free checkups.

My face burned so hot I thought I might actually combust.

I pressed my lips together and looked down at the bed sheet. My fingers had found a fold in the fabric and were gripping it without my permission.

"I-" I started.

"Don't," he said, and there was a hint of something almost kind in his voice, which was somehow worse. "It was a creative offer."

I wanted to disappear into the mattress.

But then something shifted.

The amusement in his expression faded.

The easy, slightly mocking energy he had carried since I woke up drained out of the room, and what replaced it was something else entirely.

He sat forward. Both elbows on his knees. His eyes met mine directly, and they were serious in a way that made my spine straighten on instinct.

"I need you to understand something," he said.

His voice was low. Measured. Each word placed with deliberate weight.

"As Alpha King, everything I do is watched. Every movement. Every decision. Every person I'm seen with."

I stopped breathing.

"The packs in the Eastern Territory have been restless," he continued. "Other factions have been looking for leverage - any weakness, any opening they can use. Last night's club had members from at least a dozen different packs in that room."

My fingers tightened on the bed sheet.

"We were seen," he said.

Two words. Simple. Devastating.

I had been so consumed by my own humiliation, by Dorian's voice and the whiskey and Cora's explosion, that I hadn't stopped to think about who else had been in that hallway.

Who might have noticed.

Who might have already started talking.

"Rumors about a mate bond," Alexis said, "spread faster than any other kind. They reach every pack before the sun sets. And a mate bond isn't a private matter - it means alliance, it means power shifting, it means every faction in this territory starts recalculating."

I understood now.

This wasn't just my embarrassment to manage.

This wasn't just an awkward morning after a terrible decision.

This was political. Pack-level political. The kind of thing that could destabilize alliances and give enemies exactly the foothold they needed.

Alexis leaned slightly forward, closing the distance between us by just a few inches.

His voice dropped lower.

"We have to deal with this immediately."