Chapter 78 CHAPTER 78
Rafael’s POV
I stared at Vivienne.
Complete, absolute shock freezing me in place like someone had poured ice water directly into my veins.
I wasn't expecting that.
Wasn't expecting her to be the one yelling. The one stepping into the middle of this and taking control like she had every right to.
Vivienne was shy. Reserved. Quiet in a way that made people constantly underestimate her.
The kind of person who would rather walk away than engage in confrontation. Who'd choose silence over conflict every single time.
But this?
This was something else entirely.
She'd physically pushed herself between me and Cole—actually put her body in the space we'd been occupying—with her shoulders squared and her chin lifted and her eyes blazing with something I'd never seen on her face before.
Anger.
Real, genuine, burning anger.
Directed at both of us in equal measure.
"That's enough," she said again, her voice dropping quieter but somehow becoming more forceful in the process. "Both of you. This stops. Right now."
I opened my mouth automatically.
Ready to explain. To defend. To justify what I'd been doing.
But she held up one hand.
Palm out.
Stop.
"Don't," she said, and her eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that made my next words die in my throat. "Just—don't. Let me talk."
I shut my mouth.
Swallowed whatever excuse I'd been about to make.
Nodded slowly.
Her eyes stayed fixed on mine for another long second—long enough that I felt weighed, measured, evaluated—before she took a deliberate breath and turned slightly so she could address both of us at once.
"Rafael," she said, and my name in her mouth sounded different somehow. Firmer. "There's nothing going on here. Cole isn't bothering me. He's not following me. He's not doing anything except trying to ask me a question."
"He was—" I started.
"He was walking to his next class," Vivienne interrupted, her tone leaving zero room for argument. "Which happens to be in the same hallway I was walking down. That's it. That's the entire story. Mr. Reeves assigned him to me as a mentor—against my will, for the record, I argued about it—and Cole was trying to clarify the reading assignment."
She paused.
Let that sink in.
"Nothing more," she finished. "Nothing less."
I looked past her at Cole.
He was still standing there with both hands raised in that universal gesture of surrender. Not quite mocking anymore. Not quite smiling.
Just... waiting.
I looked back at Vivienne.
She was watching me with an expression that communicated very clearly what she needed me to do.
Back down.
Let this go.
Walk away.
Every instinct I had was screaming at me to do the opposite. To make absolutely certain this guy understood where the boundaries were. To establish dominance. To protect what was mine.
But Vivienne was asking.
And I couldn't say no to her.
"Okay," I said quietly.
"Okay?" she repeated, like she needed confirmation.
"Yeah. Okay." I forced my hands to unclench at my sides. "I'm sorry."
Something in her expression softened fractionally.
The hard edge didn't disappear—not entirely—but it eased.
"Thank you," she said.
I nodded.
Felt my jaw unlock slightly.
Felt the tension in my shoulders start to release.
And then Cole shifted his weight.
Made a small movement that drew my attention back to him.
His mouth opened like he was about to speak.
About to say something.
Probably something clever or sarcastic or designed to get the last word in.
But Vivienne's head snapped toward him before he could get a single syllable out.
And the look she gave him—
I had never seen her look at anyone like that in my entire life.
Pure, undiluted, burning rage.
The kind that could melt steel.
"Don't," she said, and the single word cracked through the air like a whip. "Don't you dare say whatever you're about to say. Just—shut up."
Cole's mouth clicked shut.
His eyebrows rose above the frames of his glasses.
Surprised.
Maybe even impressed.
"If this is going to work," Vivienne continued, and her voice had gone hard again in a way that made even me stand a little straighter, "if we're going to be working together for the next two weeks without this turning into a complete disaster, you need to understand something very clearly."
She took a step closer to Cole.
Pointed one finger at him.
"Rafael is my boyfriend," she said.
The words landed like a bomb in the middle of the hallway.
The crowd—the twenty-plus students who'd gathered to watch this unfold like it was live entertainment—gasped.
Audibly.
Collectively.
Like they'd all inhaled at exactly the same moment.
Someone whispered "Oh my god" with way too much volume.
Someone else said "I knew it" triumphantly.
Phones were definitely recording now. Multiple phones. I could see them in my peripheral vision, held up at various angles.
But I barely registered any of it.
Because my brain had completely stopped functioning somewhere around the word boyfriend.
Boyfriend.
She'd said boyfriend.
Out loud.
In front of everyone.
In front of this entire crowd of witnesses who would absolutely spread this information to the entire school within the hour.
She'd claimed me.
Publicly.
Definitively.
My chest felt warm.
No—not just warm.
Hot.
Like something inside me had suddenly caught fire and was burning outward from the center.
My wolf didn't just purr.
It sang.
Rumbled with satisfaction so deep it resonated through my entire body.
And the mate bond—
It hummed. Thrummed. Vibrated with something that felt like pure rightness.
Like a tuning fork that had finally found its matching frequency.
Like she'd just acknowledged something that had been true all along but had never been spoken.
Had never been real until this exact moment.
I stared at her.
Couldn't look away.
Couldn't process anything except the fact that she'd said it.
Had put a name to this thing between us.
Had stood there in front of Cole and Emma and Mathias and twenty random students and declared that I was hers.
That we were something.
Together.
She wasn't looking at me.
Was still glaring at Cole with that same intense, unwavering focus.
But she'd said it.
And that changed everything.
"And you need to respect that," Vivienne continued, her voice not softening even slightly. "Which means no antagonizing him. No baiting him. No deliberately pushing his buttons. No—" she made a sharp, frustrated gesture that encompassed everything that had just happened "—whatever that was."
Cole's eyes had gone wide.
Actually wide.
The perpetual smile that had been playing at the corners of his mouth had disappeared completely.
Replaced by something that looked almost like genuine surprise.
He held both hands up higher. Palms out. Completely non-threatening.
"Okay," he said quickly. "Okay. I get it. I understand. I'm sorry."
He looked between us.
"I didn't—nobody told me you two were—" He gestured vaguely in a way that was clearly meant to indicate together. "I'm sorry. Seriously. I didn't know. It won't happen again."
Vivienne stared at him for another long, evaluating moment.
Long enough that Cole actually shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.
Then she nodded once.
Sharp. Final. Absolute.
"Good," she said.
She turned back to me.
And the anger that had been radiating off her like heat—the fierce, protective fury that had made her step between us and take control—faded.
Softened into something else.
Something that looked almost embarrassed.
Like she'd just realized what she'd done. What she'd said. Who'd been listening.
Her cheeks were slightly flushed.
"Can we go?" she asked quietly, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "I need to talk to you. Alone."
"Yeah," I managed, finding my voice again finally. "Yeah, of course."
She reached out.
Just reached out and took my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Like she'd done it a thousand times before instead of this being the first time she'd ever initiated contact like this.
Her fingers threaded through mine.
Warm. Small. Perfect.
And she started pulling me away from the scene. Away from Cole standing there looking confused. Away from the crowd of students who were already whispering and pointing and undoubtedly posting about this.
Away from all of it.
I followed.
Obviously.
What else was I going to do?
But as we walked—as she led me down the hallway with her hand tight in mine and the bond humming contentedly between us—I couldn't help glancing back once.
Just once.
At Cole.
He was still standing there in the spot where we'd left him. Watching us leave with an expression I couldn't quite read.
The smile was back.
Smaller than before. Different somehow.
Less antagonistic. More... calculating.
And something about him bothered me.
Something I couldn't quite identify or articulate but that sat wrong in my gut.
His scent.
I'd noticed it when I'd gotten close to him. When I'd grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him forward.
It wasn't quite right.
Wasn't entirely human—I could tell that much even with my wolf barely suppressed.
But it also didn't match any supernatural being I'd ever encountered.
Didn't have the wild, earthy quality of werewolf.
Didn't have the cold, dead undertone of vampire.
Didn't have the electric, crackling energy of witch.
It was... masked.
Layered.
Like he was wearing a scent the same way someone might wear cologne. Something artificial covering something else.
Something hiding underneath.
Or like something was actively hiding him.
My wolf growled softly in the back of my mind.
Low and continuous.
A warning.
Wrong, it said with absolute certainty. Something wrong. Something dangerous. Threat.
Yeah.
I was definitely keeping an eye on him.
Whatever Cole Whitmore was—whatever he was hiding—I was going to find out.
l