Chapter4 I can smell how wet you are, baby

Ylva's POV

The meeting with Fenrik had left a strange residue I couldn't quite shake.

And Briar had been unsettled the entire time—restless in a way I didn't have a good explanation for—and there was something about the way he looked at me that nagged at the edges of my memory, a familiarity I couldn't place. Which made no sense.

We had never met before today.

I had grown up an orphan, which meant I had learned early how to read a room, how to watch faces, and catch what people weren't saying.

So when I first looked at Fenrik, I hadn't missed it—the faint curl of disdain behind his eyes when they landed on me.

Soren had asked him to look after me while he was gone, and I understood that Soren meant well. But I saw no reason to make something difficult out of nothing. Fenrik didn't want me around. That was plain enough.

And I had no intention of seeking out someone who made it that clear I wasn't welcome.

What stayed with me, heavier and more immediate, was Soren. I turned to look at him sitting beside me, and the weight in my chest pressed down a little harder.

This was the first time he was riding out to war since we had bonded—the first time we would be apart for this long. He carried himself with the easy confidence he always did, and I believed in him, I did.

But belief and worry were not mutually exclusive, and I had been carrying both since the morning.

The car moved forward. I sat with Ivy in my arms. Something was pressing down in my chest. I couldn't name it. I found myself thinking back to the first time I met Soren.

That was the year Greenvine Pack had just signed a grain and wine supply contract with Frostguard. Soren had come back from a campaign, and Frostguard was holding a victory feast.

Our pack sent people over with food and drink, and when it turned out there weren't enough hands, the steward looked over at me and said, "You too."

The hall was full of warriors. Noise, the sharp smell of alcohol, laughter, the clatter of blades against cups—all of it pressing in until my ears rang.

I kept my head down, carried the wine jug from table to table, tried not to draw attention, and tried to take up as little space as possible.

Then I reached Soren's table.

He was sitting at the head of it—gold hair, broad shoulders, the dust of the road still on him, but his posture easy, his head turned to say something to the man beside him. I leaned in to pour his wine, my wrist just lifting, and he turned around—

Our eyes met.

I don't know how to describe it. It wasn't a racing pulse or heat in my face. It was something quieter and deeper than that—like a string that had been pulled taut for a very long time, finally going slack.

Briar lurched to her feet inside me, and then—stopped.

No snarl. No hackles. She just stood there, nose slightly raised, eyes wide, as though she couldn't quite believe what she was sensing.

My hand shook. The jug tilted.

He reached out and steadied my wrist.

"It's alright." His voice was low, his eyes still on mine. "Take your time."

I thought about it afterward and decided that was probably the moment I lost any chance of walking away.

As time passed, his gentleness and persistence wore through my defenses, little by little. I fell in love with him. Genuinely. Whenever anything happened, he was the first person I thought of.

Ivy headbutted me under the chin. I came back to myself.

"What are you thinking about?" Soren asked, watching me with that unhurried ease he carried everywhere. "Don't worry. I've never lost."

"I know," I said. "I was just wondering—how did you and Fenrik become friends? You're nothing alike. I can't imagine you share many of the same interests either."

"We were in the same class at the academy." He leaned back in his seat, easy. "That man—if you don't go to him, he will never come to you. I spent the better part of half a year making overtures before he actually looked at me."

I tried to picture it and couldn't quite suppress a laugh.

"After that, we both went back to our own packs, but we stayed in contact through pack business and capital affairs." He paused. "Over time, it turned into something closer than that."

I made a small sound of acknowledgment. In my mind, unbidden, those pale blue eyes came back to me.

Fenrik was nothing like Soren—where Soren ran warm and easy, Fenrik was all clean, cold lines, the kind of face that didn't invite approach. Striking in a way that was almost severe, like something carved rather than born.

I found myself wondering, with a detachment that surprised me, whether the rest of him matched that same controlled precision—or whether, beneath all that composure, he was built anything like Soren.

Whether he was longer or thicker, or which one of them would win if you put them side by side.

The thought arrived before I could stop it, and between my legs, I was already wet.

Soren inhaled beside me. A beat of silence. Then I heard the smile in his voice before I saw it.

"Well," he said, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me in with that insufferable ease of his, "someone's restless—and don't bother denying it. I can smell how wet you are, baby. Your body's already telling me exactly what it wants."

My face went hot.

He leaned close to my ear. "I've been busy. Two days, if I'm counting right. Want to make the most of the time we have left? So you're not too lonely while I'm gone."

"Soren—"

"I'm serious. Practical, even."

But the flush on my cheeks was only half embarrassment. The other half was something closer to alarm, crawling up the back of my throat.

What is wrong with me? Had I just gone into heat thinking about Soren's friend—a man I had met once, a man who clearly wanted nothing to do with me? What kind of person does that make me?

I pressed my lips together and said nothing.