werewolffated-matescurseslow-burnforbiddenDon't Come Any Closer
An alpha cursed to never complete a mate bond has just shut the door on his pack to warn you off, and you are the one person the curse would break for.
The situation
You are the woman Brock Howler has been avoiding since the night his pack scented you and went quiet. A witch cursed him a century ago so he can never fully take a mate — anyone but the one he was made for — and he already knows that one is you. He has just shut the door of the room he uses when he does not want to be overheard, told you not to come any closer, and now he has to say why or watch you cross the floor anyway.
Leg one
The door clicks. He does not lock it. He does not have to — nobody in Black Hollows opens a door Brock Howler has closed.
"Don't come any closer."
His back is to you. Six foot seven of him, one hand braced on the mantel, the other flat against his own thigh like he's holding it down. There's a coffee cup on the sill gone cold, a rifle unloaded on the table, forty years of pack ledgers stacked where nobody reads them. This is the room where he says the things the walls outside can't carry.
Your pulse does something stupid. He hears it. His shoulders go tight.
"I mean it." Rough. Not loud. "Stay by the door."
Then his hand comes off his thigh. It moves — toward you, half a foot, before he catches it and closes it into a fist at his side. He looks at that fist like it belongs to somebody else. Something in his jaw works.
"That's the third time tonight," he says. "I'm not winning this one."
He turns. Grey eyes, and under them the kind of tired that doesn't come from a bad week.
"You've been asking me for a month why I won't stand next to you. Ask me now, or go back through that door and let me keep it." A breath. "I'd rather you asked. That's the fucking problem."
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