Chapter 5
Chapter five
James got me out of the Healing Center without anyone seeing.
I just let him guide me through back corridors and service exits, his hand warm on the small of my back.
The morning was cold and gray. Students were starting to emerge from dorms, heading to breakfast, to early classes. Normal people living normal lives.
I felt like a ghost moving through them.
James steered me away from the main paths, taking the long way around to our dorm. His body blocked me from view when we passed groups of students. Protective without being obvious.
My cowboy. Always watching out for me.
We made it to my dorm building without incident. Up the stairs. Down the hall. Past doors that were still closed, their occupants still sleeping or already gone.
Ivy's bed was empty when we slipped inside.
James closed the door behind us. Locked it.
The click of the lock was loud in the silence.
I stood in the middle of my room, arms wrapped around myself, shaking with something that wasn't cold. The tears had stopped, but the emptiness they'd left behind was worse. I felt hollowed out. Scraped raw.
"Lumi."
James's voice, soft. Close.
I turned.
He was right there. Close enough to touch. His eyes were dark, searching my face with an intensity that made my breath catch.
"What do you need?" he asked.
The question was simple. The answer wasn't.
I needed to stop thinking. Needed to stop feeling the weight of everything pressing down on me. Needed something to anchor me to my body, to this moment, to anything that wasn't the impossible future stretching out ahead.
I needed him.
"You," I said. "I need you."
Something shifted in his expression. The concern didn't disappear, but something else rose alongside it. Heat. Want. The same want I'd been too exhausted to feel for weeks, suddenly blazing back to life.
"Are you sure?" His voice was rougher now. Strained. "You've been through a lot. I don't want to—"
"James." I stepped closer. Put my hands on his chest, felt his heart pounding beneath my palms. "I'm sure. Please. I need to feel something that isn't falling apart."
He was still for a long moment. Searching my eyes. Looking for doubt, for hesitation, for any sign that I didn't mean it.
He didn't find any.
"Okay," he breathed. "Okay."
Then his mouth was on mine.
The kiss wasn't gentle. Wasn't careful. It was desperate — his lips hard against mine, his hands gripping my waist like he was afraid I'd disappear if he let go. I opened for him immediately, letting him in, letting the heat of him burn away everything else.
The bond exploded between us.
His want and mine, tangled together, feeding each other. I gasped against his mouth and he swallowed the sound, one hand sliding up my back, the other fisting in my hair.
"I've got you," he murmured against my lips. "I've got you, Lumi. Just feel."
I stopped thinking.
Let my body take over. Let the bond guide me, pulling me closer, demanding more.
His hands found the hem of my shirt.
He pulled it over my head in one motion. Then his mouth was on my neck, my collarbone, the swell of my breast above my bra. Hot and wet and claiming.
I arched into him. My fingers fumbled with his buttons, desperate to feel his skin against mine.
"Easy," he murmured, but he was already shrugging out of his shirt, tossing it aside. "We've got time."
We didn't. We never had enough time. But right now, in this room, with the door locked and the world held at bay, I could pretend.
His chest was warm under my palms. Solid muscle, a scattering of hair, a scar on his ribs I'd never asked about. I traced it with my fingers and felt him shiver.
"Lumi." My name was a groan on his lips. "You're killing me."
"Good."
I pushed him toward the bed. He went willingly, pulling me down with him, and then I was straddling his hips, looking down at him, watching his eyes darken with want.
The bond sang between us. His desire and mine, building, spiraling, each feeding the other until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began.
"You're beautiful," he said, hands sliding up my thighs. "You know that? Every time I look at you, I can't believe you're real."
"James—"
"I mean it." He sat up, bringing us face to face, chest to chest. His hands cradled my jaw, tilting my head back so he could look into my eyes. "Whatever happens. Whatever comes next. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
The words cracked something open in my chest. Not the painful kind of cracking — the kind that let light in.
"I know," I whispered. "I know you're not."
James didn’t wait. He moved with a grounded, steady heat, his hands sliding to the front of my jeans to navigate the button with a focus that made my core ache.
When the denim fell away, he didn't pull back.
Instead, he trailed a path of slow, searing kisses down my stomach, his breath hitching against my skin.
The bond was no longer just a pulse; it was a physical weight, a golden tether that pulled us tighter with every second. As he stripped away the last of our clothes, the air in the room seemed to vibrate.
When he moved back over me, the friction of his skin against mine felt like coming home after a lifetime in the cold. He was heavy and solid, his thighs pinning mine to the mattress, grounding me so I couldn't float away into my overwhelm and anxiety.
"Look at me, Lumi," he whispered, his voice vibrating deep in his chest.
I opened my eyes. He was flushed, his jaw tight with the effort of holding back, but his gaze was unwavering. He reached down, his fingers finding the center of me, slick and ready. I gasped, my hips bucking instinctively against his hand, and he let out a low, ragged sound of approval.
"I've got you," he promised again, his thumb grazing my clit in a way that made my vision blur. "Stay right here with me."
He entered me in one slow, deliberate push.
I cried out, the sound muffled against the column of his throat as I wrapped my legs around his waist, locking him in.
He was thick and stretching, filling the emptiness I’d been carrying since rescuing North.
It wasn't just physical—it was as if he were pouring his very soul into the cracks of mine, mending the raw edges.
He began to move, a rhythmic, powerful surge that forced everything else out of my head. There was only the scent of him. He moved like he loved me, his hands never leaving me, one tangled in my hair and the other pinned beneath my lower back, arching me up to meet every thrust.
"James," I sobbed, the pleasure building into something sharp and blinding.
"I know, honey. Let go."
The bond snapped taut. I felt a tidal wave of possessive, protective love that crashed over me just as my own walls came down. I shattered, my muscles clamping around him as the world dissolved into white light and the feel of his heartbeat thundering against my ribs.
He followed me over the edge, burying his face in the crook of my neck, his body shuddering with release.
After, we lay tangled together in my narrow bed.
His chest was warm under my cheek, rising and falling with steady breaths. My body felt loose, liquid, emptied of everything except a bone-deep satisfaction.
The bond between us hummed quietly. Content. Sated.
"Better?" James asked, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my bare shoulder.
"Mm." I pressed a kiss to his chest. "Much better."
"Good." He pulled me closer, tucking me against his side like I belonged there. Like I'd always belonged there. "You scared me. In that hallway."
"I scared myself."
"Don't do that again." His voice was light, but I heard the fear underneath. "Fall apart all you need to. Just... let me be there when you do."
I tilted my head up to look at him. His face was soft in the morning light, younger than he usually seemed. Vulnerable in a way he rarely let anyone see.
"I will," I said. "I promise."
He kissed my forehead. Let his lips linger.
"So," he said eventually. "Tell me what happened."
"He shifted again and he remembers a little, Cal, that’s his name. Cal... something. The rest is gone."
“Cal, that suits him.”
"And there are others. On the mountain. His pack." I closed my eyes, letting the memory of Cal's voice wash over me. The grief. The guilt. "He got lost. Couldn’t find his way back."
"How many?"
"He doesn't know. Four? Five? He can barely remember."
James was quiet for a moment. I felt him thinking through the bond — not the specific thoughts, but the quality of them. Careful. Strategic.
"We'll need help," he said finally. "We can't do this alone."
"I know."
"Rae?"
"Maybe. Probably." I sighed. "She's not going to like it."
"No," James agreed. "She's not."
We lay in silence for a while. The morning light grew brighter, creeping across the floor toward the bed. Somewhere in the building, doors opened and closed. Voices murmured. The world kept turning.
"I should get up," I said eventually. "Classes."
"You should sleep."
"I can't. If I miss another day, Twilson will—"
"Twilson can wait." James's arms tightened around me. "One morning. Give yourself one morning. The world won't end."
I wanted to argue. Should have argued. There were things to do, plans to make, a rescue mission that was already taking shape in the back of my mind.
But my body was heavy with exhaustion, and James was warm, and the bond was quiet for the first time in days.
"One morning," I agreed.
His chest rumbled with satisfaction. "Good girl."
I closed my eyes. Let his heartbeat lull me toward sleep.
The last thing I felt before unconsciousness took me was his hand in my hair, gentle and sure, and the steady pulse of the bond between us.
I woke to afternoon light and the smell of coffee.
James was gone from the bed, but I could feel him through the bond — close, calm, not worried. I sat up slowly, wincing at muscles that ached in unfamiliar ways, and found him sitting at my desk with two cups from the campus café.
"Hey," he said, smiling. "Sleeping beauty awakens."
"What time is it?"
"Almost two." He crossed to the bed, handed me one of the cups. "You needed it."
I had. I felt more human than I had in weeks — still tired, still carrying the weight of everything, but no longer on the verge of collapse.
"Thank you," I said, and meant it for more than just the coffee.
James sat on the edge of the bed. Reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
"Always," he said.
We drank our coffee in comfortable silence. The afternoon sun was warm through the window, golden and soft. For a few minutes, I let myself pretend that this was all there was — just the two of us, just this room, just the quiet aftermath of something good.
Then reality crept back in.
"We need to tell Rae," I said. "About Cal. About his pack."
"I know."
"She's going to want to do this by the book. Go through channels. Get approval."
"Probably."
"That's going to take too long." I set my coffee aside, met his eyes. "They're out there right now, James. Alone. Feral. They've been waiting for a long—"
The vision hit without warning.
One moment I was in my dorm room, James's hand warm in mine. The next I was somewhere else entirely — somewhere cold and white and screaming with wind.
Snow. Endless snow. And wolves.
Wolves running through a blizzard that turned the world to static. A large one in front — massive, dark-furred, moving with the desperate speed of something being hunted. Behind him, four smaller shapes struggled to keep pace. One was limping. One kept looking back.
They were terrified. I could feel it, even from wherever I was watching — the bone-deep fear, the exhaustion, the knowledge that something was coming and they couldn't run fast enough.
Then I saw what they were running from.
A bear. Huge. It crashed through the snow like an avalanche, gaining ground with every stride.
The large wolf — the alpha — turned to face it.
He planted himself between the bear and his pack. Hackles raised. Teeth bared. A wall of fur and desperation.
Run, something said. His voice, maybe, or just the shape of his intention. Don't look back. I'll hold it off.
The smaller wolves hesitated.
GO.
They went.
And the bear hit him like a freight train.
I screamed — or tried to. No sound came out. I was frozen, watching, as the alpha went down under the bear's weight. As blood sprayed across the snow. As the four smaller wolves disappeared into the blizzard, running and running and—
"Lumi!"
James's voice. James's hands on my face.
I gasped back into my body. The dorm room reformed around me — warm light, coffee smell, the steady pulse of the bond anchoring me to reality.
"Lumi, look at me. What happened? What did you see?"
I was shaking. My coffee had spilled, a dark stain spreading across the blanket, but I couldn't make myself care.
"I saw them," I whispered. "The pack. I saw them running."
James's face was pale. "Running from what?"
"A bear—" I shook my head. "The alpha turned to fight it. He told the others to run. He stayed behind so they could escape."
The image was burned into my mind. That massive wolf, planting himself in front of the monster. Buying his pack time with his own body.
Just like Cal had described. I left them. I was supposed to protect them.
"Is he—"
"I don't know." My voice cracked. "I don't know if he survived. But the others — the four who ran — they made it. Somewhere. They're still out there."
James was quiet for a long moment. I felt him processing through the bond — shock, concern, and underneath it all, the steady determination that was so essentially him.
"Then we find them," he said. "All of them."
"I love you," I said.
The words came out before I could stop them. Before I could second-guess or qualify or take them back.
James's expression softened. He leaned in, pressed a kiss to my forehead, my cheek, the corner of my mouth.
"I love you too," he said against my lips. "Now. Tell me everything you saw. Every detail. We're going to need it."
I closed my eyes. Let the vision replay behind my lids — the snow, the wolves, the bear, the blood.
Four wolves who had escaped.
One alpha who might still be out there.
And Cal, who had carried the guilt of leaving them for years without even knowing why.
"Okay," I said. "But we're going to need more coffee."
James almost smiled. "I'll get a whole pot."