Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
The wolf that was James stood frozen in the churned-up snow, sides heaving, eyes wild with a terror that had nothing to do with the bear.
I'd seen first shifts before. Not many—Darian's community and the orphanage had young shifters, but they were born into their nature—they knew it was coming. Still they felt the disorientation. The panic. The way a person's mind struggled to reconcile with a body that had fundamentally changed.
James was drowning in it.
"Okay," I said, keeping my voice low and steady. "Okay. I need you to look at me."
His ears flattened against his skull. He was trembling—not from cold, from shock. His body was burning through energy faster than he could process, the shift having demanded everything he had and more.
I needed to work fast.
"I'm going to set some things down," I continued, already shrugging off my pack. "I'm not leaving. I'm right here. But I need my hands free."
He watched me with desperate intensity as I pulled out the first aid kit, the emergency bivvy, the thermal blankets. I arranged them on the snow within arm's reach—everything I'd need when he shifted back. Because he would shift back.
When that happened, he'd need warmth. Medical attention. Someone who knew what to say.
I could give him all three.
"James." I straightened slowly, hands visible, posture non-threatening. "I know you're scared. I know nothing makes sense right now. But I need you to hear me: you're not dying. You're not broken. What's happening to you is... it's something your body was always capable of. You just didn't know."
A sound escaped him. Half whine, half something that might have been a word if he'd had a human throat to form it.
"You're a shifter." I said it plainly, no softening. He deserved the truth. "A werewolf, if you want the old term. It's why you came to Frosthaven. The academy recruits people like you—latents, we call them. People who carry the gene but haven't triggered yet."
His legs buckled slightly. He caught himself, but barely.
"The bear triggered your first shift. Fear, adrenaline, the need to protect—it pushed your body past the threshold." I took a slow step toward him. "It happens. It's not supposed to happen like this, alone on a mountain with no warning, but it happens. And you survived it."
Another step. He didn't flinch this time.
"I'm going to come closer now. I'm going to touch you. It's going to feel strange, but I need you to let me. Can you do that?"
He held my gaze for a long moment. Then, slowly, he dipped his massive head in something that might have been a nod.
I closed the distance between us.
Up close, he was enormous. His shoulder came to my chest, his body easily twice my mass.
The fur I'd glimpsed from a distance was thick and soft-looking, dark brown shot through with gold where the afternoon light caught it.
Blood matted the fur on his left flank—the wound from the bear, still seeping.
I reached out and laid my palm flat against his neck.
The bond flared.
It was like completing a circuit. The hum that had been building between us since orientation surged through the contact point, warm and electric.
I felt his heartbeat—too fast, rabbit-quick with panic—and beneath that, something else.
His emotions, bleeding through the partial bond.
Fear. Confusion. A desperate, clawing need to understand.
And underneath all of it, trust.
He trusted me. Even now, even terrified and trapped in a body he didn't recognize, some part of him trusted me to make this okay.
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
"Good," I murmured. "That's good. You're doing so well."
His trembling eased slightly at my voice. I kept my hand on his neck, letting the bond do its work, and started talking.
"Shifters have been around for centuries.
Maybe longer—the histories get fuzzy past a certain point.
Most are born into packs, raised knowing what they are.
But some, like you, carry latent genes. You could go your whole life without triggering, or you could shift at sixteen, or forty, or.
.." I gestured vaguely. "On a mountain, fighting a bear. "
A sound that might have been a laugh, if wolves could laugh. It came out more like a huff.
"The shift is controlled by emotion, at first. Strong feelings push you over the edge—fear, anger, protectiveness. With training, you learn to control it. Choose when to shift and when to stay human. But right now, your body's running on instinct. It doesn't know the rules yet."
I moved my hand slowly, stroking along his neck, and he leaned into the touch. The bond hummed between us, and I felt his panic begin to ebb. Still there—God, still so present—but no longer the drowning flood it had been.
“I grew up around shifters,” I said quietly.
“Before I ever came to Frosthaven. I was raised at an orphanage near Darian’s pack, and they were…
close enough that I saw everything. I've seen first shifts.
I've seen wolves learn to control their forms. It's not easy, but it's not impossible. And you're not alone in it.”
I swallowed.
His eyes met mine.
Still scared.
"I know you have questions. I know there's so much I should have told you before now. But right now, I need you to focus on one thing." I cupped his face in both hands—his massive, furred, impossible face—and held his gaze. "I need you to find your way back."
A whine. Low, uncertain.
"Your human form is still in there. It's not gone—it's just..
. underneath. Like the wolf was underneath before.
" I pressed my forehead to his. The bond sang at the contact.
"Close your eyes. Focus on my voice. Remember what it feels like to have hands.
To stand on two legs. To breathe with human lungs. "
His eyes drifted shut.
"Think about something human. Something that anchors you to that form. A memory. A sensation. Something that's purely, specifically James."
His breathing changed. Slower. Deeper.
"That's it. Hold onto that. Let it pull you back."
I felt it start through the bond—a shift in his energy, something deep beginning to move. His body shuddered against my hands.
"You're doing so well. Keep going. I've got you."
The tremors intensified. I stepped back, giving him space, and watched as his form began to ripple.
It was faster than the first shift. Cleaner. Less violent. More like something settling back into place.
One moment there was fur and mass and heat in front of me—
The next, James was there. Human again. Fully clothed, knees hitting the snow as his body finished remembering its shape.
He swayed.
I was already moving.
The thermal blanket went around him first—emergency silver, designed to trap body heat. I wrapped him in everything I had, layer after layer, until he looked like a shivering cocoon.
“James. Can you hear me?”
His eyes opened. Glassy, unfocused, but present.
"L-Lumi?"
"I'm here." I pulled him against me, sharing what body heat I could through the layers. "I'm right here."
"What—" His voice cracked. "What happened to me?"
"You shifted. Do you remember? The bear, and then—"
"Fur." The word came out strangled. "I had fur. I was—I couldn't—" His breathing hitched, panic climbing again. "I couldn't find my hands, I couldn't—"
"Hey. Hey." I tightened my grip on him. "You're back. You're human. Feel that? Two hands, ten fingers. You found your way back."
He looked down at his hands like he'd never seen them before. Flexed his fingers. Touched his own face, his chest, his arms—confirming that everything was where it should be.
"I don't understand." His voice was small. Lost. "I don't understand any of this."
"I know. And I'm going to explain everything, I promise. But first, I need to check your wound."
"My—" He blinked, like he'd forgotten about the bear entirely. "Oh."
The gash on his side had partially closed—shifter healing already kicking in—but it was still open enough to need attention. I guided him down onto the emergency bivvy and unwrapped the layers enough to access the wound.
"This is going to sting."
He barely flinched when I cleaned it. Shock, probably. His body was so flooded with adrenaline and confusion that a little antiseptic wasn't even registering.
"Shifters heal faster than humans," I explained as I worked. "Not instant, not like the movies, but faster. This would need stitches on a normal person. On you, it'll probably close within a day or two. I'm going to bandage it anyway, keep it clean."
"How do you know all this?"
"I told you. I grew up around shifters."
"But you're not—" He stopped. Frowned. "Are you?"
"Not sure exactly what I am, probably human." Mostly. The visions were something else, but that was a conversation for another time. "But I've been around wolves my whole life. How to recognize a shift, how to help someone through it, what a new wolf needs."
I finished the bandage and sat back on my heels. James was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read—wonder and fear and something softer underneath.
"You knew," he said slowly. "Before today. You knew I might be..."
"I suspected." No point in lying now. "The bond between us—the pull you've been feeling—it's called a mate bond. It only forms between shifters, or between a shifter and someone who carries the gene. When I felt it with you, I knew there was a chance."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"What was I supposed to say?" I met his eyes. "Hey, James, fun fact, you might be a werewolf? You didn't even know supernatural creatures existed. How was I supposed to explain something like that?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. It was weak, exhausted, slightly hysterical—but it was a laugh.
"Fair point."
I let out a breath. "How are you feeling? Honestly."
"Like I got hit by a truck, turned inside out, and put back together wrong." He paused. "But also... weirdly okay? Like something that was stuck finally came loose."
I nodded. "That's normal. A lot of latents describe their first shift that way. Like their body finally makes sense."
"It doesn't make sense." He looked at his hands again. "None of this makes sense."
"It will. With time."
The wind picked up, driving ice crystals against us. I glanced at the sky—clouds building, temperature dropping. We needed to move. Find shelter. Get James somewhere warm and safe where he could rest and process.
But when I looked back at him, he was staring at me with an intensity that made my breath catch.
"The bond," he said. "The mate thing. What does that mean?"
"It means we're connected. Drawn to each other on a level that goes beyond normal attraction." I chose my words carefully. "It doesn't force anything. It's not... you still have choices. We both do. But the pull, the hum you've been feeling—that's not going away. It's part of us now."
"Part of us," he repeated softly.
"Yeah."
He reached out and took my hand. His grip was weak, his fingers still trembling, but the bond flared at the contact—warm and bright and certain.
"I have about a thousand questions," he said.
"I know."
"And I'm probably going to freak out again at some point."
"Probably."
"But right now..." He squeezed my hand. "Right now I'm just really glad you're here."
The words hit somewhere tender. I squeezed back.
"I'm not going anywhere."
We sat there for a long moment, hands linked, the bond humming between us. The mountain waited. The wolf in my visions waited. Everything I'd come here to do was still ahead of us.
But for now, this was enough.
James was alive. James was human again. James knew the truth.
And somehow, impossibly, he was still looking at me like I was something worth holding onto.
"We need to move," I said finally. "Find shelter before the weather turns. Can you walk?"
He tested his legs, grimacing. "I think so. Slowly."
"Slowly works."
I helped him to his feet, keeping an arm around his waist as he found his balance. He leaned into me more than he probably wanted to—exhaustion and shock making him unsteady—but he didn't complain.
We gathered what we could and started moving. One step at a time. Together.
Behind us, the blood-stained snow was already being covered by fresh fall.