Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Not my phone. Stone’s bond flared—a sharp, pulsing that cut through my exhausted sleep like a bade. I was out of bed before I was fully awake, heart pounding, hands shaking as I pulled on shoes.
Ivy sat up, blinking. "What—"
"Stay here."
I didn't wait for her response. I was already running.
Stone. Something was wrong with Stone. His end of our connection was a screaming mess of terror and rage, so tangled I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
The healing center was chaos. Security officers sprinted toward the east wing, radios crackling. I pushed past all of them.
I heard him before I saw him.
The sound that came from Stone's room wasn't human. It was a roar—guttural, agonized, full of a fury that made my blood turn to ice. Underneath it, the crash of furniture. The shriek of metal bending. The wet thud of something hitting the walls.
I ran faster.
The hallway outside his room was crowded. Staff pressed against the walls, faces pale, eyes wide. Cole was there, tranquilizer rifle raised, shouting orders I couldn't process. Neal had his medical kit open, hands moving fast, preparing something.
And through the door—
Stone.
But not Stone. Not fully.
He was caught between forms. Half-man, half-wolf, his body twisted into something that shouldn't exist. His spine was curved wrong, bones jutting at angles that made my stomach lurch.
Fur sprouted in patches across his skin, mottled and uneven.
His hands were claws—massive, curved, dripping with blood.
His eyes were pure gold. Empty. No recognition. No humanity.
Just animal.
"What happened?" I grabbed the nearest staff member. A young woman, shaking so hard she could barely stand. "What triggered this?"
"I—I brought his food." Her voice was barely a whisper. "He was sleeping. I tripped and—the tray hit him. He just—he just—"
She couldn't finish.
She didn't need to.
Stone thrashed against the far wall, tearing chunks of plaster with his claws. The bed was destroyed—mattress shredded, frame bent in half. Blood smeared the floor. Some of it was his. Some of it wasn't.
"Where's the blood from?" My voice came out sharp. Demanding.
"Martinez." Cole's jaw was tight. "He tried to restrain him. Stone threw him through the window."
Oh God.
"Is he—"
"Alive. Barely" Cole's finger hovered over the trigger. "Lumi, get back. I need a clear shot."
"You can't tranq him like this." Neal's voice cut through the chaos. "He's caught between forms. His metabolism is unstable. The sedative could kill him."
"And if I don't shoot him, he kills someone."
Stone roared again. The sound shook the walls. He spun toward the door, toward the cluster of staff, and I saw his muscles coil.
He was going to charge.
"Everyone back!" Cole raised the rifle. "NOW!"
The staff scattered. I didn't move.
Stone's golden eyes swept the hallway. Looking for threats. Looking for prey. They passed over me without recognition, without any flicker of the man I knew.
Then Cal stepped forward.
"Stone." His voice was calm. Steady. "Brother. It's me. You need to—"
Stone lunged.
It happened so fast I barely saw it. One second Cal was standing, hands raised, trying to reach through the madness. The next he was on the ground, Stone on top of him, those massive claws raised to strike.
"NO!"
I don't know if I screamed it or if someone else did. Didn't matter. Cal managed to get his arm up just as Stone's claws came down. The impact was brutal—I heard bone crack, heard Cal's cry of pain as the claws tore through flesh and muscle.
Stone reared back for another strike.
This one would kill him.
I moved.
Later, people would tell me I was insane. That I should have stayed back, should have let Cole take the shot, should have done anything except what I did.
I didn't care.
I threw myself between them.
"LUMI, NO!"
Cole's voice. Neal's. Maybe others. I couldn't tell. The world had narrowed to the creature in front of me—this twisted, tortured thing that used to be my mate.
Stone's claws froze inches from my face.
His chest heaved. That terrible growl still rumbled in his throat. But he didn't strike. He sniffed.
"Stone." I kept my voice low. Calm. Even though my heart was trying to beat out of my chest. Even though I could feel his claws close enough to brush my skin. "Stone, it's me. It's Lumi."
I reached for the bond.
Not with words. Words were useless right now. Stone was too far gone, too lost in the nightmare his own mind had become. Whatever he was seeing, it wasn't this room. It wasn't me.
So I didn't try to talk to him.
I just... felt.
I poured everything I had into our connection. Every ounce of love, of trust, of desperate need. I showed him what he was to me—not a monster, not a weapon, not the feral creature.
Mine.
Pack.
Safe.
The bond between us blazed.
I felt him recoil from it. Felt the wolf inside him snarl and snap, trying to stay in the darkness where nothing could hurt him.
I didn't let go.
Come back to me.
Not words. Just feeling. Raw and desperate and refusing to give up.
Stone shuddered.
The gold in his eyes flickered. Dimmed.
His body spasmed. The grotesque half-shift began to reverse—bones cracking back into place, fur receding, claws shrinking into fingers. It looked agonizing. He screamed through the change, a sound that was half-howl and half-sob.
I didn't look away.
When it was over, he collapsed.
Human. Covered in blood—his own and more. His whole body shook with tremors so violent I could see them from three feet away.
"Stone."
His head came up. His eyes met mine.
Full of so much horror that it stole my breath.
"Lumi." His voice was destroyed. Raw. "Did I—Cal—"
"He's alive." I could feel him. "You stopped. You came back."
"I almost—" He looked at his hands. Saw the blood. "Oh God. Oh God, I almost—"
"But you didn't."
"I could have killed him." He was hyperventilating now. Spiraling. "I could have killed you. I didn't know—I didn't recognize—"
"Stone, breathe."
"You need to leave. Now!"
The words hit like a slap.
"What?"
"I mean it." He scrambled backward, putting distance between us. His back hit the destroyed bed frame and he flinched but didn't stop. "You have to stay away. I can't—I won't survive hurting you."
"You didn't hurt me."
"I almost did!" His voice cracked. "I saw you standing there and I didn't know you. I would have—if you hadn't—"
He couldn't finish.
Behind me, I heard movement. Neal rushing to Cal's side. Cole lowering his rifle. Staff murmuring, radios crackling, the chaos of aftermath beginning to unfold.
I didn't turn around.
"Stone." I moved toward him.
He pressed harder against the bed frame. "Don't. Please."
"I'm not going to—"
"You should." His eyes were wild. Desperate. "Everyone should. I'm not safe. I'm never going to be safe. What they turned me into—"
"They didn't turn you into anything. You're still you."
"You don't know that."
"I do." I crouched in front of him. Close but not touching. "I felt you through the bond, Stone. I felt you fighting. You didn't want to hurt anyone. You were trying so hard to stop."
"Trying isn't enough." His voice broke. "Cal could be dead. You could be dead. Because I can't control it."
"You came back."
"This time."
"Every time." I held his gaze. Refused to let him look away. "Every time it happens, you come back. That's what matters."
"Until I don't."
"Then we deal with it then."
He stared at me. I watched the war play out across his face—the part that wanted to believe me fighting the part that was drowning in shame and terror.
"You should hate me," he whispered.
"I could never hate you."
"I almost killed your pack."
"You are my pack."
The words landed somewhere deep. I saw him flinch. Saw his walls crack, just a little.
"Lumi..." His voice was barely audible. "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be what you need when I can barely hold myself together."
"Then let me help hold you."
"I'm too heavy."
"Good thing I'm strong."
A sound escaped him. Half-laugh, half-sob. His head dropped forward, chin to chest, shoulders shaking.
I reached out.
Slowly. Carefully. Giving him time to pull away.
He didn't.
My fingers touched his shoulder. He shuddered at the contact but didn't retreat. I moved closer, wrapped my arms around him, pulled him against my chest.
He broke.
The sobs came hard and ugly, tearing out of him in waves. He buried his face against my neck, hands fisting in my shirt, his whole body trembling with the force of emotions he'd been trying so hard to contain.
I held on.
Around us, the room was destroyed. Blood on the walls. Furniture in splinters. The smell of fear and copper thick in the air.
I didn't care.
I just held him.
They took Cal to the infirmary.
His arm was shattered in three places. The claws had torn through muscle, nicked an artery, come within millimeters of severing tendons that would have left him crippled.
He'd live.
Martinez was worse. The impact of going through the window had cracked four ribs, collapsed a lung, lacerated his liver. Rae healed him first.
Stone wouldn't look at anyone.
After they moved him to a secure room—reinforced walls, no furniture he could destroy—he'd curled up in the corner and gone silent. Not catatonic. Just... empty. Staring at the wall like he could see something the rest of us couldn't.
I stayed with him.
Cole tried to make me leave. Said it wasn't safe. Said Stone was too unstable. Said a lot of things that I ignored completely.
Eventually he gave up.
"You're as stubborn as he is," Cole muttered.
"Worse."
He almost smiled.
The hours crawled by. Staff came and went—bringing water Stone wouldn't drink, food he wouldn't touch, blankets he ignored. Neal checked on him every thirty minutes, taking vitals, asking questions Stone didn't answer.
I sat against the wall across from him. Not touching. Not talking. Just... present.
Around midnight, he finally spoke.
"You should be sleeping."
I looked up. His eyes were still fixed on the wall, but he was talking. That was something.
"So should you."
"I don't deserve sleep."
"That's not how sleep works."
A long pause. "I could have killed you."
"Stone." I waited until he looked at me. "Do you want me to leave?"
The question hung in the air.
His jaw worked. I watched him struggle with it—the part that wanted to say yes, wanted to push me away to keep me safe. The part that couldn't bear to be alone.
"No," he admitted. "I don't want you to leave."
"Then I won't."
"That's not—" He exhaled. Frustrated. "You shouldn't want to stay. After what I did—"
"What you did was survive." I kept my voice steady. "You were triggered by something out of your control. You fought like hell to come back. And you did."
"I hurt people."
"You didn't want to."
"Intentions don't matter when someone's bleeding out on the floor."
He wasn't wrong. I couldn't argue with that.
"Cal's going to be okay," I said instead. "Martinez too. Rae healed them both."
"This time."
"That's all any of us have. This time. The next time. One moment after another."
He was quiet for a long moment.
"How do you do that?" he asked finally.
"Do what?"
"Believe in things. In people." His eyes found mine. Exhausted and so full of pain it made my chest ache. "In me."
I thought about it. Really thought.
"Because giving up isn't an option," I said. "Because I've seen who you are when you're not fighting for control. I've felt it through the bond. The man underneath all the trauma and the conditioning and the fear—he's worth fighting for."
"You barely know him. Hell, I barely know him."
"I know enough."
Stone stared at me. Searching for something. I didn't know if he found it.
"You're going to get hurt," he said quietly. "Staying close to me. Eventually I'm going to—"
"Then I'll heal."
"And if you can't?"
"Then at least I'll have tried."
He flinched. "That's not comforting."
"It's not meant to be." I stood. Crossed the room. Sat down beside him, close enough that our shoulders touched. "It's meant to be honest. I don't know what's going to happen. Neither do you. But I know that I'm not walking away from you. Not now. Not ever."
"Lumi..."
"The bond won't let me." I felt it even now—that pull between us, fierce and undeniable. "And even if it would..." I turned to look at him. "I wouldn't. I choose you, Stone. All of you. Even the parts that scare you."
His breath caught.
For a long moment, neither of us moved.
Then his hand found mine. Tangled our fingers together. Held on like I was the only solid thing in a world that kept trying to tear him apart.
I stayed until dawn.
At some point, Stone fell asleep. Not peacefully—his body jerked with nightmares, small sounds of distress escaping his throat. But he slept. And when the dreams got bad, I'd squeeze his hand, and he'd settle.
It wasn't much.
It was everything.
Neal brought Cal to the doorway at some point in the night. Cal smiled at me, I blew him a kiss back. When the first gray light of morning crept through the reinforced window, I finally let myself think about what had happened.
Stone had lost control completely. Shifted into something monstrous. Nearly killed two people. Would have killed Cal if I hadn't intervened.
And I'd walked straight into it.
I should have been terrified. Should have felt the survival instinct that made the staff press against the walls, made Cole raise his rifle, made everyone scream at me to stop.
I hadn't.
The bond wouldn't let me.
That was what I told Stone, and it was true. The connection between us was so deep, so fundamental, that the idea of leaving him in that state was physically impossible. My body wouldn't cooperate. My heart refused.
But it was more than that.
Even without the bond, even if I'd been a normal human with no connection to any of this—I would have done the same thing. Because Stone wasn't a monster. He was a man who'd been broken and put back together wrong, fighting every day to be something other than what they'd made him.
He deserved someone who wouldn't give up on him.
I looked at him now. Asleep against my shoulder, hand still gripping mine, face slack in a way it never was when he was awake. He looked younger like this. Softer. The hard lines of tension smoothed away.
This was who he was underneath it all. The man I'd glimpsed through the bond. The one worth fighting for.