Chapter 10
Chapter ten
We were fifty yards from the Healing Center when everything went wrong.
The sun had fully risen by then, pale light washing across the campus grounds. Early morning — the time when students stumbled to breakfast, when staff made their first rounds, when the world was supposed to be quiet and predictable.
We were none of those things.
James was helping me guide the alpha's sled across the last stretch of frozen ground. Neal walked ahead, medical bag clutched to his chest, his face gray with exhaustion. And behind us—
Wolves.
They moved like shadows, silent and gaunt, following Cal with the blind devotion of animals who had forgotten how to think for themselves. Their eyes were empty. Their ribs showed through matted fur. They looked like something out of a nightmare.
Which is probably why the groundskeeper screamed.
I didn't see him at first. Just heard the sound — a sharp, terrified shout that cut through the morning stillness. Then I turned and saw him standing near the maintenance shed, rake fallen from his hands, face white with shock.
He was staring at the wolves.
"No," I breathed. "No, no, no—"
He ran.
Not away from us — toward the main building. Toward the emergency panel I'd seen a hundred times and never thought about. The one with the big red button behind glass.
"Stop him!" James shouted.
Too late.
The groundskeeper's fist smashed through the glass. His palm hit the button.
And the world erupted in sound.
The alarm was deafening.
A wailing siren that echoed off every building, accompanied by flashing red lights that turned the pale morning into something garish and wrong. Doors began slamming — automatic locks engaging, security protocols activating, the entire campus shifting into a mode it had probably never used before.
Lockdown.
"Move!" Neal grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the Healing Center. "We need to get them inside before—"
The alpha woke up.
The siren had cut through the sedatives like nothing else could. His eyes snapped open — golden, wild, furious — and he lunged against the straps with renewed violence. The sled bucked and shuddered. One of the bindings snapped.
"James!"
My mate was already there, throwing his weight onto the sled, trying to hold the alpha down.
But the massive wolf was thrashing now, teeth snapping, claws tearing at everything within reach.
The other four wolves had frozen at the sound of the alarm — ears flat, hackles raised, caught between the instinct to run and the pull of Cal's presence.
Cal was trying to calm them. Making sounds I couldn't interpret, positioning his body between them and the chaos. But they were panicking, feeding off each other's fear, seconds away from bolting.
"The door!" I shouted at Neal. "Get the door open!"
He sprinted toward the Healing Center entrance, fumbling for his keycard. Behind me, I could hear shouts — other staff members emerging from buildings, students pressing against windows to see what was happening, the whole campus coming alive with confused, frightened energy.
We had minutes. Maybe less.
The alpha broke another strap.
His front legs were free now. He was trying to stand, trying to throw himself off the sled, and James couldn't hold him alone. I grabbed one of the remaining bindings, pulled with everything I had, felt the leather cut into my palms.
"Neal!"
"I'm trying! The lockdown — my card isn't—"
The alpha's jaws snapped inches from my face.
I didn't flinch. Couldn't afford to. Just held his gaze, let the bond between us pulse with everything I had.
Stop. Please.
He snarled. But for one moment — one heartbeat — he hesitated.
It was enough.
The door beeped. Swung open. Rae's face appeared in the gap — she must have overridden the lockdown from inside. Her expression was thunderous, but her hands were steady as she held the door wide.
"NOW!"
James and I hauled the sled forward. The alpha was still fighting, still thrashing, but the door was right there — ten feet, five feet, two—
We crashed through the entrance.
The four smaller wolves followed, Cal herding them with urgent precision. They poured into the Healing Center's lobby in a rush of fur and fear, and then—
The door slammed shut behind us.
The sound of the alarm dimmed. Not gone — I could still hear it through the walls — but muffled. Contained.
We were inside.
Rae took control immediately.
She didn't ask questions. Didn't demand explanations. Just started issuing orders with the authority of someone who had earned the right to be obeyed.
"Isolation room three for the alpha — the reinforced one. I want two staff members on the door at all times, rotating shifts. Neal, sedate him again, whatever it takes. The other four go in the east wing with Cal. Keep them together."
Staff members moved to comply. The Healing Center transformed around us — doors opening, equipment appearing, a small army of trained professionals responding to the medicine woman's commands.
Because that's what Rae was. Not just a doctor. Not just an administrator. The medicine woman — a title that carried weight in our world, that meant something beyond bureaucratic authority. She was responsible for the health and wellbeing of every shifter who passed through these doors.
Including five ferals who had never asked to be saved.
I watched them take the alpha away. Even unconscious — Neal had managed to get another dose into him — he radiated danger. The staff members who transported him moved with exaggerated caution, keeping clear of those massive jaws.
Cal led his packmates toward the east wing. They followed him without hesitation — four gaunt shadows trailing after the brother they'd lost years ago. Through our bond, I felt his grief, his guilt, his overwhelming relief.
Home. I brought them home.
It wasn't home. Not really. But it was a start.
"Lumi."
Rae's voice. I turned to find her standing in the center of the lobby, arms crossed, watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
"My office," she said. "Now."
The walk to Rae's office felt longer than it should have.
James came with me. His hand found mine in the corridor, warm and steady, the bond between us humming with shared exhaustion. Neither of us spoke. There wasn't anything to say.
The walls muffled the alarm, reduced it to a distant pulse that was almost easy to ignore. Rae held the door open for us, her expression unreadable—but her eyes snagged on my arm the moment I stepped into the light.
"Sit," she said. Not a request.
I sat. James lowered himself into the chair beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched.
Rae crossed to me and crouched down, her fingers gentle as she pushed back my sleeve. The gash from the alpha's claws was still seeping—I'd forgotten about it in the chaos, the adrenaline numbing everything below the elbow.
"This needs attention." Her voice was calm, but I caught the tension beneath it. "Hold still."
Her hands settled over the wound. Warmth bloomed under her palms—not heat, exactly, but something deeper.
Something that sank into torn muscle and ragged skin and whispered mend.
I watched the edges of the gash draw together, the angry red fading to pink, then pale.
The pain didn't disappear so much as recede, like a tide pulling back from shore.
It took less than a minute. When Rae lifted her hands, only a faint scar remained—a thin silver line that would probably fade entirely within a week.
"Thank you," I said quietly.
She didn't acknowledge it. Just straightened, moved behind her desk, and settled into her chair with the weight of someone preparing for a very long conversation.
"Tell me everything."
So I did.
The climb. The plateau. The five ferals we'd found — four empty and docile, one violent and aware. The fight. The bond that had formed without warning. The desperate journey back.
Rae listened without interrupting. Her face revealed nothing, but I could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers pressed against the desk.
When I finished, the silence stretched.
"You understand what you've done," she said finally.
"I saved five lives."
"You defied my advice. You took an unauthorized team into dangerous territory. You bonded with a feral who may never accept that bond." She paused. "And you brought five unstable shifters onto a campus full of students without any preparation."
"There wasn't time to prepare. They were dying up there."
"They've been dying for years. A few more weeks wouldn't have—"
"A few more weeks and Cal's mind would have shattered." My voice came out sharper than I intended. "I felt it, Rae. He couldn't survive waiting. Knowing they were out there, suffering, while we filled out paperwork and waited for permission."
Rae closed her eyes.
"I know," she said quietly. "I know why you did it. That doesn't mean there won't be consequences."
A knock at the door.
Not polite. Not patient. The knock of someone who expected the world to rearrange itself around them.
Rae's expression hardened.
"Come in."
Headmaster Twilson stepped inside.
He looked exactly as he always did — gray suit, perfect posture, not a hair out of place. The chaos outside might as well not have existed. He was a man who had built his entire life around control, and he wasn't going to let a little thing like five feral wolves disrupt that.
"Whitaker." His gaze swept the room, taking in James and me with cold assessment. "Miss Orlav."
"Headmaster." Rae's voice was neutral. Careful. "I was just receiving a debriefing—"
"I'm aware of what you were doing." Twilson closed the door behind him. The click of the latch was very loud in the silence. "What I'm unclear on is why I wasn't informed immediately. Why my campus is in lockdown. And why there are five feral wolves in my Healing Center."
"The Healing Center falls under my authority—"