Chapter 59: [R-18] Three Girls Found Out About Dani And I Had To Sleep Somewhere Else

Soren made it four steps inside the dorm before the temperature dropped. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Selah sat on the edge of his bed, hands in her lap. Frost crawled up her forearms in patterns that looked pretty but definitely weren’t.

Maren leaned against the wall with her arms folded tight, fox ears flat back.

Grimm stayed under the desk, head down, pretending she had nothing to do with any of this.

"So?" Selah asked.

She said it flat, the way she always did, but the air around her sat six degrees colder than it had any right to.

"The archivist."

"Dani," Soren said.

"I know her name."

Maren’s tail whipped once against the wall. "Her moth bonded you in the archive room while we were dealing with other shit."

"Selah was in the infirmary. You were with me."

"I was with you until you picked the archive over coming back here."

"I didn’t pick anything. The moth had my name on it and it found me."

"That’s worse!" Maren said.

The frost on Selah’s knuckles thickened.

The shadow under the desk shifted.

Yara’s voice slid through the bond, quiet enough that only Soren heard it.

*The moth’s frequency is threaded into your network now. I can feel her.*

"I know," Soren muttered.

Selah looked at him sharp. "Who are you talking to?"

"Yara."

The temperature dropped another two degrees.

Maren pushed off the wall. "What does the system say about her index?"

"One out of seventy-five. Indirect pathway."

"Seventy-five." Maren’s ears pressed flatter. "That’s not even our cap."

"Her bond runs through the moth. Different rules."

"Different rules?" Maren repeated it like she was tasting something sour. She paced to the window, turned, paced back. "So she gets her own special lane."

"I didn’t write the rules."

Selah stood up. The frost stayed on the bed where she’d been sitting, a thin sheet catching the light.

"You went to her before you came here."

"I went where the moth pulled me."

"Same thing."

Soren looked at the three of them. Maren pacing with her tail lashing. Selah icing the furniture. Grimm under the desk while Yara’s shadow coiled tight beneath her.

Three different temperatures all pulling in different directions.

"I’m sleeping in Joan’s office tonight," he said.

Nobody answered for a couple seconds.

"No," Maren said.

"That’s not better," Selah added.

The shadow under the desk stirred.

"I need one room where nobody’s trying to rewrite the thermostat with their bond." Soren grabbed his jacket off the chair. "Joan’s got a couch, I’ll be back at seven."

Maren blocked the door.

Soren looked at her.

She looked back.

"Move."

She did.

Maren’s tail brushed his hip on the way past and the heat from it lingered on his skin down three hallways.

◆◆◆◆

Joan’s office at eleven sat quiet. Same desk, same emptied filing cabinet, same thermos.

Joan was still there, reading from a folder, sleeves rolled to her elbows, hair down.

She looked up when he came in. "Do you need something?"

"Couch."

She didn’t ask why. Just stood, pulled the latches, and the couch folded out into a thin military mattress.

"Bureau standard," she said. "Every field office has one."

She went back to her desk.

Soren lay down. The mattress felt exactly as bad as it looked.

Joan’s pen scratched across paper. She wrote notes by hand, lamp the only light in the room.

After twenty minutes she stood, stretched, then moved the chair closer to the couch so the lamp hit the folder better.

She sat there reading.

Soren closed his eyes.

The scratching stopped at some point.

He opened them again. Joan had fallen asleep in the chair, head tilted, folder slipping off her knee. Her left hand hung over the armrest, two inches from his arm.

He could feel the warmth coming off her skin.

Neither of them moved.

He closed his eyes again.

◆◆◆◆

Soren woke up at six-fourteen with Joan still there.

She’d shifted during the night. The chair had been too uncomfortable so she’d ended up on the edge of the pull-out couch beside him, back against the wall, legs stretched out.

Her thigh pressed lightly against his.

The room was dark except for the thin line of light under the door.

Soren lay still, but his body had other ideas.

The warmth of a woman that close after everything hit him hard. Blood rushed south and he felt himself get hard, pressing against his pants.

Joan stirred.

Her eyes opened halfway. She looked down, saw the obvious shape, then looked at his face.

"Natural reaction," she said quietly. "Healthy young guy with a woman close, nothing to be ashamed of."

Soren didn’t know what to say.

Joan shifted closer. Her hand moved without hurry, resting on his thigh first, then sliding up to his cock.

"You don’t have to—"

"Shh." She freed him with practiced ease, fingers wrapping around. "Let me handle it."

She stroked him slow and steady, thumb brushing over the head on each pass. The couch creaked softly under them.

Soren’s breath caught.

"Does this... happen often? With other students?" he managed.

Joan gave a low chuckle, still working him.

"Are you jealous?" She squeezed a little. "No, you’re the first one I give a handjob on a couch."

She kept the rhythm even, watching his face.

Soren lasted longer than she expected but not by much.

When he came she caught it with a tissue from her desk without missing a beat.

She wiped her hand clean, tucked him back in, and settled against the wall again like nothing had happened.

"Did you sleep well?"

"No."

"Good, my couch doesn’t deserve a good review."

Then he pulled his jacket on, ran his hand through his hair once, and walked to the door.

◆◆◆◆

Dani was in the corridor.

She had a tray with two cups of tea. One for him, presumably and one for Joan.

She was standing three feet from the door he had just opened, from the inside, at six in the morning, Soren hoped Dani didn’t hear anything.

Her moth was on her shoulder.

"Morning," Soren said.

Dani looked at him.

Then past him, at Joan at the desk, at the thermos with two cups, at the fact that Soren Kane had spent the night in Joan Sawyer’s office with the door closed.

"I brought tea," she said.

"Thank you."

She held out the tray. He took one cup but Dani did not offer one to Joan.

"You have pillow marks on your face," she said.

"Bureau mattress."

"I know what Bureau mattresses look like."

She turned and walked away.

The moth on her shoulder did not look back but Soren could feel the low hum at the base of his skull shift pitch, a frequency he was learning to read that currently said something very specific about how Dani Sloan felt about all of this.

Joan appeared at the doorway behind him.

"Was that the archivist?"

"Yes."

"...And she brought you tea."

"She brought us tea."

Joan took the second cup from the tray Soren was still holding. She looked down the corridor where Dani had already turned the corner.

"Fold up the couch before you leave," she said, and went back inside.

[DING! — Obsession Index: Yara Hale 56/75 → 57/75. Trigger: tamer slept outside pack radius. Territorial response detected.]

[DING! — Obsession Index: Selah Young 37/75 → 38/75. Trigger: new bond entity perceived as threat to existing hierarchy.]

[DING! — Obsession Index: Maren Cole 24/75 → 25/75. Trigger: physical contact during protest (tail-on-hip). Voluntary.]

Soren folded up the couch, drank the tea, and went to class.