Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Neal's office was covered in paper.
Charts on the walls. Graphs spread across his desk. Printouts stacked on every available surface. He'd pushed his laptop to the corner to make room for more—handwritten notes, color-coded spreadsheets, timelines marked with dates I recognized.
Stone's treatment dates.
"You've been busy," I said from the doorway.
He looked up. His hair was a mess, glasses slightly crooked, sleeves rolled past his elbows. He looked like he'd been at this for hours. Maybe days.
"Close the door."
I did.
"Sit down."
I didn't. "What is all this?"
"Data." He stood, crossed to the wall where the largest chart hung. "I've been tracking the ferals' responses for weeks. Heart rates, cortisol levels, shift stability, behavioral markers. Everything measurable."
"Why?"
"Because after the run, I couldn't stop thinking about what Cal said. About how they respond to you like pack." He tapped the chart. "I needed to see if it was real or if we were all just... seeing what we wanted to see."
My stomach tightened. "And?"
"It's real." His voice was strange. Excited and worried at the same time. "Look at this."
He pulled me toward the desk, pointed at a graph covered in colored lines. Red, blue, green, yellow. Each one labeled with a name.
Stone. Cal. Gray. Ben. And the other 2 feral wolves.
"This is Stone's cortisol over the past six weeks," Neal said, tracing the red line. "See these spikes? That's when he has episodes. Nightmares, flashbacks, moments when the wolf pushes too hard."
I saw them. Sharp peaks scattered across the timeline.
"Now look at this." He overlaid another sheet. A different pattern—small dots marking specific points. "These are the times you were present. In his room, in the common area, anywhere within his sensory range."
The dots clustered in the valleys between spikes.
"Every time his cortisol drops significantly, you were there," Neal said. "Every time he stabilizes after an episode, you were there. The correlation is almost perfect."
"That could be coincidence."
"That's what I thought. So I checked the others." He pulled out more charts. Gray. Ben. "Same pattern. Every single one of them shows measurable improvement when you're present and decline when you're not."
I stared at the papers. The lines and dots blurred together.
"What about Cal?" I asked. "He's bonded to me. Of course he'd respond—"
"Cal's data is the same, but his improvement is steady." Neal's eyes met mine.
"This doesn't make sense."
"It makes perfect sense if you accept the premise." He set down his pen. "Something about you is doing this, Lumi. Something biological, chemical, maybe something we don't have words for yet. But it's real. It's measurable. And it's consistent."
I should have felt validated. All those weeks of wondering, of sensing something I couldn't explain—here was proof. Evidence that I wasn't imagining things.
Instead, I felt sick.
"So I'm a variable," I said. "A data point."
"What? No—"
"That's what this is." I gestured at the papers, the charts, the clinical documentation of my effect on damaged wolves. "You've turned me into a research subject."
"Lumi, that's not—"
"How long have you been tracking this? How long have you been watching me, measuring my presence, documenting what I do to them?"
"I was trying to understand—"
"Without telling me." My voice cracked. "You've been studying me for weeks and you didn't say anything."
Neal's face fell. "I wanted to be sure before I—"
"Before you what? Presented your findings? Published a paper?" I stepped back. Put distance between us. "This isn't random. Something about you is doing this. Do you hear yourself? I'm not a phenomenon, Neal. I'm a person."
"I know that."
"Do you?"
He flinched.
The silence stretched between us. I could feel his hurt through the bond—genuine, raw, confused. He hadn't meant to make me feel this way. I knew that. But knowing didn't make it better.
"I have to go," I said.
"Lumi, please. Let me explain—"
"Not right now."
I turned and walked out.
The hallway blurred around me.
I didn't know where I was going. Didn't care. I just needed to move, needed to put space between me and that office and all those charts that reduced me to lines on a graph.
Something about you is doing this.
What was I? A cure? A tool? Some kind of feral whisperer that the council could deploy whenever a wolf went rabid?
Neal's words echoed in my head.
Specific. Variable. Data point.
Not a person. A thing.
I found myself outside without remembering how I got there. The evening air was cold against my cheeks. I realized I was crying only when the wind made the tears sting.
"Lumi?"
James.
He was crossing the quad toward me, concern etched into every line of his face. He must have felt my distress through the bond. Must have come looking the moment it spiked.
"Hey." He reached me, hands finding my shoulders. "What happened? What's wrong?"
I couldn't answer. The words stuck in my throat.
"Okay. It's okay." He pulled me against his chest, wrapped his arms around me. "You don't have to talk. Just breathe."
I buried my face in his shirt and let myself fall apart.
He held me through it. Didn't ask questions, didn't push. Just stood there in the middle of the quad, his warmth surrounding me, his heartbeat steady against my ear.
When the sobs finally slowed, he spoke.
"Whatever it is, it doesn't change anything."
"You don't know what it is."
"Doesn't matter." He pulled back just enough to look at me. His eyes were fierce. Certain. "You're Lumi. You're pack. You're mine. Nothing else matters."
"Neal has data. Charts. Proof that the ferals only improve when I'm around. Like I'm some kind of—"
"You're not some kind of anything." His hands cupped my face. "You're you. And if being around you helps them heal, that's not a flaw. That's a gift."
"It doesn't feel like a gift. It feels like being studied. Catalogued."
"Then stop letting them do that." His thumb brushed away a tear. "You're not a problem to solve, Lumi. You're not data. You're the woman I love. And anyone who makes you feel like less than that can answer to me."
The fierceness in his voice made something crack open in my chest.
"James..."
"I mean it." He leaned in, pressed his forehead to mine. "I don't care what you can do or why you can do it. I care about you. The person. Not the effect."
"What if they're the same thing?"
"They're not." His breath was warm against my lips. "I've seen you, Lumi. The real you. The girl who stayed with Stone when everyone else ran. The girl who crawled into bed with Cal when he had nightmares. The girl who makes terrible coffee and laughs too loud and argues with me about everything."
I almost smiled. "I don't argue about everything."
"You're arguing right now."
"That's different."
"See?" His lips curved. "That's the woman I love. Not some variable. Not some data point. You."
He kissed me.
It started soft. Gentle. A reassurance more than a demand. But I was raw and desperate and aching for something to hold onto, and I kissed him back with everything I had.
He groaned against my mouth.
"Not here," he breathed. "Come with me."
He took my hand and led me across the quad.
His room was dark.
He didn't bother with the lights. Just pulled me inside, kicked the door shut behind us, and pressed me against it.
"Tell me to stop," he said, his mouth hovering over mine. "If you need me to stop, tell me."
"Don't stop."
He kissed me again. Harder this time. His hands found my waist, lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around him automatically. The new angle pressed our bodies together, his hardness grinding against my center.
I gasped.
"I've got you." He carried me to the bed, laid me down, covered my body with his. "Let me take care of you."
"James—"
"Shh." His mouth trailed down my neck. "Let me worship you."
He peeled my shirt over my head. Unhooked my bra with practiced fingers. His eyes darkened as he looked at me, sprawled beneath him in the dim light.
"Beautiful," he murmured. "So fucking beautiful."
His mouth found my breast.
I arched into him, fingers digging into his shoulders. His tongue swirled around my nipple, teasing it to a peak before sucking gently. The sensation shot straight to my core.
"More," I breathed.
He gave me more.
His hand slid down my stomach, past the waistband of my jeans. He didn't bother unfastening them—just slipped his fingers beneath the fabric, beneath the lace of my underwear, and found me.
"Soaking," he groaned against my breast. "Already so wet for me."
His fingers stroked through my folds. Slow. Deliberate. Learning me all over again even though he already knew every inch.
"Please." I didn't recognize my own voice.
"Please what?"
"Touch me. Need more."
He did.
Two fingers slid inside me, curling to find that spot that made stars explode behind my eyes. His thumb found my clit, circling in time with his thrusts.
"That's it." His voice was rough. Wrecked. "Let go. I want to feel you come apart."
I was already there.
The tension that had been building—the stress, the fear, the overwhelming feeling of being something other than human—it all crested and shattered. I came with his name on my lips, my body clenching around his fingers.
He worked me through it. Didn't stop until I was trembling and oversensitive, pushing weakly at his hand.
"Good girl." He withdrew his fingers, brought them to his mouth. Licked them clean while I watched, my breath still ragged. "Delicious."
"James." I reached for his belt. "I need—"
"What do you need?"
"You. Inside me. Now."
He stripped us both with an efficiency born of desperation. His clothes hit the floor, then mine, and then he was settling between my thighs, the thick head of him nudging my entrance.
"Look at me," he said.
I did.
"You're not a variable." He pushed inside, one slow inch at a time. "You're not data." Another inch. I felt myself stretching around him, accommodating his size. "You're mine."
He bottomed out.
I cried out. Full. So impossibly full.
"Say it," he demanded, holding perfectly still even though I could feel him shaking with the effort. "Tell me what you are."
"Yours." The word came out broken. "I'm yours."
"Good."
He started to move.
Long, deep strokes that hit something primal inside me. He hooked my leg over his hip, changing the angle, and I felt him even deeper. Felt him everywhere.
"This is what's real," he panted. "You and me. This. Not charts. Not data. This."
His hips snapped harder. Faster. The bed creaked beneath us, the headboard hitting the wall in a rhythm that matched his thrusts.
I held on.
Let him drive out every doubt, every fear, every moment of feeling like something less than human. There was nothing clinical about this. Nothing measured or observed. Just two bodies moving together, chasing pleasure, drowning in each other.
"Close," I gasped. "I'm so close—"
"Then come." He ground against my clit. "Come on my cock, Lumi. Let me feel it."
I shattered.
The orgasm ripped through me, more intense than before. I screamed—actually screamed—as my walls clamped down on him. Through the bond, I felt his pleasure spike with mine.
He followed a moment later. Buried himself to the hilt and roared my name as he spilled inside me. I felt every pulse, every throb, every wave of release that shook through his body.
We collapsed together.
Sweaty. Breathless. Tangled in sheets that would definitely need washing.
"I love you," he murmured against my hair.
"I love you too."
We lay there until our heartbeats slowed. Until the sweat cooled on our skin. Until the outside world started to creep back in.
"Feeling better?" he asked.
"Much."
"Good." He pulled me closer. "Now sleep. We can figure out the rest tomorrow."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to think about what Neal had found, what it meant, what I was supposed to do with the knowledge that my presence alone could heal broken wolves.
But James was warm. The bond hummed with satisfaction. And exhaustion was dragging me under.
I slept.
The dream started in white.
White walls. White floor. White ceiling. So bright it hurt to look at, like staring into a blank void.
I was standing in a hallway. Doors on either side, all of them closed. The air smelled like antiseptic and fear.
Wolves.
I could hear them. Behind the doors. Whimpering, snarling, howling. The sounds blended together into a chorus of anguish that made my skin crawl.
I started walking.
The first door had a window. I looked through it.
A wolf lay strapped to a table.
It saw me.
The howl that ripped from its throat was the most agonized sound I'd ever heard.
I ran to the next door. Another window. Another wolf.
This one was worse.
Half-shifted. Caught between forms like Stone had been. Its body twisted and jerked against the restraints, bones cracking and reforming in a cycle that never ended. A figure in white stood beside it, making notes on a clipboard.
Taking data.
I screamed.
No sound came out.
The third door. The fourth. The fifth. More wolves. More needles. More pain.
And then—
The white exploded into screaming.
I woke up gasping.
James was still beside me, still asleep, his arm draped over my waist. The room was dark. Safe.
It was just a dream.
Except it didn't feel like a dream. It felt like a memory. Someone else's memory, bleeding through into my mind.
I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, trying to slow my racing heart.
Wolves in white rooms. Needles. Screaming.
Neal found me the next morning.
I was in the dining hall, pushing eggs around my plate, too tired to eat. He slid into the seat across from me without asking.
"I'm sorry," he said. "About yesterday. The way I presented everything—I should have been more careful."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine. I made you feel like a specimen. That was never my intention."
I looked at him. Really looked. The dark circles under his eyes. The way his hands fidgeted with his coffee cup. He'd barely slept either.
"I know," I said quietly. "I overreacted."
"You didn't. I would have felt the same way." He took a breath. "But Lumi... the data is real. Whatever's happening, it's not random. And I think—"
He stopped.
"What?"
He leaned forward. Lowered his voice.
"I don't think this is accidental," he said quietly. "The way you affect them. The patterns I'm seeing. It's too consistent to be chance." His eyes met mine. "I think you were always meant to do this."
The words settled over me like a shroud.
Always meant to do this.
Like it had been built into me from the start.