Dhruv had been staring at the same cell on his spreadsheet for ten minutes. The numbers swam and settled again, meaningless columns of black on white.
Across the aisle, Poornima's voice cut through the drone of air conditioning. She was perched at her desk, explaining something from her laptop—expense reports, if Dhruv remembered right. The ones Adi deliberately stalled approving. Her tone was patient, precise. Adi stood behind her, leaning just a bit too close, one hand braced on the desk beside her chair looking smug.
Dhruv tried not to look. He failed.
She hadn't come over to hand him the meeting minutes yesterday but sent Lisa instead. Yet here she was, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Adi, pointing at the screen like she had all the time in the world.
Adi laughed at something. Not loudly, but enough.
Dhruv's pen clicked once, twice. He stopped himself before it turned into a rhythm.
Focus. He scrolled through the report again. But the irritation simmered low and steady, impossible to shake. It wasn't just jealousy—though it was partly that. It was something older, deeper, an instinct that didn't belong in an office built of glass and laminate.
He exhaled slowly. The Grand Seer's voice from the night before echoed uninvited:
"The wheel turns — and the Goddess stirs. Things will change before the sun sets again."
Change. Right. The only thing changing right now was his patience.
Poornima leaned back in her chair to stretch, and her shoulder brushed Adi's arm. Dhruv's jaw tightened before he could help it. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead. For a second, the sound distorted—warped, almost like a low growl under his breath.
He rubbed a hand over his face. "Get it together," he muttered. "You're at work, not the woods."
Outside, through the tall windows, clouds were rolling in—thick and slow, dimming the afternoon light. The city looked different under that gray filter.
He glanced at his reflection in the screen. The glow from his monitor threw odd shadows across his eyes. For just a second, they seemed sharper. Wilder.
He blinked, and the illusion was gone.
"Dhruv?" Poornima's voice startled him. She was suddenly at his desk, holding a folder. He hadn't even seen her walk over.
"Hey," she said lightly. "Got them approved." She smiled brightly as ever.
The silence between them felt heavier than it should have. The hum of the office faded again into that strange stillness—the same one he'd felt last night by the stream, when the Grand Seer's eyes had found his.
Poornima smiled faintly and turned to leave. But as she did, the lights flickered once—barely noticeable, like the brief shiver before a storm.
Dhruv watched her go, the Seer's warning echoing again in the back of his mind.
Things will change before the sun sets again.
He didn't know how, or why, but the air already felt different.
The day he first saw her, he knew. She awoke his primal instincts. He knew she was his mate.
But knowing didn't mean accepting.
He'd been through too much to entertain the thought of sharing his life with anyone again. His past was a mess of scars and broken promises, and he wasn't about to drag someone innocent into that wreckage. Especially not her — a human, fragile and unaware of the world he belonged to.
He told himself it was better this way. That keeping his distance was an act of mercy.
And yet, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get her out of his head. Her voice would surface in the quietest moments. Her scent lingered in the air long after she was gone, faint as rain on dry earth.
Every instinct in him pulled toward her. Every shred of reason told him to stay away.
It was torture — the kind that didn't roar, but whispered. Constant. Inevitable.
"You really didn't have to come, you know," she said finally. "I've met vendors before. You could've just signed off on the quote later."
Dhruv leaned back in his seat, watching the road unwind ahead. "I didn't have much going on. Thought I'd tag along."
"Right," she said, glancing at him briefly. "Or maybe you just didn't trust me not to give them a better deal."
That small teasing lilt in her voice made the corner of his mouth twitch. "You drive a hard bargain, Poornima. I've seen it."
She smiled at that, faint but genuine, and looked back at the road.
Poornima had both hands on the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road. The afternoon light slanted through the windshield, catching the strands of hair that had escaped her bun. She'd rolled down the window a little, and warm air tugged at the edge of her dupatta.
The city thinned out beyond the last stretch of flyover. Neon signs gave way to dusty hoardings, and the traffic eased until there was only the steady hum of the engine and the occasional honk from a truck ahead.
For a few minutes, they drove in silence — not awkward, but close. The kind that made Dhruv acutely aware of the quiet rhythm between them: the sound of her breathing, the steady tap of her fingers on the steering wheel, the soft flutter of her hair in the wind.
He didn't tell her why he'd really come. That he wanted to see her outside the buzz of office chatter and meeting rooms. That he wanted her to laugh again — not the polite, work laugh she gave everyone, but the real one he'd heard once when she'd spilled coffee and found it funnier than tragic.
She hadn't smiled like that in weeks. Not since Adi had started hanging around her desk.
Outside, the city had given way to open ground. The air smelled faintly of dust and something metallic. In the distance, the hills stood against a dimming sky — heavy with clouds that looked ready to split open.
Dhruv rolled down his window a little more, feeling the wind against his arm. Something in the air felt charged, the way it had the night before by the stream. Not dangerous — not yet — but alive.
He looked at Poornima again. She was humming under her breath, unaware of his gaze.
He wondered if she'd still look at him the same way if she knew what he was — what pulsed beneath his skin.
He turned away before she could notice the heaviness in his expression.
That's when he saw it. In the rear view mirror.