Chapter 4
Chapter four
Iwoke to warmth.
That was the first thing I noticed — heat pressed along my side, my back, wrapped around me in a way that felt different from the night before. North's fur had been warm, but this was something else. Skin-warm. Body-warm. The kind of heat that only came from—
My eyes flew open.
The room was pale with early morning light, the sun not yet risen but the sky already shifting from black to gray. I was lying on the floor beside North's bed, exactly where I'd fallen asleep.
But I wasn't lying against a wolf.
I was tangled with a man.
Naked. Bearded. His arm draped across my waist, his face pressed into my hair, his legs intertwined with mine in a way that suggested we'd shifted closer in our sleep without either of us knowing.
My heart stopped.
Then started again, too fast, pounding against my ribs.
North.
He'd shifted. Sometime in the night, while we both slept, the wolf had let go and the man had emerged. I could feel the difference through the bond — not the steady hum of the animal, but something sharper. More fractured. Human consciousness struggling to hold itself together.
I didn't move. Didn't breathe.
His body was rigid against mine. Not the loose sprawl of sleep — the frozen tension of someone who was very much awake and very much terrified.
"North?" I whispered.
A sound escaped him. Not a word. Something broken and desperate and human in a way that made my chest ache.
I shifted slowly, carefully, turning in his arms so I could see his face.
He was beautiful.
The thought came unbidden, inappropriate given the circumstances, but true nonetheless.
Blonde hair, longer than it should be, tangled and wild around a face that was all sharp angles and shadows.
A beard that had grown unchecked, covering his jaw, his cheeks, making him look older than he probably was.
And his eyes — golden still, the same color they'd been as a wolf, but different now. Aware. Present. Terrified.
He was looking at me like I might disappear. Like I might run. Like any movement at all might shatter whatever fragile thing had let him hold this form.
"Hey," I said softly. "It's okay. You're okay."
His mouth opened. Closed. His throat worked, struggling with sounds it had forgotten how to make.
"You don't have to talk," I said. "It's okay. Just breathe."
But he shook his head. Sharp. Desperate. Like there was something he needed to say and he'd die if he couldn't get it out.
I waited.
The bond between us pulsed with his panic — waves of fear and confusion and something underneath that felt like grief. He was drowning in it. Struggling to keep his head above water while his body tried to remember how to be human.
Then, finally, he spoke.
"I didn't mean to."
His voice was a wreck. Rough and raw, scraped thin by years of disuse. Each word cost him something.
"I was asleep," he continued, the sentences coming slow and painful. "I don't know how to stay."
My heart cracked.
"You don't have to stay," I said. "If you need to shift back—"
"No." The word came out sharp. Almost angry. Then softer: "No. I want— I need—"
He couldn't finish. His breathing was getting faster, his body starting to shake. I felt the wolf pushing at the edges of his consciousness, trying to take over, trying to pull him back into the safety of instinct.
I reached up. Touched his face.
He went still.
My palm against his cheek, my fingers in his beard, my thumb tracing the sharp line of his cheekbone. The same gesture I'd made a hundred times when he was a wolf — grounding, centering, reminding him that he was here and I was here and neither of us was going anywhere.
"I've got you," I said. "Whatever you need. However long you can hold on. I'm right here."
His eyes closed. A shudder ran through him.
Then, slowly, his hand came up to cover mine.
Human fingers. Long and thin, the knuckles prominent, the skin rough. He pressed my palm harder against his face, like he needed the contact to remind himself what skin felt like.
"I remember," he said.
"What do you remember?"
"Being... this." He swallowed. "Having hands. Words. A name."
My breath caught. "You remember your name?"
His brow furrowed. Concentration and pain flickering across his features.
"Cal," he said finally. "I think. Cal... something. The rest is gone."
Cal.
I turned the name over in my mind. It fit him better than North — a real name, a human name, something that belonged to the person he'd been before the feral years swallowed him whole.
"Cal," I repeated. "That's good. That's really good."
Something flickered in his expression. Almost a smile, if a smile could be that broken.
"You called me North," he said. "I heard you. Through the bond. I didn't mind."
"I didn't know what else to call you."
"North is good." His thumb traced across my knuckles, still holding my hand against his face. "It's where you found me. Where I—"
He stopped. The shaking was coming back, subtle tremors running through his body.
"Where you what?" I asked gently.
He didn't answer. His eyes had gone distant, looking at something I couldn't see.
"Cal."
He flinched at the name. Like it hurt. Like remembering hurt.
"I don't know," he said. "I can't— there are pieces. Flashes. But when I try to hold them, they—"
His voice cracked. His breathing stuttered.
The wolf surged.
I felt it through the bond — the animal rising up, trying to drag him back under. His body tensed, bones shifting beneath the skin, and for a moment I thought I'd lost him.
"No," I said. Firm. Clear. "Stay with me. Cal. Stay."
His eyes snapped to mine. Wild. Desperate.
"I don't know how," he gasped. "It's too much. Everything is too loud and too bright and I can't—"
"Then don't think about everything." I shifted closer, pressing my forehead to his. The same gesture James used with me. Grounding. Centering. "Just think about this. Just me. Just this room. Just right now."
His breathing was ragged against my lips. I could feel the war happening inside him — man and wolf, fighting for control.
"Breathe," I said. "Match me. In... and out. In... and out."
Slowly, painfully, he tried.
In. Out. In. Out.
The trembling eased. The wolf retreated, not gone but quieter. And Cal stayed.
Human. Terrified. But here.
"There you go," I whispered. "There you are."
His hand found my waist. Pulled me closer, not with desire but with need — the desperate need to be held, to be touched, to have proof that he wasn't alone.
I let him. Wrapped my arms around him and held on while he shook.
We stayed like that for a long time.
The light through the window shifted from gray to gold.
Cal's trembling had stopped, but he hadn't let go of me. We were lying face to face on the cold floor, legs tangled, arms wrapped around each other like survivors of a shipwreck clinging to the same piece of driftwood.
I should have been uncomfortable. Should have been worried about staff arriving, about someone seeing us like this, about the thousand complications that came with holding a naked man who was barely holding onto his humanity.
I didn't care.
He needed this. I could feel it through the bond — the way my presence steadied him, the way each point of contact between us was an anchor keeping him tethered to his human form.
"I remember snow," he said eventually.
His voice was clearer now. Still rough, still painful, but stronger. Like the words were coming easier the more he used them.
"Snow?"
"Everywhere. Cold so deep it stopped hurting." His eyes were distant again, but not panicked this time. Just... far away. "I was running. We were all running."
"We?"
He went quiet. I felt something shift in the bond — a door opening, just a crack, onto something dark.
"There were others," he said. "Like me. Lost. Feral. But together."
My heart rate picked up. "Other ferals?"
"Pack." The word came out with weight. With meaning. "We were a pack. I don't remember how it started, or where we came from, but I remember... belonging. Having a place."
I thought about what Rae had said — that ferals rarely survived alone. That Cal's condition suggested he'd had something to hold onto during those years in the wilderness.
Not something. Someone. Multiple someones.
"What happened to them?" I asked carefully.
Cal's face contorted. Pain. Guilt. The door in the bond swung wider, and I caught a glimpse of what was behind it — grief so vast it made my eyes water.
"I left them."
The words came out broken. Barely a whisper.
"I left them and I never went back."
"Cal—"
"There was a storm. Or— no. Before that. Something happened. Hunters, maybe, or— I can't remember." His voice was shaking now, his body starting to tremble again. "We got separated. I was looking for help. For food. Something. And then I couldn't find my way back, and the cold—"
He broke off. His breathing went ragged.
"The cold got inside me," he continued, each word a struggle. "Inside my head. I stopped remembering why I was looking. Stopped remembering there was anything to look for. I just— I was just a wolf. Just hunger and cold and nothing else."
Tears were sliding down his face. He didn't seem to notice.
"And then you found me," he said. "You called me back. You—" His voice cracked. "But they're still out there. My pack. I left them and they're still—"
"Cal." I took his face in my hands. Made him look at me. "Breathe. Listen to me. You didn't abandon them. You got lost. There's a difference."
"They needed me."
"You needed to survive."
"I was supposed to protect them."
"You can't protect anyone if you're dead."
He stared at me. Tears still falling, breath still ragged, but something in his expression shifting.
"They're still there," he said. "On the mountain. I can feel it. I can—" He pressed a hand to his chest, over his heart. "There's something. An echo. I thought I was imagining it, but now that I'm— now that I can think—"
"You can feel them through the bond?"