Chapter twenty-three
Jessica
The whole academy has lost its mind.
The Trial is tomorrow. That's all we've been told — when to report, where to stand. Not what it is, not how long it lasts, nothing. And into that vacuum the entire freshman class has poured every terrible rumor it can invent.
"Three days," Sophia announces at dinner, with the authority of a woman who heard it from someone who heard it from someone. "It lasts three days, and there are tunnels under Lufgard, and they make you go into the tunnels."
"They drop you in the mountains," Renzo counters. "No supplies. Just you and the wilderness."
"You fight an instructor," Declan says gloomily. "In wolf form."
"Somebody died doing it twenty years ago."
"That's bullshit," Freya says.
"It's probably bullshit," Renzo allows.
"Excellent," I say. "Very reassuring. I feel great about all of this."
We keep joking, because the only alternative is saying out loud that we're scared out of our minds, and nobody wants to go first. So we laugh, and we speculate about tunnels.
Because my problem isn't the tunnels.
My problem is that I still haven't shifted.
The other latents have started — eyes flashing gold when they're angry, a new sharpness to how they move, and two of them have actually done it now, full and whole. Everyone treats it like the most natural thing in the world, the next stage arriving on schedule.
Mine hasn't arrived at all. No flash. No pull. No wolf pacing under my skin the way Torres once described. Just me. And the Trial is built for shifters. What happens if I walk in there tomorrow and everyone becomes something, and I'm still only Jessica?
I don't sleep. I pace.
And under the fear, all evening, there's the other thing — the awareness that's been growing since the two arcs appeared on my wrist. I can feel Torres.
Not his thoughts, just a scorching heat at the edge of my mind, a low, demanding hum of presence, like standing too close to a bonfire.
Tonight it's stronger than it's ever been.
And there's a second thread beside it, heavier and darker, that I've been deliberately not examining, because I know exactly whose it is, and just thinking about it makes my breath hitch.
So when the knock comes, I'm not surprised it's Torres.
He steps inside, shutting the door behind him with a quiet click that locks out the rest of the world. One look at me and his amber eyes darken. "You're pacing."
"I'm fine."
He gives me a flat, dangerous look and waits. Torres has never once let me get away with I'm fine, and right now, he looks like a predator who's tired of watching his prey run in circles.
I break. "I haven't shifted."
"I know."
"I'm terrified the Trial needs it. What if we all get in there and everybody turns into wolves and I'm just — standing there. Jessica. The one latent who couldn't."
He considers it, closing the distance between us until the air between our bodies feels thick enough to choke on. "Jessica's pretty terrifying, though."
I throw a pillow at him. He catches it effortlessly, a slow, wicked grin pulling at his mouth — and then he drops it to the floor, all humor vanishing as he stalks toward me like a wolf backing a deer into a corner.
"Hey. Look at me." He traps me against the edge of the mattress, his hands coming down on either side of my hips, caging me in.
"You saved Renzo without a wolf. Earned a hundred and eight Merit Marks without one.
Survived a full year of Celeste Faris without a single homicide, which is genuinely the most impressive thing. "
That drags a breathless laugh out of me, but it dies instantly when his gaze drops to my mouth.
"Whatever's in there tomorrow, you don't need to be something else to face it. You never have."
That's the thing about Torres. He doesn't make the heat disappear; he pours gasoline on it until it's the only thing that matters.
The laughter fades, and my skin prickles everywhere he's touching me. The warmth of the bond and the raw heat of his body are a tangled, intoxicating mess, and the ache I've buried for months finally snaps.
"What?" he murmurs, his thumb catching my lower lip, tracing it with an agonizing, possessive slowness.
I look up into his eyes, dilated and dark. "Nothing."
"Liar."
So I kiss him.
No accident this time. No almost, no Sophia at the door.
I choose it — lean up and crash my mouth into his.
He goes completely rigid for half a second, a low, rumbling growl vibrating deep in his chest of pure, unadulterated surprise, before his hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back to give him better access as he devours me back.
Soft goes to not-soft so fast the room spins.
My fingers fist in his shirt, dragging him down until I'm straddling his lap on the mattress, heat flooding every inch of my veins after months of agonizing restraint.
It's desperate, starving, but under the friction, there's that absolute certainty.
It's Torres. Even now he makes me huff a ragged laugh against his mouth when I knock our noses together.
I don't want to stop. I arch closer, pressing my hips down against him, needing him to feel how completely unhinged I am for this.
Then the second thread pulls.
The one I've been ignoring all night. It flares — scalding hot, a heavy, commanding weight against my ribs — and I gasp, breaking the kiss. Torres pulls back at the exact same instant, his chest heaving, his eyes flashing dangerous gold in the dim light.
We look at each other. I know before I say it. "Luke."
A dark, razor-sharp look crosses Torres’s face. Not anger. I don’t know what it is.
"I don't know what the hell is happening," I pant, resting my forehead against his shoulder.
"That's reassuring."
"I'm serious, Torres."
"So am I." His hand slides down my spine, burning hot through my shirt. "And so is he."
I look down at the two dark arcs branded into my skin. Then back at him, and I make myself say the whole, terrifying truth. "I want you." His eyes hold mine, fierce and unblinking. "And I want him too."
Silence. I brace for the world to blow apart.
It doesn't. Torres looks at my wrist, then back up to my face, a slow, wicked smirk touching the corner of his lips. "Yeah," he says, simply.
"...Yeah?"
"I've seen the way you look at him." He shrugs, entirely unapologetic. "I've been sparring right next to the way you look at him, wondering how long before one of us snapped."
I bury my face in his neck with a groan. "Fantastic."
"And I've been watching the way he looks at you like he wants to tear apart anyone who breathes too close." Torres's hand tightens on my hip, anchoring me. "Go let him in, sweetheart. Before he breaks your door down."
The knock is quiet.
I already know — the thread's been climbing toward my door, a relentless pressure against my mind. When I pull it open, Luke is standing there in the shadows, his shoulders tense, whether the bond dragged him here or he simply couldn't stand another second of not seeing me before tomorrow.
He sees Torres sitting on my bed, looking thoroughly wrecked and thoroughly mine. Torres sees him. Neither says a single word, but the air in the room goes as tight as a drawn bowstring, humming with a possessive energy that makes my knees weak.
"Are you okay?" Luke asks me, his voice a low, rough rasp.
"No. I'm terrified. Of walking in there tomorrow and — I still haven't shifted, Luke."
He doesn't do what Torres did. Torres reminded me who I am. Luke does something entirely different. He steps across the threshold, closing the space until I'm pressed up against the heavy heat of him.
"I've trained you every day for months," he says, his voice dropping an octave, heavy and certain.
"I've watched you stop flinching. Watched you get knocked down and get back up before I even finished the sentence.
Watched you face down a feral wolf with nothing but your bare hands.
" His eyes burn into mine, stripping away every ounce of my doubt.
"You don't need a wolf to prove you belong here.
You already did. I saw the whole thing, and I've been obsessed with it ever since. "
It lands straight in the core of my chest, knocking the breath clean out of my lungs.
And now they're both here. Torres behind me on the bed, a furnace of familiar heat and absolute claim.
Luke in front of me, all that icy restraint finally fraying into ash.
My pulse is wild, the arcs on my wrist are scorching hot against my skin, and I'm so damn tired of pretending I can live without either of them.
I look at Torres. Then at Luke.
"I want both of you," I say, my voice steady even as my hands shake. "Tonight."
Luke goes completely, terrifyingly still. Torres, behind me, lets out a low, approving sound that vibrates right through my spine.
"Are you sure?" Luke asks, his hand coming up to cup my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheek with a desperate, trembling reverence. Giving me the final door.
I hold his eyes, completely unyielding. "Very."
Luke crushes his mouth to mine, and it is nothing like Torres.
Torres was coming home, laughter and fire.
Luke is the snapping of a dam holding back a tidal wave.
Every correction with his hands on my waist during training, every time we ended up tangled on the mats, every razor-thin edge we both stepped away from — it all collapses into this one, brutal, starving kiss.
There is no backing off now. His hand fists in the hair at the nape of my neck, tilting me up, kissing me deep and unhurried and famished, like he's been dying of thirst and I'm the only water left on earth.
I make a ragged, helpless sound into his mouth that I'd be mortified by if I had a single shred of shame left.