I forced myself to focus on the assignment sheet. Something about enzyme reactions, data collection, a short write-up. Straightforward. Manageable.
"Do you want to split the sections?" I asked finally, glancing sideways at him.
Kaelen leaned back slightly in his chair, scanning the page with unreadable calm. "Could. Or we work on all of it together."
His voice was low, even, the kind that made you listen a little harder.
I tapped my pen against the paper. "Together's fine. Less chance of one of us messing up."
That earned the smallest flicker of something—amusement, maybe?—before it smoothed out of his face.
"Alright," he said. "Together."
We fell into silence again, the hum of the lab filling the space. Other pairs were already talking, arguing, laughing too loudly. Beside me, Kaelen made a neat column of notes in sharp, deliberate handwriting.
I glanced once, then quickly back at my own notebook. "You write small," I blurted before I could stop myself.
He lifted a brow, pen pausing. "Is that a problem?"
"No." I felt heat creep up my neck. "Just… an observation."
Another pause, then the corner of his mouth twitched, like he was suppressing a smile.
We worked in quiet for the rest of the period, trading only the necessary words. But when the professor dismissed us, Kaelen turned to me as he slid his notebook into his bag.
"When do you want to start?"
I blinked. "Start?"
"On the project." His gaze held mine steadily, patient but expectant.
"Oh. Um… tomorrow? Library?"
He nodded once. "Library works."
And then he was gone, moving through the crowd like water parting around a stone, not lingering, not looking back.
I packed my things more slowly, the ordinary noise of the lab rushing back in.
Tomorrow. Library.
I told myself it was just a project. Nothing more.
Kaelen's POV
Partnerships were always trouble.
I'd learned to keep to myself back row of the classroom, corners of the library, shadows at the edge of a crowd. Attention was dangerous. Attention meant questions, and questions led to truths no one here could ever know.
So when Professor Hale said her name, when he said mine alongside it, I almost asked for a reassignment. Almost.
But then her eyes found me.
Serenya Vale.
I'd noticed her before. The night of the bonfire, when the firelight caught her hair and she laughed at something her friend said, though she didn't laugh as loudly as the others.and again in the library where I sat beside her,She'd stayed focused, but every so often, her brow furrowed in thought, and I'd found myself watching longer than I should have.
Now we were partners. By chance. Or maybe not.
She filled the silence in lab with small words—suggestions, observations, the kind of things people said when they weren't sure if quiet was too heavy. Her voice was lighter than mine, her pen tapping against the desk when she thought.
When she said "together's fine," like she trusted me already, something tightened in my chest. People didn't trust me. They weren't supposed to.
I kept my answers short. Controlled. But when she asked if my handwriting was too small, and I caught myself almost smiling I knew I'd already let too much slip.
At the end of class, I asked when she wanted to meet. Practical, simple. She suggested the library. Of course.
As I walked out, I didn't look back. I couldn't.
Because the truth was, I'd already crossed a line just by letting her name stay in my head longer than it should.
I never belonged in a normal family. Not really. My mother had left when I was too young to remember much, and my father… well, he wasn't human in the sense that most people understand. He was a pack leader, the kind who demanded obedience, discipline, loyalty above all else.
I'm not just a werewolf.
I'm the product of a curse older than most of the trees surrounding our forest home. My bloodline every male and female before me was bound to it, marked by a relentless cycle. Strength, yes. Speed, senses that humans couldn't dream of. But always at a cost.
Control wasn't optional.
A misstep, a moment of weakness, and the curse would twist the power into something violent, something uncontrollable. Families before mine had broken under it, turning on each other, on outsiders. The elders called it a test. I called it a trap.
My father trained me relentlessly before he died . "Never let it rule you," he said. "Never let it see what you truly are. Humans are fragile, Kaelen. You cannot afford to be tempted."
College was supposed to be my camouflage. A place to hide in plain sight, to live among humans without ever drawing suspicion. A normal life if "normal" meant constant vigilance, constant restraint, and the gnawing knowledge that one slip could ruin everything.
It wasn't just the curse I feared. I was on the run. Not from the police, not from some faceless enemy from my own kind. The pack I was born into calls itself family, but when blood and power mix, the rules change. They wanted to use me, to bend whatever twisted advantage the curse gave into something savage and obedient. I left because I could not be owned. I left because staying meant learning to kill on command.
my bite can kill members of my own kind. It's not something I say out loud. It isn't a dramatic warning for movies it's a fact that tastes like iron and fear in my mouth. Whether it's the blood, the curse, or whatever old-world rot laced our lineage, the result is the same. I've watched lesser disputes become funerals. I've seen a single reckless act turn a rival into silence. That knowledge makes contact dangerous in a way that ordinary secrecy never could. You don't hug me. You don't reach into my shadow.
So I practice distance the way others practice speech: reflexively, until it becomes second nature. A nod instead of a conversation. A slow step back when someone comes too close. College was supposed to be the place where I learned to be invisible, to file myself into the dull gray of lecture halls and late-night libraries. But then she—Serenya keeps happening in my periphery, quiet and steady and for the first time ever me wanting to distance myself was hard for me.
Serenya's pov
I got a text from Mira just as I spread my notebook out on the library table.
"Don't get too cozy with your new lab partner 😏."
I rolled my eyes, biting back a smile as I shoved my phone face-down. Typical Mira she could turn a biology assignment into some kind of soap opera.
Across from me, Kaelen sat in his usual quiet way, the textbook open but untouched. He hadn't said much since we got here. Not rude, exactly just…silent. Which only made me more aware of him. The way he leaned back in his chair, calm but unreadable, like he was in control of something I couldn't see.
"You're awfully quiet," I said finally, breaking the silence.
His eyes flicked up, dark and unreadable. "Guess I'm just…focused."
I almost snorted at how serious he sounded. "Focused is good. If we start early, we won't have to cram the night before."
His lips didn't twitch, not even a hint of amusement, and for some reason that made me glance back at my notes quickly. Maybe I was trying too hard to fill the silence. Maybe he liked it this way. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that his mind was a thousand miles away.
"Did you want to handle the data collection part, or should I?" I asked, pen poised over the margin.
This time his gaze locked onto mine. Steady. Intense. For a second too long, I forgot what I was doing. My chest gave a weird little flutter, and I hated how obvious it probably looked.
"Data collection works for me," he said, voice calm, even.
I wrote it down quickly, though my pen scratched harder than I meant it to. Something about him made me nervous not in a bad way, exactly, but in the way you get before a big presentation. That jittery, can't-quite-sit-still energy.
I tried not to look at him again, but of course I did. He was watching the book, not me, his expression unreadable. It was like he wore a mask that never slipped.
"So," I said, forcing a casual tone, "do you want to meet here again tomorrow, same time? Or…"
He looked up, and I lost my train of thought for a second. His eyes were darker than I remembered. Not just in color, but in weight, like they carried something heavy I couldn't name.
"Here is fine," he said simply.
I nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear to distract myself. Why did every answer from him feel final, like a door shutting?
I nodded and scribbled it down before Mira's words came back to me. Don't get too cozy.
Yeah, right. Nothing about sitting across from Kaelen was cozy. If anything, it felt like balancing on the edge of something sharp.
Kaelen's POV
Her phone buzzed the moment she sat down. A quick smile flickered across her face before she shoved it face-down, like whatever she read wasn't meant for me to see. Not that I cared. I shouldn't have cared.
But I did.
Every detail about Serenya pulled at me the way she tucked loose strands of hair behind her ear, the way her pen tapped nervously against the margin, the way her scent carried across the table no matter how much distance I tried to put between us.
You're awfully quiet," she said, breaking into my thoughts.
For half a second, I almost laughed. If she knew the storm inside me, she'd call it anything but quiet. Instead, I forced my voice into something steady. "Guess I'm just…focused."
Her lips curved in a smile, soft and fleeting, and I had to look away before my control slipped. Focused, yes. Focused on not letting instinct win. Focused on not letting the faintest part of what I was surface in front of her.
Then she asked about the project data collection, or analysis? A normal question, one anyone could answer without thinking. But when her hazel eyes caught mine, steady and open, I forgot the script I'd rehearsed a thousand times: keep it short, keep it distant, keep it safe.
"Data collection works for me," I said finally. The words tasted strange too normal, too easy.
She scribbled it down, her face bright with determination. She thought this was just about grades, just another assignment. She had no idea how hard I was fighting to stay on the other side of the table, to not let her see the part of me.
For her, this was a project.
For me, it was survival.