Kris walked down the hall to his study, while dragging Yiru gently by the arm. On any other occasion, Yiru would have pulled her arm away from Kris' strong grasp, but the serious tone he used when he told her to talk to him made her think it was best not to fight the Tenebris alpha. She was also curious as to why he wanted to talk to her in private. Did he really know she was lying about being mateless? 

Once they entered the study, Kris led the two of them to the center of the room and turned around to face her. He did not let go of her arm though. Instead, he slowly moved his hand down her forearm to grab onto her hand gently. This sudden gesture of affection stunned Yiru. Her wide eyes looked up at him in confusion. Kris' piercing gaze made her anxious. He stared at her with such a deep expression that she could not comprehend. 

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Yiru whispered softly. 

Kris was silent for a moment. But then he answered with another question,"Is it true you are mateless?"

This was it. He did see through her lies. Yiru dropped her gaze to his chest, afraid to look at his eyes, which made her feel guilty for her dishonesty. With a shaky voice she spoke, "I'm sorry I li-"

"Sorry?" he cut in. "Why are you sorry? I'm not mad at you for being mateless."

Yiru was taken aback by his words. Confused, she looked back up at him and tried to search his eyes for answers. Rather than seeing anger in his eyes, she saw warmth as his expression softened. 

Kris lifted his hand to take her other hand. "I'm a little disappointed that you didn't tell me you were mateless sooner, but I'm not mad. Why would I get mad at you for something so trivial?"

"If you're not mad at me for being mateless," Yiru replied slowly, "then why do you need to talk me?"

"Marry me, Yiru."

Again, his words took Yiru by surprise. Marry him? His blunt proposal took a while to sink into Yiru's mind. When it did, she wondered if this was some joke, but then she reminded herself that it was very unlikely for Kris to joke around. She would have expected this more from Tao or Chen, the jesters of Exo-M.  

Finally she replied, "Are you kidding?"

Kris' expression became serious again, and his hands tightened around her own. "I am not kidding, Yiru."

Yiru pulled her hands from his grasp and backed a couple of steps away from him. "We can't marry each other, Kris. You still have a chance of finding a ma-"

"I'm mateless too," he disrupted.

"What?" she uttered in disbelief. Yiru shook her head as she tried to take in this new information. "That's not possible. You haven't gone through your mating phase yet."

"Yes, I did. Four years ago."

"Why didn't you tell any of us?" Yiru asked, still in disbelief.

"You're the first one I told, and I haven't said anything because..." Kris hesitated. "Because I was afraid that the other Tenebris wolves would not respect me as an alpha if they knew. I thought the others would think of me as a failure for not being able to mate and find an alpha female to help me lead the clan."

"No one would ever think of you as a failure, and our clan members' respect for you would not change. Your leadership abilities are enough for them," Yiru reasoned.

Kris gave her a small smile and took her hands in his again. "You're not such a bad alpha yourself," he complimented. "Which is why I think we should get married. It is the right thing to do as the alphas of the Tenebris clan."

Yiru sighed. "I don't know, Kris."

"And the clan members won't have to know about us being mateless. They will think that we were meant to be mates. They already think that anyway."

"I don't think it works that way. Wouldn't we be betraying our clan for feeding them with such a lie?" Yiru questioned.

"It can't hurt them," Kris reasoned. "Our marriage would be more of a benefit to them. Think about it, if I mated with a different female wolf, you would lose your position as alpha female a