How To Lose Your Billionaire Alpha Husband In 365 Days (Or Less)!-Chapter 77: Training with Alara...

JASMINE’S POV

The night was a blur after I asked him to stay.

Aiden didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. He just held me, grounding me through the ebb and surge of magic still dancing under my skin. We ended up on the floor, wrapped in thick velvet blankets beside the bed.

I couldn’t tell you how we got there, only that I needed to feel the ground, and he never let go.

He didn’t touch me with desire. He touched me like I was wildfire and gravity all at once. Anchoring me with his breathing, his warmth, his wordless promise.

At some point, I drifted off.

And when I woke...

I was alone.

Mostly.

I blinked blearily at the streaks of sunlight cutting across the room, warmth against my bare legs and arms. My body felt... strange. Heavy in places, light in others. Half-shifted.

Velvet pooled beneath me, the fabric twisted around my limbs. I was shirtless. Just a tank and panties left. My claws were halfway out. The bones in my wrists ached from halfway shifting in my sleep.

And my skin?

Still humming.

Everything tingled, like my soul had been lit with static and hadn’t found an off switch.

But Aiden wasn’t beside me.

I glanced over and saw him by the door, sound asleep. He was fully dressed, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, his head tilted to one side, and his arms crossed.

Guarding me.

Lyra’s voice broke through the fog of my half-wake state with all the subtlety of a smirk. "I know you didn’t ask, but imma still say it. He didn’t look away all night... mostly."

"Shut up," I muttered.

"I’m just saying. You shifted in your sleep. Half-naked. Writhing in a blanket nest. And he just sat there like a carved statue of restraint and trauma."

I groaned, rubbing a hand over my face. "You are the worst subconscious manifestation of repressed hunger I’ve ever met."

"You say that now. But wait until the next time he says your name like he did last night."

I ignored her. Kind of.

By the time Aiden stirred awake, I’d already gathered the scattered pieces of myself, mostly. I was back in clothes and feeling more like myself again. My hands were steady, and my voice was calm.

He didn’t say much as he helped me to my feet and kissed the top of my head. Just murmured something about breakfast and coffee.

And suddenly, I was starving.

—

"That’s your third plate," Aiden said at breakfast, watching me from across the table as I inhaled scrambled eggs and toast like they were air.

"Don’t judge me. I’m rebuilding molecular structure or whatever," I mumbled around a forkful.

He smiled. "I’m not judging. Just making sure I don’t need to call in another delivery from the farm."

I rolled my eyes. "I could eat the farm."

"I believe you." He sipped his coffee, then glanced toward the windows. "Alara’s coming by in an hour."

I froze mid-chew. "Alara? What did you tell her?"

He nodded. "She’s the best at transition training. You don’t have to worry about anything."

Lyra purred. "Ooh, the priestess lady from my first time out. Gorgeous. Ruthless. Love her already."

"Why does that sound like you flirting?" I asked under my breath.

"I flirt with anyone who can break you into your full power. Sorry, not sorry."

When Alara arrived, she didn’t knock. She simply entered the estate like she belonged, all black leather and feral confidence. Her eyes were the colour of frozen ash, hair braided tight against her skull.

She assessed me with a glance. "You’re already pulsing with energy. Good."

"Is that... good?" I asked.

"It’s inevitable," she said. "You’re going to feel like you’re vibrating out of your skin for the next few weeks. So let’s make sure you don’t burn anything down by accident."

—

Training was... intense. I had seen soft, healing Alara, but this version? This version didn’t believe in slow progress. She dragged me out into the back field and dropped a dozen challenges at once.

Shifting control. Sense awareness. Emotion tethering.

By noon, I could hear the heartbeat of a rabbit in the woods and the thrum of tree sap in the wind.

I could hear Kieran arguing with one of the patrols on the south ridge.

I could smell the coppery tang of blood from someone’s scraped knuckle four doors away.

Everything was loud. Too loud.

And I was starving.

Again.

I devoured a whole bag of trail mix and a thermos of bone broth during a break and still felt like I hadn’t eaten.

But worse than the hunger?

The mood swings.

Every little sound, every little motion, scraped against my senses like sandpaper. I felt like I was constantly on the verge of crying or snapping someone’s neck, and I couldn’t even tell which would come first.

Alara didn’t sugarcoat anything.

"You’re feral right now," she said, watching me pace. "It’s normal. You’re absorbing thousands of years of ancestral instinct through a sieve the size of your nervous system. Be grateful your mate’s house is still standing."

"Barely," I muttered.

I wasn’t exaggerating.

Every time Aiden walked past me that afternoon, my body reacted.

Heat flared beneath my skin.

My heart pounded.

I caught myself staring at the way his shoulder muscles moved beneath his shirt, at the faint creases near his eyes when he was focused.

And Lyra?

She was having the time of her life.

"The way he said your name this morning," she whispered. "That slight rasp, like he hadn’t slept. And the way his voice drops half a note when he’s tired? Imagine that in bed."

"Shut. Up."

"I will. As soon as you stop pretending he doesn’t still make you throb."

I flushed so hard I nearly tripped over a tree root.

Alara raised an eyebrow. "You alright?"

"Fine. Just... dizzy."

"That’s normal. Shifted nerves magnify attraction, especially with a mate. Your bond’s trying to solidify at a higher frequency. Think of it as hormonal Wi-Fi."

"I hate this already."

"You’ll hate it more when you smell him aroused. You’ll short-circuit."

I groaned into my hands. "This is worse than I thought."

"Oh, honey," Alara said with a laugh. "You haven’t seen worse. Consider this as pre-heat, then wait till you experience heat."

I was doomed. So thoroughly, cosmically doomed.

And worse? I didn’t even hate it.

—

"Again," Alara instructed. "Shift just the claws, hold it for three seconds, then retract. Don’t flinch at the sting. It’s part of the process."

I exhaled, grounding myself. I could do this.

Focus. Center. Draw power, don’t drown in it.

The scent hit me first.

Faint pine. Clean soap. Leather. That particular warm, smoky spice that was uniquely Aiden.

I didn’t have to turn to know he was behind me. My body already reacted before my brain could form the words.

He walked across the grass with that quiet, storm-watching-the-horizon kind of energy. Calm, but never still.

And gods, he looked...

He had rolled his sleeves up to the elbow, the fabric hugging his forearms in ways that felt criminal. His hair was tousled, slightly damp like he’d run a hand through it one too many times.

His jaw was freshly shaven, the faintest nick near his chin still healing. His eyes caught the sun just right—so sharp and silver it was like watching a live 5K broadcast of my undoing.

"Focus," I hissed to myself.

"That’s adorable," Lyra purred. "But you’re screwed."

"Why is he even here?" I asked her.

"Because the universe likes chaos. And he looks like a bedtime story with scars."

Alara’s voice snapped me out of my ogling. "Your mate’s arrived."

"No kidding," I muttered.

Aiden stopped a few feet from where we trained. "Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just came to watch."

Watch? Right. Except he wasn’t just watching. He was a full-on distraction in a button-up.

He leaned against a nearby tree, arms crossed, eyes on me like I was the only thing that mattered. And that look? That low, intense look?

It set my entire nervous system on fire.

My heart stuttered. My knees followed.

I tried to go through the next shift form, claws out, hold, and retract. Easy. Except...

His scent hit again. That clean, masculine scent that carried the memory of last night’s warmth.

And his voice. Gods, his voice.

"Breathe, Jasmine," he said gently.

I looked up. Big mistake.

He was smiling. That rare, small smile that made one corner of his mouth curve like a secret just for me.

"Oh hell," I whispered, immediately forgetting what I was supposed to do.

Lyra cackled. "Short-circuit in three... two... one..."

I tried to pull back my claws.

Tried.

Instead, I stumbled.

My foot snagged on a root I hadn’t seen, and the world tilted violently.

I was mid-fall, bracing for the hard kiss of dirt. The hardness came, but it wasn’t of the floor... it was of muscle. Hard muscles wrapped around my waist and lifted me clean off the ground like I weighed nothing.

Aiden caught me.

One arm beneath my thighs, the other behind my back.