Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
M y hands tremble wildly as I rise from the blood-strained arena floor.
I’ve never once sleepwalked in my whole damn life—yet here I stand wearing nothing but my nightclothes, the chill night air raising goosebumps all over my body.
My feet are bare and icy, covered in dirt. The whole front of my nightshirt is dusty with it, too. Heart pounding with anxiety and confusion, I try to wipe the bloody grit from my face, wondering how I must look.
I need to get back to my room without anyone seeing me.
As I turn toward the exit, Anassa’s awareness trickles through the bond. My instinct is to shut her out—I don’t want anyone to know about this—but I don’t. I can’t afford to piss her off again.
“Are you well?” she asks.
The genuine concern in her voice takes me by surprise.
“I’m fine,” I answer, hoping she can’t read the truth in my feelings. “I just had a nightmare.”
The lie tastes bitter on my tongue. I can tell Anassa doesn’t totally buy it, but she doesn’t argue.
“Well, go back to sleep,” she says. “You’re keeping me up.”
So much for her concern.
I approach the arena exit and peer outside. The castle is dark. Thank the goddess. No one is around to witness my shame.
Mom had episodes just like this. She would wander at night, muttering about voices only she could hear. I’d find her outside sometimes, standing in the neighbor’s yard or crouching in a nearby alley. Once she climbed up on the roof.
That was the day I finally took her to the healer, and we started giving her sedatives.
I find myself fighting tears of panic as I slink back to my room. The walk seems endless and the shadows have that unnerving aliveness . Every little sound in the castle recalls the whispers, my mother’s eerie voice.
Her open mouth, pouring blood.
Fuck. I can’t pretend this isn’t happening forever. Eventually, someone is going to notice. The madness is going to interfere with my ability to fight. Anassa will reject me. Killian, too.
And Saela…
How the fuck can I save her if I can’t trust my own mind?
And how long do I have before I can’t function on my own anymore? Months? Years?
I don’t know, but the clock is ticking. I feel it in my bones.
My time is running out.
I’m off my game the next day, exhausted after barely sleeping. We have training with Egith and Stark as we work on our pack unity while practicing combat maneuvers.
My whole world is the rush of fur, the thud of paws, the flash of fangs. Snarls and chuffs fill the air alongside Stark’s precise instructions as his voice echoes over the training yard. He has us executing a complicated formation composed of three concentric circles, each ring of wolves moving in the opposite direction to the one before it, covering all sightlines.
According to Stark, this precise formation would be used in battlefield conditions, when we might need to coordinate smoothly while surrounded by chaos.
The tightly knit outer circle protects against exterior attacks, the frontline of our defense. The central circle, safer from danger, has more room to assess the battlefield at large and relay information to the second circle, who can be deployed at notice to reinforce the outer circle should they waver.
For now, though, we’re barely managing to move in tidy circles.
The balance is delicate. Every single one of us has to move at the same pace, aware of those in front of us, behind us, to either side. It’s difficult, even without a Siphon attack to worry about.
Anassa moves smoothly today, keeping pace with the wolf in front of us. I’ve gotten much better at remaining mounted, but I still feel clumsy when I look at the other riders all around me and see effortless grace. Cooperation.
Stark’s constant violation of my eardrums isn’t helping. Neither is the sun beating down over us, catching on swords and causing light to glare in my eyes. The wintery air is cool, but icy sweat trickles down my back as I push my body to perform.
Energy hums in the air around us. I’m not sure whether it’s the sheer power of so many wolves gathered and working together to form this mesmerizing pattern or if it’s something more.
Something deeper.
We’re at it for about an hour when something shivers through the pack. I’m suddenly more aware.
That river I’ve barely managed to brush my fingertips through crackles with energy. It’s suddenly not liquid but electric, like a forked bolt of lightning carving across the sky or the waking of a neuron.
“Give into it!” Egith orders, apparently having sensed the shift in us. “Let the connection happen!”
I grip my sword tighter and try to focus, tuning into Anassa’s bond and reaching out towards that crackling bolt of awareness. The moment I brush closer, my blood wakes. My heartbeat speeds up and my senses heighten.
I start to become aware in a way I’ve never been before.
The circles continue to rotate in perfect synchronization. My breath moves in time with Anassa’s steps. My heartbeat pounds with the heavy footsteps around me. Flashes of recognition cut through the churning circle of fur and muscle.
Through the bond, I sense the spiraling brush of other minds. The other wolves, I realize, each with their own emotion, intent, awareness. There’s a physical sensation, like the pressure expanding inside my skull, pushing outward in a surge of thought.
Instinct fizzles over the stream of connection, and along that path, understanding .
In a brilliant burst, I can suddenly sense every node of the interconnected web. I’m aware of each pair of wolf and rider, sensing their movements before they happen and the careful hum of their concentration.
When Izabel and her wolf pass on my left, her mind sparks on mine wordlessly. Her focus feels like a knife’s edge, perfectly balanced and attuned to her mount’s motion.
Then on my left, Tomison. He rides perfectly. The confidence radiating from his mind makes me feel like I’ve downed a draft of emberwine, heady and intoxicating.
My mind breaks wide open as I give into the pull.
This is it , I realize.
This is true pack unity—an extension of myself beyond everything I’ve ever known. A new way of being joined with the spirit of my packmates.
Submerged in it, I feel more than human.
It’s powerful and vibrant and explosively intricate.
Anassa’s emotions shift over the bond, flickering away from annoyed boredom and towards tickles of curious attention. I clutch her fur and lean into it further, drowning out the sound of Stark’s voice and the movement of bodies until I feel like I’m made up of twenty-three wolves and twenty-two other riders, all operating on a single impulse.
But I lean too far. Darkness creeps at the edge of my vision.
Flickers of shapes that shouldn’t be there amongst the spiral of bodies, glimpses between the wolves’ legs. Whispers hiss from beneath the sound of paws on packed earth and breaths in lungs, growing louder with each terrified heartbeat.
I try to ignore them and push through to that crackling flow of energy, but the whispers become more insistent until they start to drown out all other sound.
Voices I don’t recognize. Words I can’t make out.
But deafening .
Then the worst of it. I gasp and look up, trying to keep my balance as blood starts to seep down over the walls around us and into the training yard, bright red against the cold sky, moving in a thick, tar-like dribble towards me.
A strangled sound breaks from my chest. I barely manage to prevent it from ripping through my throat as a panicked scream. My concentration shatters totally as the blood seeps towards me.
It’s all I can see and all I can think about. I can’t hear anything.
I can’t breathe .
How many people , I can’t stop thinking. How many would have to die to spill this much blood?
Vertigo starts to dislodge me from Anassa’s back. The riders around me tense and turn. Anassa growls and side steps, alarm spiking through her as she moves to counter my compromised balance and keep me mounted.
But in doing so, we both stumble and falter out of formation.
Perielle stops short behind me, her wolf snapping. The middle circle halts, and a cascading chaos takes the pack.
There’s still scarlet lingering in my peripheral vision, but I growl and pull myself up. I fight through the dizziness and urge Anassa onward. My head is throbbing, but I manage to set us both back into the proper rhythm, the rest falling back into line once I’ve recovered.
But as I make another turn around the circle, I look up and see him.
Stark, standing with his arms crossed, staring at me. He watches me from his position across the yard with his dark eyes narrowed, calculating. He cracks his neck, and the tattoos that cover every inch of skin are a visible threat.
Fuck up again, and this psycho will take me out himself, adding me to the trophies on his skin.
He saw me falter, and he won’t forget it.
I struggle for the rest of the session to reach that borderline euphoric connection I almost grasped. By the time it’s over and the direwolves are wandering back to the terraces, I’m exhausted and acutely frustrated with myself. I want to slip away and hide from the annoyed glances I keep getting from my packmates, but Egith’s voice cuts through the yard.
“Rawbond Cooper. A moment.”
Great. I turn and watch Anassa’s silver coat disappearing towards the terraces. I’m on my own, then. The rest of the Rawbonds file out of the training yard. My footsteps sound loud as I approach Egith, my boots leaving distinct impressions in the churned earth.
The beta’s expression is unreadable, as always.
The instant I reach her, she jumps right into it. “Your bond with Anassa has improved,” she says kindly, “but it isn’t enough.”
I bristle instantly. Nothing is ever enough in this place. I’m half-convinced she thinks I’m not even trying, at this point. “I?—”
Egith raises her hand, cutting me off. “I watched you today. I saw it happen.”
“What?” I breathe.
“You touched it just for a moment. What we’re striving for here,” she says. Her voice hushes slightly, as if in reverence. “And you felt it, didn’t you? The unity of the pack?”
I shiver at the memory and nod.
Egith sighs. “Then you also felt how easily you shattered it. One moment of weakness from you disrupted the entire formation.” She steps closer, voice dropping. “The pack needs to function as one entity. One mind. One purpose. If you can’t maintain that connection… They’ll all take note of that. And the Purge Trial is only a week away.”
Her meaning is clear. If I can’t maintain the connection, I’m going to get culled.
“I bet you’d hate to lose that bet,” I say bitterly, remembering how she told me that all the instructors were betting on which pack would have the most Rawbonds left at the end of the Trials.
Egith laughs, surprised. “Actually, Cooper, you’ve kind of grown on me. I’d hate to lose you .”
The words mean more than I’d care to admit and I look away, my eyes burning. “I’m trying,” I tell her. She says nothing, so I glance back. Her expression is unchanged, and I wonder if she really does think I don’t care. “I am ,” I insist. “I’m?—”
“Try harder,” she says sharply. “I mean this as advice, Cooper, not a lecture. Unity is survival. Division will mean death. You cannot break formation like that again with the Purge coming up.”
Because if I do, I’ll die. The Pack won’t forgive me a second time. Not when it counts. If I am a danger to them, I’ll be extinguished.
The needs of the many.
Walking away, Egith’s words echo in my head, exacerbating the headache that began with that horrible vision. I know Egith is right.
When I first wavered, barely still holding onto pack unity, I felt the confusion and frustration from the rest of them. Anger burned in some of them when they saw the formation endangered because of one person’s failure. Even Izabel shot me an exasperated look.
The worst of it is that for a single instant, I did feel it. The perfection of that unity haunts me now, like I stared at a beautiful light too long and the afterimage is burned painfully into my eyes, following me everywhere I look.
For a few meager breaths, I truly felt like I belonged .
I felt like I was a part of a bigger whole, like I had purpose, like I was connected and grounded.
I never felt that way growing up in Eastern, fighting alone.
But then the voices came, dragging me back into isolation and fear.
As I step inside the castle and start towards our quarters, the fear won’t leave me. I think the episodes are getting worse. More frequent. I have no idea how I’m supposed to maintain the intricate mental connection required for the Trials when I can’t even trust my own mind.
It’s not my fault that the world turned to blood and terror.
“ Anassa ,” I whisper over the bond, hugging myself as I walk.
There’s a sensation like rolling over in my mind, and her attention’s on me.
“Did you sense what happened back there?” I ask.
“Be specific,” she orders.
“I saw things. Heard things,” I tell her. She responds with silence. “I know you’re only supposed to get my thoughts and feelings through the bond but… can you sense what I sense when I’m experiencing it?”
A shiver of confirmation reaches me. A yes. Strangely, it makes me feel less alone.
“Then can you stop it?” I ask.
“No. I cannot ,” she replies. My heart falls instantly as I shuffle towards my room. “And moreover, I would not.”
I let her sense my shock.
“Visions like the ones you are experiencing are powerful. They may mean something,” she tells me.
“Yeah, it means I’m losing my mind!” I snap aloud, fractures of anger cracking through the bond. “And my inability to stop it might get us both killed,” I add venomously.
Anassa is unimpressed with my display of emotion. “Will you listen to me?”
I pause, surprised by the calmness in her voice. It wasn’t an accusatory question. It was honest. My muscles unwind, and I nod.
“We have more power over our minds than we realize. You need to focus on our connection when you’re on my back. Do not let your mind wander. Breathe deeply and open your mind to the power that runs through you.”
Her words resonate through my consciousness, but I still feel lost. Avoiding my mind’s wandering is harder than it sounds.
I keep feeling it slip through my grip and disappear into that terrifying, distant place my mother inhabits.
But I know she’s trying to guide me. Genuinely trying. More power over my mind than I realize, she said. I can’t just ignore her wisdom. She’s centuries older than me and lives in this strange world of telepathic connection and shared consciousnesses.
If Anassa thinks I can take control, I have to try. Try harder.