Annie had returned to classes slightly before me and was deeply disappointed to learn we were no longer living together. She couldn’t understand why I couldn’t return to the dorms, forcing me to spin a lie about renting an apartment with a distant relative who had just moved to the city.
She seemed to buy it, though her suspicious glances suggested she felt I was hiding something. I also had to lie about being out sick for those missing days. She simply sighed, wrapped her arms around me, and confessed how much she had missed me—a sentiment I wholeheartedly returned.
And true to her nature as the campus gossip collector, she immediately leaned in to deliver the latest news: rumors were flying that Magnus had a new girlfriend.
"Can you even believe it?" she whispered right into my ear, casting wary glances around the hall as if someone might eavesdrop. "No one knows what she looks like, but everyone is swearing she’s a student here! What if she’s even in our department?!"
An icy shiver raced down my spine, and I swallowed hard, fighting to keep my face completely blank. Annie didn’t notice my reaction; she was already rambling on about how Magnus’s fan club was in absolute shambles over the news.
Girls were going out of their minds trying to unmask the mysterious female, some even resorting to tailing Magnus—though completely in vain, given how effortlessly he evaded them.
As for my dynamic with Magnus, everything remained largely unchanged, save for one subtle shift... he had begun holding my hand far more often.
I tried to tell myself it didn’t affect me, but that was a lie. The first few times his broad palm engulfed mine, I flinched, pulling back and frantically trying to wrench my arm free.
The resistance made his dark brows furrow, a dangerous shadow creeping into his silver eyes, yet he never let go. He simply tightened his grip, interlacing our fingers with possessive finality, and dragged me along in his wake—as though I were a prized piece of territory he had no intention of relinquishing under any circumstances.
We slept in the same room, too. On the very same bed, despite every desperate attempt I made to negotiate a spot on the living room sofa or in a spare guest room. He refused to entertain the idea.
"You will sleep with me. Right here. In this bed. At my side," he had growled, leaving no room for defiance. "Don’t even think about arguing, Lang. Get used to my presence; we don’t have much time left where we’ll just be sleeping."
I stopped fighting him, realizing the utter futility of it. Instead, I would retreat to the absolute edge of the mattress, straining to avoid any skin contact. Yet every single night, his heavy arm would sweep out, pulling me flush against his solid chest. Wrapped in his suffocating heat and enveloped by his dark, spicy scent, a strange, electric ache would coil deep within my stomach—an instinctual pull I tried desperately to ignore.
Beyond those quiet nightly claimings, he hadn’t forced any further boundaries, much to my intense relief; I lived in constant terror of him pushing for more. But as the weeks bled together, a far more agonizing symptom took hold.
The heat surges.
I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut, a shudder running through me as I recalled the exact moment the first wave struck. I had been sitting through a lecture when the sensation hit without warning, turning my vision completely blurred and spotty.
It was absolute agony.
The attacks breached my defenses unpredictably, flooding my veins with a sudden, violent fever. It felt as though an internal inferno was incinerating me from the inside out. Dizziness washed over me so sharply I had to white-knuckle the edge of the wooden desk just to keep from slipping off my chair onto the floor.
Then came the unbearable itching. My throat, my wrists—every concentrated cluster of sensitive spots—flared with a raw, agonizing sting. The urge to claw my own skin open to release the trapped pressure was so overwhelming that I drew unwanted stares on more than one occasion.
During one particularly severe lecture, I lost control, my nails scraping frantically against my neck and leaving angry crimson welts across my skin. The professor halted his speech mid-sentence, staring down at me with deep concern.
"Are you alright, miss?" he had asked, drawing the gaze of every student in the auditorium directly onto me. The suffocating weight of their attention only amplified my rising panic.
"N-no, I’m fine... just fine," I rasped out, curling my hands into tight fists to force my fingernails away from my raw skin. "Allergic... reaction."
The moment the bell rang, one of the transferred males approached my desk, informing me in a low, clipped tone that Magnus had issued a direct order for my immediate transport back to the apartment. I kept my head bowed, my cheeks burning with intense humiliation as I followed him out. It proved to be a merciful exit—that afternoon, several more violent waves of heat ripped through my body.
Today, Annie was practically begging me to take her to my bunny café, whining that we hadn’t spent quality time together in ages and that she missed me terribly.
"Jane, please come with me!" she pleaded, clinging to my arm and gazing up at me with wide, imploring eyes. "I really want to take pictures with the fluffy bunnies! Please, please, let’s just go!"
She had been acting subtly different ever since her last heat cycle, a shift that stirred a faint coil of suspicion in my chest. Yet she remained tight-lipped about whatever had transpired, and I didn’t push her, despite my underlying worry.
I also couldn’t help but notice the drastic transformation in Annie’s wardrobe. Though she remained effortlessly striking, her signature crop tops and micro-skirts had completely vanished, replaced by full-coverage denim and high-necked, form-fitting sweaters that concealed every inch of exposed skin. Her neck, her forearms, even her wrists were entirely smothered beneath heavy fabric—an uncanny departure for a girl who used to flaunt her beauty without a second thought.
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