Chapter Three
Trinity
The entire compound smells like pine, clean cotton, and wolves who sleep without fear.
It shouldn’t matter. I’ve slept in worse places—caves slick with damp, abandoned cabins that whispered of rot, the open forest with only my knife and my wolf for company. I’ve learned how to curl around myself and pretend the world can’t reach me.
But this house has a room with a bed. A real one with a thick quilt. The walls are solid and the door stays closed. I sit on the edge of the mattress and wait for the other shoe to drop.
It doesn’t but the silence presses in, unfamiliar and heavy. Not the sharp, listening quiet of the wild. Not the screaming absence that follows when the dead finally leave me alone after weeks of company.
This is ... peaceful. My wolf shifts uneasily under my skin, pacing in a slow circle. “Too easy,” she murmurs and I don’t disagree. It definitely seems too good to be true.
I set my backpack down carefully, like the floor might object. I unroll my spare clothes and line my boots beneath the bed out of habit. Every movement is controlled and deliberate, muscle memory from months of knowing I might have to flee with seconds’ notice.
When I straighten, the room is still exactly the same. No voices rise from the corners. No translucent figures lean against the walls with knowing smiles. No cold fingers brush my arms. The dead respect boundaries here and that thought alone sends a shiver down my spine.
I press my palm to my sternum, right over the mate bond humming quietly beneath my ribs. Grayson’s presence isn’t invasive. It doesn’t tug or demand. It just ... exists. Like a steady star I can orient myself by if I choose.
I don’t know what the fuck to do with that.
A soft knock sounds at the door and I freeze. My fight or flight instincts kick in and I’m torn in both directions.
“Trinity?” Peyton’s voice, warm and gentle. “May I come in?”
I hesitate, then cross the room and open the door a crack. Peyton stands alone in the hallway, her posture relaxed, eyes kind but observant. She’s not armed or with a guard and that’s almost worse. She trusts me.
“Sure,” I say, stepping back.
She enters without scanning the corners. Without assessing threats. She looks at the bed, the window, the small dresser and smiles faintly.
“I remember my first night here,” she says. “I didn’t sleep. I kept waiting for someone to tell me it was a mistake.”
My chest tightens. “Did it feel like one?”
“No,” she says honestly. “It felt unreal.”
She sits on the edge of the bed, leaving me space. That seems to be the theme with this pack, they leave room to breathe, to choose.
“Caine told me you came alone,” she continues. “That takes courage.”
Or desperation. “I didn’t have a choice,” I say.
She nods, accepting that answer without probing. “It still counts. Most shifters who end up here didn’t have a choice, but they do once they get here.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Peyton studies me, not like a threat and not like a puzzle. But like I’m a person.
“You don’t have to stay,” she says finally. “But while you are here, you’re under our protection.”
The words echo dangerously close to the ones my old Alpha used to say right before he took it all away.
“What happens if you decide I’m a problem?” I ask.
Peyton doesn’t flinch. “Then we talk. We don’t cast people out for being different.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
Her gaze sharpens, not offended that I don’t trust her—them—yet, but understanding. “And it didn’t end well.”
“No.”
She reaches out slowly, giving me time to pull away. I don’t. Her hand settles lightly on mine, warm and grounding.
“You don’t scare me,” she says.
My laugh is brittle. “You don’t know me.”
“I know fear,” she replies. “And I know when it’s been used as a weapon.”
Something in my chest cracks. Just a little.
“Rest,” Peyton says softly, standing. “Tomorrow, we’ll see where you fit in. Training, chores, whatever you want to try. No pressure.” She pauses at the door. “And Trinity?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t owe anyone your truth until you’re ready. But if you decide to tell it this pack listens.”
The door closes behind her with a quiet click, and I sink onto the bed and stare at the wall long after her footsteps fade. The ghosts don’t come and the silence remains peaceful.
Sleep sneaks up on me instead, heavy and unwelcome. I fight it at first, but lose, my body giving in despite every instinct screaming that this is how you die.
I dream of my pack. Of standing in the clearing under a full moon, the air thick with judgment. Of my mother’s tears and my Alpha’s cold eyes. Of the dead crowding behind me, their whispers swelling into a roar.
“You were right,” they chant. “You always were.”
I wake with a gasp, heart hammering, my wolf snarling awake inside me. For one panicked moment, I expect to see them—translucent shapes filling the room, reaching for me.
But there’s nothing. Just the empty space everyone else experiences. Moonlight through the window, and the faint hum of the mate bond, steady as a heartbeat that isn’t mine.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and breathe through the lingering panic. Dawn creeps closer, softening the shadows. Somewhere outside, someone laughs. The sound is ... nice.
I dress quickly, old habits are hard to break, and step out into the early morning air.
The compound is quieter now, wolves stirring slowly, greeting the day without urgency.
A few nod at me as they pass. No one stares.
No one whispers. They just accept my presence as normal, and I struggle to understand or accept that.
I let my feet lead me like they’ve walked this ground before. Grayson stands near the tree line, shirtless, his skin damp with sweat from an early run. He turns when he senses me, gray eyes softening.
I lean against a wooden post, trying to distract myself from how sexy he is and how much I want to lick the sweat off his skin.
We stand there, the bond humming between us, comfortable in the shared silence. I don’t know how he does that, how he makes quiet feel like a gift instead of a threat.
“Peyton said you’d be training today,” he says. “If you want.”
“I do.”
“Good.” A pause. “You don’t have to prove anything.”
“I know.” I glance at him. “But I want to.”
His mouth curves in a small smile. “Figured.”
As we stand there and stare out at the forest, I feel it again, that fragile, terrifying thing trying to take root in my chest. Belonging. I don’t trust it. Not yet. But for the first time since my banishment, the dead are quiet and the living are giving me room to breathe.
That might be enough to stay. For now.