Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
The Healing Center went on lockdown two hours after Stone shifted back to wolf.
I watched the protocols engage from my position on the floor of his room—heavy doors sealing, security personnel taking positions, the soft hum of additional barriers activating throughout the east wing.
Through the observation window, I could see staff members moving with controlled urgency, their faces tight with the kind of fear that came from not fully understanding what had happened.
Someone had made a decision. Someone with authority had looked at the situation—a student crossing into a feral's containment, a violent wolf shifting to human for the first time in years, blood on the floor and a bond completion that shouldn't have been possible—and decided that everything needed to stop until they figured out what it meant.
I didn't blame them.
I didn't move either.
Stone was still sleeping, his wolf form curled against my legs. Through the bond, I felt his exhaustion—deep and absolute, the kind that came from years of fighting finally giving way to something like rest. His breathing was steady. His heartbeat was strong.
He was alive.
Everything else could wait.
Neal came to check on us every hour.
The first few times, he was professional. Clinical. He checked Stone's vitals, examined my neck wounds, made notes on his tablet. His voice was calm. His hands were steady.
But I could feel him through the bond. The fury building underneath his composure like pressure behind a dam.
The fourth time he came, he didn't bother with the tablet.
"Do you have any idea," he said quietly, "what it was like to watch you walk through that door?"
I didn't answer. Didn't look up from Stone's sleeping form.
"I've treated trauma patients for years. I've seen people make reckless decisions, stupid decisions, because they thought they knew better than the medical professionals trying to save them." Neal's voice was tight. Controlled. "I have never—never—been as terrified as I was in that moment."
"I know."
"Do you?" He crouched down, forcing himself into my line of sight. His eyes were red-rimmed. Exhausted. "Because from where I was standing, it looked like you walked into that room fully prepared to die. Like saving him mattered more than your own survival."
"It wasn't about dying."
"Then what was it about?"
I finally looked at him. At this man who had spent weeks trying to heal Stone from the outside, who had watched me deteriorate alongside his patient, who had loved me enough to let me walk into danger even when every instinct screamed at him to stop me.
"It was about not letting fear win," I said.
"His fear. My fear. Everyone's fear. Stone was dying because he was too scared to let anyone in.
And I was scared too—scared of losing him, scared of getting hurt, scared of what would happen if I tried and failed.
" I reached out, touched Neal's face. "But fear was killing him. And I couldn't let it kill me too."
Neal closed his eyes. Leaned into my touch.
"You could have died," he whispered.
"I didn't."
"You could have." His voice cracked. "And I would have had to live with that. With knowing I helped you do it. That I opened the door and let you—"
"Neal." I cupped his face in both hands. Made him look at me. "I'm here. I'm alive. Stone is alive. The bond completed. It worked."
"This time."
"Yes. This time." I held his gaze. "And if there's a next time—if someone else needs me to take a risk like that—I'll probably do it again. Because that's who I am. That's who you fell in love with."
Something shifted in his expression. The fury didn't disappear, but it softened. Made room for something else.
"I hate that you're right," he said.
"I know."
He leaned forward. Pressed his forehead against mine.
"Don't make a habit of it," he murmured. "Please."
"I'll try."
James's reaction was louder.
He found me in the corridor outside Stone's room during one of my brief breaks—bathroom, water, a few minutes of standing upright to remind my legs they still worked. I felt him coming through the bond before I saw him. A storm of emotion so intense it made my head pound.
"You promised," he said. No preamble. No greeting. Just those two words, sharp as knives.
"I promised to call for help if I needed it."
"And did you? Call for help?"
I thought about Stone's teeth on my throat. The moment when I'd genuinely believed I was about to die.
"There wasn't time."
"Bullshit." James stepped closer. His eyes were red. His hands were shaking. "There was time. You just didn't take it. You decided to handle it yourself, like you always do, like the rest of us don't matter—"
"That's not fair."
"Fair?" His voice cracked. "You want to talk about fair? I stood outside that door and listened to you almost get killed. I felt your fear through the bond—your actual terror—and I couldn't do anything. I couldn't help you. I couldn't protect you. I just had to stand there and hope."
"James—"
"Do you know what that's like?" He grabbed my shoulders. Not rough—desperate. "Do you have any idea what it's like to love someone who keeps throwing herself into danger like her own life doesn't matter?"
"My life matters."
"Then act like it!"
The words echoed off the corridor walls. James's chest was heaving. His grip on my shoulders had tightened without him seeming to notice.
Through the bond, I felt what was underneath his anger. The fear. The helplessness. The love that had nowhere to go except into rage because everything else hurt too much.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly.
"I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to be safe."
"I can't promise that. You know I can't promise that."
"I know." His voice broke. His head dropped forward until his forehead rested against mine. "I know. And I hate it. I hate that I fell in love with someone who's going to keep scaring the hell out of me for the rest of my life."
"Is that what's happening? The rest of our lives?"
James pulled back enough to look at me. His eyes were wet, but something in his expression had shifted. The anger giving way to something more tender. More terrified.
"Yeah," he said roughly. "That's what's happening. Whether you like it or not."
I wrapped my arms around him. Held on tight.
"I like it," I whispered.
He held me back. Didn't let go for a long time.
Cal was the hardest.
I found him in the east wing, in front of the observation window that looked into his packmates' rooms. He was in wolf form—he almost always was, these days—lying with his head on his paws, watching them through the glass.
He didn't look at me when I sat down beside him.
Through the bond, I felt his guilt. Heavy and constant, like a stone he'd been carrying for so long he'd forgotten what it felt like to put it down.
"It's not your fault," I said.
His ear twitched. Acknowledgment.
"Stone's situation—what happened to him—that's not on you. You didn't break him. You didn't make him feral."
Cal didn't respond. Just kept watching his packmates through the glass.
"Cal." I reached out, ran my fingers through his fur. "Talk to me. Please."
He shifted.
"You almost died," he said. His voice was hoarse. "Because of my packmate."
"Stone isn't just your packmate. He's my mate too."
"Because of me. Because I brought you into this. Because my pack's trauma became your burden—"
"It's not a burden."
"It is." Cal's eyes finally met mine. They were anguished.
"That's not how this works."
"Isn't it?"
I shifted until I was facing him fully. Took his hands in mine.
"Listen to me," I said. "You didn't cause any of this.
Whatever happened to your pack—whatever trauma broke you apart and sent Stone into that spiral—that was done to you.
Not by you. The people who hurt you are responsible.
The system that let it happen is responsible. You are not responsible for surviving."
Cal's jaw tightened. "I left them. In the wilderness.”
"You were unconscious when we found you. You didn't choose to leave anyone. And the moment you were able, you led us back to find them." I squeezed his hands. "You saved them, Cal. You and me together. Five ferals who would have died in the wild—they're here because of you."
"Stone almost killed you."
"Stone almost killed himself. I just happened to be in the way." I managed a small smile. "And he didn't. That's what matters. He stopped. He chose to stop."
Cal stared at me. Through the bond, I felt his guilt warring with something else. Something that wanted to believe me. That needed to believe me.
"I don't know how to forgive myself," he said quietly.
"You don't have to figure that out today." I leaned forward, pressed my forehead against his. "Just stay with me. Stay with us. Let us help carry this."
His breath shuddered out. His hands tightened on mine.
"Okay," he whispered. "Okay."
Ivy was waiting in our room when I finally made it back to the dorms.
It was past midnight. I'd intended to sneak in quietly, grab some clean clothes, maybe catch an hour of sleep before heading back to Stone. But the lamp on her side of the room was on, and she was sitting on her bed, and her expression when she saw me made it clear that sneaking wasn't an option.
"Sit down," she said.
I sat.
She stared at me for a long moment. Taking in the bandages on my neck. The exhaustion carved into my face. The way I moved like everything hurt.
"I've been patient," she said. Her voice was calm.
Controlled. The kind of calm that preceded storms. "I've watched you disappear for weeks.
I've made excuses for you when professors asked questions.
I've covered for you with the RA, with our floormates, with everyone who noticed that my roommate was falling apart. "
"Ivy—"
"I'm not done." She held up a hand. "I did all that because I trusted you. Because you said you couldn't tell me, and I believed that you had a reason. That when you could explain, you would."
She leaned forward.
"So explain. Now. Because those bandages on your neck look bad, and I'm about ten minutes away from reporting you as a victim of assault."
I took a breath. Let it out slowly.
"If I tell you," I said, "everything changes. You can't unknow it. You can't go back to normal."
"I don't want normal. I want the truth."
Fair enough.
"Shifters exist," I said. "People who can transform into wolves. It's genetic—certain bloodlines carry the ability. They're born human, but they can shift forms. Some of them live among regular people their whole lives and no one ever knows."
Ivy's expression didn't change. She was listening. Waiting.
“You carry the shifter gene or you wouldn’t be here at Frosthaven Academy.”
A sharp inhale is her only response.
"I have mates. Four of them. It's a bond thing—we didn't choose it, it just... happened. Two of them are—were—feral. One has been lost in his wolf form. Unable to shift back to human."
"Stone," Ivy said quietly. "That's what you call him."
I blinked. "How did you—"
"You talk in your sleep. Not much. But enough." She gestured at my neck. "He did that?"
"When I went in to save him. He was dying—his body was shutting down because he was fighting the bond. The only way to help him was to enter his cell. Let him... let him decide whether to trust me or not."
"And he bit you."
"He had his teeth on my throat. But he didn't bite down. He stopped." I touched the bandages. "These are from when he grabbed me. Before he realized I wasn't a threat."
Ivy was quiet for a long moment. I watched her process it—the impossibility of what I was saying warring with the evidence in front of her.
"Shifters," she said finally. "Like werewolves?"
"Sort of. Less moon-dependent. More... biological."
"And you're mated to four of them."
"Yes. It's complicated."
"I imagine."
More silence. Ivy's expression was unreadable.
“And you think I’m a shifter too. Am I?” She shook her head, starting over. “No. First—are you okay?”
The question broke something in me. After everything—after the fear and the fury and the guilt I'd absorbed from everyone else—that simple question hit differently.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Stone is alive.
He shifted to human for twelve minutes before he lost hold of it.
That's progress. That's more than anyone thought was possible.
But he's still more wolf than human. He still barely remembers who he was.
And there are people on this campus who want him dead, who want all the ferals dead, and I don't know if I can protect him. "
My voice cracked. I hadn't meant to say so much. Hadn't meant to let it out.
Ivy stood up. Crossed to my bed. Sat down beside me.
"I don't understand most of what you just told me," she said. "Shifters and mates and ferals—it sounds insane."
"I know."
"But I know you. I know you're not crazy. I know you're not a liar." She reached out, took my hand. "And I know that whatever's happening, you need someone in your corner when everything else is chaos."
I looked at her. At my roommate. My friend. The person who had just heard the impossible and decided to stay anyway.
"You believe me?"
"I believe you believe it. And I believe those are bite marks on your neck." Ivy squeezed my hand. "The rest I'll figure out as we go."
"It's dangerous. Knowing this—being part of this—"
"I didn't ask if it was safe. I asked if you were okay." She smiled. Small. Tired. But real. "I'm not going anywhere, Lumi. You're stuck with me."
I pulled her into a hug. Held on tight.
"Thank you," I whispered.
"Don't thank me. Just don't get yourself killed." She hugged me back. "And maybe next time you're going to do something stupid, give me a heads up first."
"I'll try."
“And when you feel better–I have a million questions, but they can wait.”
I made it back to Stone's room just before dawn.
He was still in wolf form, but he was awake now—lying in the corner, his golden eyes tracking me as I entered.
Through the bond, I felt him. Tired. Confused. Still more animal than human.
But present. Aware.
Alive.
I settled into my usual spot—inside now, not outside. Close enough to touch him if he let me.
"Hey," I said softly. "I'm back."
His tail moved. Once. Twice.
Almost a wag.
I smiled. Let my head fall back against the wall.
Stone was alive. The bond was complete. My mates were angry and scared and grieving, but they were still mine. Ivy knew the truth and had chosen to stay.
Everything else was uncertain.
But for right now, in this moment, that was enough.