Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
The first two days blurred together.
I slept in the chair beside the wolf's bed, waking every few hours to check his breathing, his temperature, the steady drip of the IV.
Rae's staff moved around me like I was furniture—adjusting monitors, recording vitals, changing the fluid bags.
They didn't ask me to leave. I think they understood I wouldn't have gone anyway.
The wolf healed slowly.
His ribs stopped showing first. The IV fluids and carefully administered nutrients did their work, filling in the hollows that starvation had carved. His coat began to regain some of its luster—still matted in places, still scarred, but no longer the dull, lifeless thing I'd found on the mountain.
He still didn't wake up.
James went back to classes on day three.
"Twilson's watching," Rae explained when she delivered the news. "If you both disappear indefinitely, he'll use it as ammunition. James needs to be visible, attending classes, demonstrating that he's still a functional student."
"And me?"
"You have a medical exemption, trauma recovery, mate in critical condition." She smiled grimly. "Twilson can't touch it. I made sure of that."
So James returned to the world of schedules and lectures and normal life, and I stayed in the quiet room at the healing center, watching our mate breathe.
He visited every evening. Would burst through the door like he'd been holding his breath all day, pull me into his arms, bury his face in my hair. The bond would flare between us—bright and warm and necessary—and for a few minutes, everything felt manageable.
"Any change?" he asked on the fourth night.
I shook my head. "The staff says his vitals are improving. Brain activity is increasing. But he won't wake up."
James sat on the arm of my chair, his hand finding mine. "Maybe it just takes time."
"Maybe."
On day four, I started reading aloud.
It was Rae's suggestion. "Ferals respond to familiar stimuli," she'd explained. "Voice, touch, scent. Anything that reminds them of connection, of being part of something."
I started with the climbing guide James had stolen from the library. By afternoon, I'd moved on to whatever I could find—novels, poetry, eventually just talking. Telling him about Frosthaven, about James, about the life waiting for him if he'd just wake up.
"You'll like James," I said. "He's stubborn. Follows people into the wilderness without asking permission. Turned into a wolf to fight a bear for me."
Nothing. Just the steady rise and fall of his chest.
But when I stood to get water, his breathing changed. Faster. Shallower. His paws twitched against the blankets.
I sat back down, and he settled.
The pattern repeated. Every time I left the room—even for a few minutes—his vitals spiked. Anxiety response, the nurses explained. Fight-or-flight activation. It took him hours to settle.
But when I was there, touching him, talking to him, he was calm. Stable. Healing.
The bond was reaching him. Even if his conscious mind couldn't respond yet.
That afternoon James burst through the door earlier than usual, radiating energy. "Classes ended early. Burst pipe in the science wing." He crossed the room in three strides and swept me into his arms. "I missed you."
"You saw me six hours ago."
"Six hours too long."
He kissed me—thorough and unhurried, the bond flaring bright between us. For a moment, everything was simple. Just us. Just this.
The door opened behind us.
I heard footsteps, the rustle of papers. A voice I didn't recognize, distracted and clinical: "I'm looking for the chart updates on the feral case, the nurses said—"
The voice stopped.
James and I broke apart. A man stood just inside the doorway—tall, dark-haired, wearing the medical jacket of Rae's staff. He was holding a clipboard, but he wasn't looking at it anymore. His eyes were fixed on me.
No. Not fixed. Locked.
His nostrils flared. Something shifted in his expression—confusion giving way to something rawer, something instinctive. His pupils dilated.
And then he growled.
Low. Rumbling. The sound of a wolf scenting something it wanted to claim.
"What the hell?" James stepped in front of me, his body shifting into a defensive posture.
The stranger didn't even look at him. His pale green eyes stayed on me, and the growl deepened—not aggressive, but possessive in a way that raised every hair on my arms.
Then a second growl answered.
From the bed.
My head snapped around.
The wolf's eyes were open.
Yellow. Wild. Fixed on the stranger with a fury I felt through the bond like a punch to the chest. His lips peeled back from his teeth, revealing canines that hadn't been bared in five days of unconsciousness.
He was struggling to rise, legs scrambling against the blankets, the medical restraints straining.
"He's awake," I breathed. "James, he's awake—"
The wolf lunged.
The restraints caught him, barely. He thrashed against them, snarling, snapping at the air in the direction of the stranger. The monitors started screaming. Alarms blared.
I didn't think. I moved.
I threw myself onto the bed, my hands finding the wolf's fur, pressing against his neck, his shoulders, anywhere I could reach. "Easy! Easy, it's okay, you're safe—"
"Get away from him!" The stranger's voice cracked through the chaos. "He's feral, he'll kill you—"
I felt him move. Felt hands close around my arm, yanking me backward, pulling me off the bed and away from the thrashing wolf.
Skin against skin.
His fingers on my bare forearm.
The world detonated.
Light. Heat. A searing pain at my wrist that made me cry out.
The bond—already humming with James, already reaching toward the feral—tore open in a new direction.
I felt the stranger flood into my awareness—shock, confusion, a desperate longing he didn't understand—all of it pouring through a connection that hadn't existed three seconds ago.
The mark on my wrist blazed white.
I looked down. Watched a third arc carve itself into my skin, joining the other two—still not touching, but closer now. Three curves. Three mates.
The wolf had gone still.
Completely, utterly still. His yellow eyes were fixed on my wrist, on the glowing mark, on the evidence of what had just happened. The snarling had stopped. The thrashing had stopped. He was just... staring.
And through the bond—through all of them now, James and the feral and this stranger whose hands were still gripping my arm—I felt something shift.
The feral wolf's presence, distant for days, suddenly surged forward. Not attacking. Not retreating.
Recognizing.
"Lumi." James's voice was strained. "Your wrist."
I couldn't answer. The pain was fading, but the mark still glowed faintly—three arcs, almost touching, branded into my skin.
The stranger—Dr. Holloway, I remembered, he'd said his name in the doorway—released my arm like I'd burned him. He stumbled backward, staring at his own hands, then at me, then at the mark.
"That's not possible," he said. His voice was hoarse. "I've never—I didn't—"
On the bed, the wolf made a sound.
Not a growl. Not a snarl. Something smaller. Questioning.
His yellow eyes moved from Holloway to James to me, and for the first time since the mountain, I saw something human looking back.
Something that recognized me.
Something that knew.
"Holy shit," James whispered.
The wolf's gaze dropped to my wrist. To the mark. To the three arcs that proclaimed what we all were to each other.
Then he laid his head down on the bed, pressed his muzzle against my thigh—
And his body began to shake.
Not trembling. Shifting. The ripple of fur receding, bones cracking and reforming, the sounds I'd heard when James transformed but slower, more deliberate.
I watched, frozen, as the wolf disappeared.
And a man took his place.
He followed her voice out of the dark. If he can’t remember who he is—or learn to share her—he’ll lose her forever. Start reading Northern Light, Book 2 in the Frosthaven Academy Northern Series now.
Can the feral learn to share . . . or will instinct win?
Read his POV bonus scene.