Luca dragged him by the arm to the nearest empty classroom and bundled him inside roughly. None of the student body noticed Darcy’s kidnapping as far as he could tell, all too busy marching to their first lessons of the day. Luca shut the door behind them.

“I don’t know anything!” Darcy blurted immediately. He retreated away from the beta’s intimidating presence, further into the room, until his butt hit the teacher’s desk.

Luca stalked towards him, very much the predator he is in every movement. “I didn’t ask you anything yet,” he reminded him.

“It doesn’t matter what you ask! I won’t know the answer!”

“What’s your name?” Luca asked sarcastically.

Darcy turned his face away and huffed. “That information is on a need-to-know basis.”

“Darcy.” His name on Luca’s tongue was delicious. He hated his heart’s erratic behaviour as soon as his name slid from his mate’s mouth.

“Who is that?” Darcy rebutted quickly.

“My mate, apparently.”

Darcy switched to the safety of silence.

Luca continued, but Darcy couldn’t fit his tone or body language into a category. He was either annoyed, patronising him or perhaps feeling awkward. Maybe a mixture of the three. “According to MYSTIKA, Darcy J Cove is the full name of my soul-mate.” He plucked the piece of card embossed with MYSTIKA’s logo from his phone case and flipped it to show Darcy’s name scrawled on the other side.

“I don’t believe in psychics,” Darcy mumbled feebly.

“You don’t believe you’re my mate?”

A splash of realisation hit his brain at Luca’s words. He didn’t know Darcy had turned eighteen. Darcy had never thought about it before but why would he know? He didn’t have to deny knowing they were mates, he could deny even being old enough to feel the connection between them.

“No, I don’t,” Darcy said, pushing his voice to be stronger. If he poke with conviction, maybe he’d believe him.

“When is your birthday?”

“August,” he lied. His birthday was January 8^th.

“Okay, so I’m up first. I’m June 15^th.”

Darcy was well aware of his far too fast approaching birthday.

“Perfect.” Darcy pushed away from the desk. “So until then, we don’t need to worry about this. Or talk about it.” He swung under Luca’s elbow and darted for the door. “Or be within ten feet of each other.”

Luca snagged him back by the backpack, hooking his fingers through the loop and pulling his body to him roughly. Darcy’s feet skidded on the smooth wood floor. Luca’s body heat was permeating both their clothes.

“Hold up,” Luca snapped. “We’re probably soul-mates and you’re fine to stay apart for two months and pretend like we don’t know any better?”

Darcy wanted to tell him he would be fine to stay apart for the rest of their lives. “I’m so glad you understand my feelings on this matter,” he said instead, business-like in tone. He made another attempt to pull away but Luca’s oversized hand did not release his bag.

Without any room for question, he dismissed Darcy’s words. “That’s not happening.” He spun him by the loop on his backpack, forcing Darcy to face him and his stern gaze.

Darcy took a mini step back, attempting to put any space between them he could. Anything to avoid his intoxicating scent. He wanted to roll in it like a dog in a flower field.

“But you could be wasting your time,” he countered, a tiny tremble finding its way into his voice. “Time you could spend meeting the real deal. What if he’s out there and he sees you sniffing around someone else?”

“What if I see someone else sniffing around you?” Luca growled.

“The only people that bother me are not looking for a hug, Luca.” His voice cracked on his soul-mate’s name and he wanted to die. It was his first time using it to his face. He covered it by continuing, “and the ones that do are just you and your goons anyway.”

“My goons?” Luca repeated with an impish smirk. That word seemingly tickling him.

“You know who I mean,” Darcy grumbled, cheeks warming. “Your little group of henchmen that follow you around. They have bad intentions but not… those kind.”

He crept in closer. “The hug kind?” he repeated Darcy’s earlier words with a laugh, it was bordering on his cruel one. The one that made his teeth look particularly sharp.

“You know what I meant.”

Luca bent his head down. His nose pressed against Darcy’s cheek. Darcy twisted away, tilting his face downwards. Long fingers curled around his arms and kept him still as Luca spoke huskily into his skin. “Hugs are not my intention with my mate.” His scent was suffocating, Darcy could sink into it and never leave.

It took every ounce of willpower within him not to submit to him completely. To turn into a helpless goo in his arms. “How lucky for me that I’m not your mate then,” he said. Where he found the strength to say those words was beyond him.

“I don’t like your tone.” His own tone was growing impatient and frustrated. It made Darcy nervous. He knew what he could be like when he was angry.

He responded quietly and carefully. “I… I don’t like how close your… face is.”

Luca connected their foreheads, his body hooked over him. “Maybe you’ll get used to it.” There was a flirtatious edge to his words. That made Darcy even more nervous. Sickly nervous. He knew what he was dealing with when he was mad, but this version of Luca was unchartered.

Darcy’s voice became a reed-thin whisper. “I don’t think so.”

He ducked under his arm and dashed. This time, he made it.

He threw the door back into Luca’s face and hurtled down the corridor like a flailing bird that just couldn’t get up into the air. Beta scent was following him. Luca’s breaths were huffing out behind him, tinged with anger.

He reached the resource cupboard on the opposite end of the hallway and burst inside as Luca’s fingers grazed his back over his sweater. He slammed the door shut and grappled with the button lock. The door bounced as Luca thumped it with his frame, but Darcy kept pushing back with his shoulder in the pause between each hit. It took multiple attempts but finally he got it closed and locked, with his bully on the other side of the wood. Darcy slumped to the ground with his back pressed against the door. For a few minutes he listened to Luca growl quietly on the other side. The sound sent tingles up his neck and scalp like ASMR.

Darcy took some time to catch his breath, text his friends, and compose himself. Eventually, the growling faded.

When the bustle of second period class changes could be heard through the door, he peeled it open. Either Luca had blended his body and scent amongst the student body pushing through the corridor, or he had given up.

Darcy didn’t have time to wait any longer, he needed to get to his next class, it was the only place he knew he would be safe. He ran into the crowd clumsily.

Less than a hundred yards from the cupboard an enormous figure stepped out into his path too suddenly for him to halt. A crack of pain across his forehead brought his eyes to a pinch. He stumbled backwards, bringing a hand to his face in both mortification and pain.

“Hey, you okay?” The giant asked. The voice was deep and unfamiliar.

Darcy wanted the ground to eat his up, but he managed to garble out, “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.” He squinted up at him through the pain in his forehead. “Are you okay? I shouldn’t have been… I’m sorry.” He was rambling, but at least the giant didn’t seem offended.

“It’s fine, this took the full force of your face,” he laughed while waving the hard-back book he was carrying.

Darcy flushed. He was about to apologise again when a gravelly, all too familiar, voice spoke firmly behind him. “I’ve got him from here.”

The tall boy started at the sight of the person at Darcy’s back and nodded respectfully to them both. He mingled back into the crowds as they disappeared into the classrooms.

Luca began to ask him if he was okay, but Darcy had taken off again.