Chapter 12
Lydia
The human brain is wired to prioritize immediate threats. A saber-toothed tiger. A burning building. An angry uncle who controls your internship and your academic future.
Coach Mac Cross was all three of those things wrapped into one massive, polar bear-shaped package.
I sat in his office on Friday morning, clutching my clipboard like a shield. The room was sweltering, as usual, but I felt cold. Mac wasn't yelling. He was doing something far worse. He was looking at a spreadsheet with a deep, disappointed frown.
"Your hours, Lydia," he said, tapping the paper. "They're inconsistent."
"I logged everything, Coach," I said, my voice steady despite the flutter in my chest. "Training room, practice, travel time."
"I see the logs," he grunted. "But I also see the gaps. Tuesday afternoon. Two hours unaccounted for. Wednesday evening. You swiped out of the dorms but didn't swipe into the library. Where were you?"
I swallowed hard.
Tuesday: Making out with Mikey in the periodical section.
Wednesday: Almost getting caught in the stairwell.
"Field research," I lied. "I was... observing the players in a non-clinical setting. For my thesis. Stress responses in pack dynamics during midterms."
Mac looked up. His eyes were flat. Unimpressed.
"Non-clinical setting," he repeated. "Is that what we're calling it?"
He stood up and walked to the window, looking out over the practice rink where the team was running drills.
"I pulled some security footage, Lydia."
My blood froze. The cameras. He had actually checked the cameras.
"From the hallway outside the equipment room," he continued. "Thursday. I saw you go in at 4:15. I saw Holt go in five minutes before that. And I saw you both come out looking like you'd been caught robbing a bank."
He turned back to me. The disappointment was gone, replaced by a hard, protective anger.
"I warned you. On day one. No dating. No entanglements. It's not just about the rules, Lydia. It's about safety. It's about professionalism. And it's about the fact that Michael Holt is carrying baggage that could crush a tank, let alone a twenty-one-year-old girl."
"We were sharpening skates," I insisted, sticking to the lie because it was the only raft I had in this storm.
"Stop," Mac commanded. "Just stop. I'm not going to expel you. You're my blood. And you're good at your job. But this?" He gestured vaguely at the air. "This ends now."
He walked back to his desk and sat down.
"Effective immediately, your internship hours are restricted. You are in the training room from 3 PM to 6 PM. That's it. No travel. No 'extra' tutoring. No field research."
"But the playoffs," I argued, standing up. "The team needs me. I manage the hydration logs. I do the taping."
"We have other trainers," Mac said dismissively. "You are restricted to the clinic. And Holt? He gets a new tutor. A grad student. Male."
"Uncle Mac, you can't—"
"I can," he roared, slamming his hand on the desk. "And I am! Do you have any idea what's at stake here? The Board is looking for any excuse to cut the budget. A scandal involving the Coach's niece and the star player? It would destroy the program. It would destroy him."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
"Mikey is on the edge, Lydia. I see it. You see it. He's holding on by a thread. If he gets distracted, if he loses focus now... he loses the draft. And if he loses the draft, he has nothing. Do you want that on your conscience? Do you want to be the reason he fails?"
The words hit me like a physical blow.
The reason he fails.
It was my nightmare. It was the thing Mikey feared most—that loving me made him weak. That I was a handler, a distraction, a liability.
"I'm helping him," I whispered, tears stinging my eyes. "He's passing Anatomy because of me. He didn't fight Erickson because of me."
"Maybe," Mac conceded. "But you can't save him, Lydia. You can't love the madness out of a wolf. It doesn't work that way. Trust me."
He looked away, and I knew he was thinking about my aunt. About stories I wasn't allowed to know.
"Go to class," Mac said, dismissing me. "Report to the clinic at 3. And stay away from Holt. For his sake."
I walked out of the office, my legs shaking.
I felt like I was suffocating. The walls of the arena, usually a place of comfort, felt like they were closing in.
Stay away from him. For his sake.
I walked blindly down the hallway, ignoring the greetings from the players. I needed air. I needed to think.
But mostly, I needed Mikey. And that was exactly why I couldn't go to him.
The day dragged on in a blur of grey misery.
I sat through my Kinesiology lecture without taking a single note. I stared at the whiteboard, but all I saw was Mikey’s face. The way he looked when he slept. The way he looked when he was inside me.
You're the reason he fails.
Was I? Was I the anchor, or was I the weight dragging him down?
I checked my phone. No texts from him.
That was weird. Usually, he sent me a check-in text by lunch. Eat protein. or Thinking about your legs.
Today? Silence.
Maybe Mac had gotten to him too. Maybe Mac had threatened to revoke his scholarship if he texted me.
Or maybe... maybe he was busy.
At 3:00 PM, I reported to the training room. It was torture. I taped ankles. I filled water bottles. I avoided eye contact.
At 4:30, the team came in for post-practice treatments.
I waited. My heart hammered against my ribs. One-two. One-two.
Jagger came in, limping slightly on his bad knee. Miller came in with a bruised elbow.
But no Mikey.
"Where's Holt?" I asked Jagger as I iced his knee. I tried to sound casual. I failed.
Jagger looked at me, his expression uncharacteristically serious. "Didn't show."
"What do you mean?"
"He skipped practice," Jagger said. "Mac was furious. Screamed at everyone. Made us run suicides for twenty minutes."
"He skipped?" I frowned. Mikey never skipped. He was obsessive about the ice. "Is he sick?"
"Don't know," Jagger shrugged. "His bed wasn't slept in last night. I thought maybe he was... you know. With you."
My stomach dropped. "He wasn't with me."
"Then I don't know where he is," Jagger said. "But he better have a good excuse, or Mac is going to bench him for the first round of playoffs."
Panic started to rise in my throat. Cold and sharp.
His bed wasn't slept in.
Where was he?
I finished with Jagger and went into the supply closet to call him. Straight to voicemail.
“This is Mikey. Leave a message. Or don't.”
"Mikey, it's me," I whispered into the phone. "Where are you? Mac is on a warpath. Everyone is worried. Call me. Please."
I hung up.
Five o'clock came. Then six.
Mac came into the training room. He looked furious.
"Has he contacted you?" Mac demanded, not bothering with pleasantries.
"No," I said honestly. "I don't know where he is."
"If he's throwing his career away for a joyride..." Mac growled, pacing the room. "I swear to god."
"He wouldn't do that," I defended, though my own doubt was gnawing at me. "Something's wrong, Uncle Mac. He wouldn't miss practice unless it was an emergency."
"Or unless he's gone Feral," Mac muttered.
The room went silent.
"Don't say that," I whispered.
"It happens, Lydia," Mac said brutally. "Pressure builds. Genetics kick in. One day they're fine, the next they're running naked in the woods tearing up deer."
"He's not his father!" I shouted.
"Then where is he?"
I didn't have an answer.
I grabbed my bag. "I'm going to find him."
"Lydia, you are restricted—"
"Fire me!" I yelled, backing toward the door. "Suspend me! I don't care! I'm going to find him because nobody else seems to give a damn about him as a person!"
I turned and ran.
I ran out of the arena, into the snow. It was dark now. Friday night.
Friday.
The realization hit me so hard I stumbled.
The facility. The deadline. $12,000.
He had told me. He had told me Friday was the day. If he didn't pay, they moved his dad.
Where would he go to get twelve thousand dollars in twenty-four hours?
He said he tried to sell the Camaro. But that takes time.
What else?
Underground fights.
The thought came from nowhere, a snippet of a rumor I’d heard Becca mention once about "shifter pits" in Detroit. Places where desperate wolves went to bleed for cash.
My heart stopped.
Detroit was six hours away. If he left last night... he could be back by now. Or he could be in a hospital. Or a jail.
I ran to my car—a beat-up Honda Civic that hated the cold. I cranked the engine.
Where would he go if he was hurt? Not the hospital. Too many questions. Not the Hive. Too many witnesses.
The Sanctuary.
Not the facility. His sanctuary. The one place he felt safe.
The cabin.
The hunting cabin we had found during the snowstorm. It was an hour north, deep in the woods. Isolated.
It was a long shot. A desperate shot.
But I felt it. The tug in my chest. The invisible tether that connected us.
He's there.
I threw the car into gear and drove.
The drive was terrifying. The roads were slick with black ice. Snow swirled in my headlights, mesmerizing and deadly.
I drove fast. Too fast.
My mind was spiraling. Please be okay. Please don't be Feral. Please let me be wrong.
I turned onto the logging road that led to the cabin. My tires spun in the deep snow, but I kept going.
Finally, the cabin appeared in my headlights. It was dark. Abandoned.
But there was a truck parked in the small clearing. A black Ford F-150. Mikey’s truck.
"Oh god," I breathed.
I parked behind him and scrambled out. The cold was biting, twenty below zero.
I ran to the truck. Empty.
I ran to the cabin door. Locked.
"Mikey!" I screamed, pounding on the wood. "Mikey, open up!"
Silence.
I ran to the window. It was dark inside, but I could smell it. Even through the glass.
Blood.
Fresh, metallic, overwhelming.
"Mikey!"
I tried the door again. I threw my shoulder against it. It didn't budge.
I remembered the loose board on the back porch. The one we had found during the storm. I ran around the back. I pried the board loose, found the spare key hidden in the frame—a hunter’s trick.
I unlocked the back door and stumbled into the kitchen.
It was freezing inside. No fire.
I pulled out my phone, using the flashlight.
"Mikey?"
I followed the scent of blood. It led to the main room. To the rug in front of the cold fireplace.
He was there.
He was lying on his back, shirtless. His jeans were soaked in blood. His chest was a mess of cuts and bruises—fresh ones. Nasty ones. Claw marks. Bite marks.
His face was swollen. One eye was swollen shut. His lip was split.
"Mikey!"
I dropped to my knees beside him. The snow form my boots melted instantly on his fever-hot skin.
He groaned, turning his head away from the light.
"Go 'way," he mumbled. His voice was thick, wet.
"It's me," I sobbed, putting my hands on his face. "It's Lydia. Oh god, Mikey. What did you do?"
He cracked his good eye open. It was hazy. "Mouse?"
"I'm here." I scanned his body. The wounds were bad, but they weren't arterial. He was healing, but slowly. Too slowly. He was exhausted.
"Did you... did you fight?" I asked, touching a jagged gash on his ribs.
"Got the money," he rasped, a bloody grin tugging at his mouth. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of cash. Rubber-banded. Bloodstained.
"Twelve grand," he whispered. "Paid it. Dad's safe."
He dropped the money on the rug.
"You idiot," I cried, tears streaming down my face. "You stupid, noble idiot. You could have died."
"Worth it," he coughed. "Had to do it. No choice."
"There's always a choice!" I yelled, grabbing my med kit from my bag—I never went anywhere without it. "You could have asked for help! You could have sold the truck!"
"Couldn't," he slurred. "My burden. My blood."
He closed his eye again. "Tired, Mouse. Just wanna sleep."
"No sleeping," I ordered, snapping into professional mode despite the shaking of my hands. "Concussion protocol. Stay awake with me."
I started cleaning the wounds. I poured antiseptic on the cuts. He hissed but didn't pull away. I stitched the worst gash on his arm—six stitches. My hands were steady now. The fear was gone, replaced by the grim determination of the healer.
"Talk to me," I commanded as I worked. "Tell me about the fight. Who was it?"
"Detroit pit," he murmured. "Wolf named Kincaid. Big guy. Dirty fighter."
"Did you win?"
"I'm alive," he said simply. "That's winning."
I finished bandaging him. I started a fire in the fireplace, getting the room warm. I dragged blankets from the bedroom and covered him.
I lay down on the rug beside him, pulling him into my arms. He was shivering now—the adrenaline crash.
"I missed practice," he realized suddenly, his body tensing. "Mac... Mac's gonna kill me."
"Mac is worried sick," I said, stroking his hair. "But we'll deal with Mac later. Right now, you just heal. Eat the protein bars in my bag. Drink water."
"He knows," Mikey whispered, burying his face in my neck. "Mac knows about us. He's gonna separate us."
"He tried," I admitted. "He restricted my hours. Banned me from tutoring you."
Mikey made a sound of distress. "See? I ruined it. I'm a liability."
"Shut up," I said fiercely. "You didn't ruin anything. You saved your father. That's brave, Mikey. Stupid, but brave."
I kissed his forehead, right above the swollen eye.
"And as for Mac... let him try to separate us. I just drove through a blizzard to find you in a murder cabin. I don't think a clipboard and a schedule change is going to stop me."
Mikey let out a long, ragged breath. He wrapped his arm around my waist, holding on like I was the only solid thing in the universe.
"Don't leave," he begged.
"I'm not going anywhere."
We lay there in the firelight. The bloodstained money sat on the rug next to us—the cost of his love for his father.
I looked at it. Then I looked at him.
He had fought for his dad. He had bled for him.
And I realized, with a terrifying clarity, that he would do the same for me.
And I would do the same for him.
"We're in trouble, Mikey," I whispered into the darkness.
"Yeah," he agreed, drifting off. "But we're together."
And in that moment, in the blood and the firelight, that was the only thing that mattered.
But outside, the wind howled. And back on campus, the consequences were waiting. Mac knew. The team knew.
The bubble had burst. Now we had to survive the fallout.