Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Iwake to sunlight streaming through the window and every muscle in my body screaming in protest. For a moment I can't remember why everything hurts so much, and then it all comes flooding back. The shift. The pain. The silver fur. Three males protecting me from Chase.
I force myself to sit up and immediately regret it. My bones ache like they're still trying to remember what shape they're supposed to be.
"You're awake." Lily's voice comes from her bed across the room. She's sitting up with a book in her lap but I can tell she hasn't been reading it. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I got hit by a truck." My voice comes out rough, damaged.
"You've been asleep for almost twelve hours." She sets the book aside and moves to sit on the edge of my bed. "Nova, what happened last night? You came back around three in the morning and collapsed into bed without saying anything. I almost called the healer."
I consider lying. Consider telling her it was nothing. But she's going to find out eventually and I'm too exhausted to keep secrets from the one person who's been decent to me since I got here.
"I shifted. For the first time."
Her eyes go wide. "Your first shift at eighteen? Nova, that's dangerously late. That could have killed you."
"I know. It felt like it was trying to."
"Are you okay? Did anyone help you through it?"
I don't know how to answer that. Three males found me in the forest but I don't know if that counts as help or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. "It's complicated."
Lily waits, clearly wanting me to explain more, but I don't know where to start or how much to tell her.
There's a knock on the door before I have to decide. Lily gets up to answer it and comes back with a folded piece of paper.
"Student messenger. Said it's for you."
I unfold the note with hands that are still shaking from shift exhaustion. The handwriting is exact and measured, the same handwriting I've seen on all my graded assignments.
My office. Today. 3pm. - Professor Harmon
My heart does something complicated in my chest when I see his name. Julian. He knows what happened. Of course he knows. Everyone apparently knows by now.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Lily asks, reading the note over my shoulder.
"No. I need to do this alone." I can see the hurt flash across her face and quickly add, "It's not that I don't want you there. But whatever he wants to talk about, it's probably going to involve things I can't explain yet. Things that are safer for you not to know."
She doesn't look happy about it but she nods anyway. "Okay. But if you're not back by dinner, I'm coming to find you."
I spend the next few hours trying to make my body work again.
Every movement hurts in ways I didn't know were possible.
My bones ache like they're bruised from the inside.
My muscles feel torn and reknitted wrong.
Even my skin feels sensitive, like the memory of fur bursting through it is still fresh.
By the time I make my way to Julian's office, I'm moving almost normally but everything still hurts. I knock on his door at exactly three and wait, my heart pounding harder than it should be.
"Enter."
His voice sounds different. Strained. I push the door open and step inside.
Julian is standing at the window looking out over the grounds with his back to me. He doesn't turn when I enter. Just stands there with his hands clasped behind his back and his shoulders rigid with tension.
"Close the door."
I close it and the click of the latch feels louder than it should. The silence that follows is heavy enough to make it hard to breathe.
"I felt something last night." His voice is quiet, measured, but I can hear something underneath it. "Around two in the morning. A pull. Like something was calling to me even though I couldn't identify what. It woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep."
My shift. He felt my shift even though we don't have a bond yet. The realization sends a spike of fear and something else through me.
"What happened, Nova?"
The question is simple but loaded. He's asking me to tell him something he clearly already suspects but doesn't want to be true.
"I shifted. For the first time."
He goes still. I can see his shoulders tense even though his back is to me. "When?"
"Last night. Around two."
"That's what I felt." He says it more to himself than to me.
"Your first shift and I felt it from here.
" Finally he turns around and the expression on his face makes my chest tight.
There's fear there but also something that looks like wonder mixed with desperation.
"Are you alright? First shifts are dangerous.
Especially that late. You should have had pack support. "
"I didn't exactly plan it."
"Who helped you? Who was there?"
This is the part where I have to decide how much to tell him. "Three males found me in the forest after the shift. They protected me."
His jaw tightens. "Protected you from what?"
"A Council enforcer showed up. Chase Valemont. He saw me with them but couldn't confirm anything."
I watch the fear intensify on his face. "What was there to confirm?"
This is it. The moment where I tell him what I am and watch him decide if I'm worth the risk. I take a breath because once I say this, there's no taking it back.
"Julian, my wolf is silver."
The silence that follows is deafening. He just stares at me like he's waiting for me to tell him I'm joking. When I don't, when he realizes I'm completely serious, something breaks in his expression.
"Silver." He says it like he's testing the word. "Silverpelt wolves are extinct. The Council hunted them all down a generation ago."
"Apparently they missed one."
"Nova." He crosses the room in three strides until he's standing right in front of me. "Do you understand what this means? If the Council confirms what you are, they won't just question you. They'll kill you."
"I know."
His hands come up like he's going to touch me but he stops himself inches away. I can see them shaking. "Chase suspects. That means he'll be watching you. Waiting for confirmation. And if he gets it..."
"I know."
"You can't shift again. Not where anyone can see. Not until we figure out how to protect you."
"How do you protect someone from the Council?" The question comes out more desperate than I intended.
"I don't know yet. But I will find a way." His hands finally make contact, cupping my face. "I won't let them take you."
"You can't promise that."
"I just did."
The air between us is charged with tension that's shifted from Council threats to something much more immediate.
His hands are so close to my face I can feel the heat of them.
We're standing too close and I can smell cedar and something underneath that's just him and my body is responding in ways I'm trying hard to ignore.
"You should probably step back," I manage to say.
"I know." But he doesn't move. A low sound starts in his chest, not quite a growl, quickly swallowed. "I should step back and put distance between us and maintain the boundaries I'm supposed to maintain."
"But you're not going to."
"No." His hands finally make contact, cupping my face with a gentleness that makes me want to lean into his touch. "I'm not."
His thumbs brush against my cheekbones and I can feel him trembling. Not from fear this time. From restraint. From holding himself back from something we both want.
"This is dangerous," I whisper.
"Everything about you is dangerous." His voice has gone rough. "You're a silver wolf that shouldn't exist. You're eighteen years old and I'm your professor. You could get me executed just by existing. And I don't care."
"You should care."
"I know." We're so close that our breath mingles. "Walking away right now would be the smart choice. But I can't make myself do it when you're looking at me like that and my wolf is recognizing yours even though we haven't bonded."
"Why haven't you?"
"Because I'm not that strong." His hands slide from my face into my hair, fingers tangling in the strands. "Because every time I see you, the pull gets stronger. Because I felt you shift last night and it nearly drove me insane not knowing if you were safe."
I can feel his breath against my lips. We're so close that if either of us moved even slightly we'd be kissing. The tension between us is wound so tight I can barely breathe through it.
"Julian..." His name comes out barely above a whisper.
"Say it again." His voice is rough, almost desperate. "Say my name like that again."
"Julian."
He makes a sound low in his throat that's almost a growl. His control is cracking right in front of me and his hands tighten in my hair, grip gone rigid where it was careful.
"I need you to leave." The words sound like they're being torn out of him. "Right now. Before I do something we can't take back."
"What if I don't want to leave?"
His eyes close like the words are painful. When he opens them again his pupils are blown so wide there's almost nothing else. "Nova. You don't understand what you're asking."
"Then tell me."
"I'm trying hard not to cross a line that will get us both killed.
But you're standing here in my office smelling like you do and looking at me like that and I'm losing the fight.
" His hands are still in my hair, still holding me close even though he's telling me to leave.
"If you don't leave right now, I'm going to kiss you.
And if I kiss you, I won't be able to stop there. "
The admission hangs between us and I can see how much it cost him to say it. Can see the war happening behind his eyes between what he wants and what he knows is right.
I should leave. Should walk out of this office right now and never come back. Should stop pushing him toward something that could destroy us both.
But I don't move.
"Then maybe you should let go of me," I say quietly.
"I can't." His voice is barely above a whisper. "I've tried. But I can't make myself let go of you."
We stay frozen like that, his hands in my hair and neither of us willing to be the one who breaks this moment. The tension is unbearable and perfect and terrifying all at once.
Finally, with what looks like enormous effort, he forces himself to step back. His hands slide out of my hair and the loss of contact feels like a physical ache. He turns away from me and braces his hands on his desk.
"Leave. Before I change my mind about letting you go." I pick up my bag from where I dropped it and walk to the door. My hand is on the handle when I stop.
"What happens next time I see you?"
"I don't know." He still hasn't turned around. "But we can't keep doing this. We can't keep dancing around this and pretending we can resist it."
"What are you saying?"
Long pause. So long I think he's not going to answer. "I'm saying that next time you're in this office, one of us is going to break. And I don't think it's going to be you."
I leave before I can respond to that. Before I can cross back to him and make the decision for both of us. I close the door behind me and lean against the wall in the corridor, trying to catch my breath.
He's right. We can't keep doing this. The tension between us is building to something that's going to explode and when it does, there won't be any going back.
I just hope we can both survive what happens when we finally stop fighting what we both want.
My whole body still aches from the shift but that's nothing compared to the ache in my chest from walking away from him. From knowing what we both want and knowing we can't have it. From feeling the pull toward him getting stronger every time I see him and having no idea how to make it stop.
I make it back to my dorm without really seeing the path I take. Lily is there studying when I enter and she looks up with concern.
"How did it go?"
"Fine. He just wanted to make sure I was okay after the shift."
It's not exactly a lie but it's not the full truth either. I can't tell her about Julian's hands in my hair or how he looked at me like he wanted to protect me from the entire world. Can't tell her that we're both losing a battle we're supposed to be winning.
I collapse on my bed and stare at the ceiling.
My body hurts from the shift. My chest hurts from leaving Julian's office.
The broken bond with Nico aches under my ribs like a constant bruise.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, I can feel Caspian's claim settling into place like pack magic that I don't fully understand.
Everything has changed in the space of two days. I shifted into something that's supposed to be extinct. I got claimed by an Alpha. And I'm falling for a professor who could be executed just for touching me as he did.
I close my eyes and try to sleep but all I can think about is the look on Julian's face when he said he would protect me, and the certainty in his voice when he promised to find a way even though we both know there might not be one.