Chapter 32, The Awakening
Wren
The light that hit Ember-Fell this morning was a sharp, clinical grey. It cut through the floor to ceiling glass of my suite like a blade, but I barely noticed the glare. I was too busy trying to breathe through a heat that felt like it was radiating from my very bones.
I was slick with a cold, clinging sweat that smelled different than it ever had before.
It did not smell like the salt and fear of the High-Ridge; it smelled like ozone and crushed herbs.
My skin felt too tight, a strange, electric humming vibrating just beneath the surface of my palms as if my blood were suddenly moving too fast for my veins.
Is the heating core broken? I thought, my mind drifting through a fog of grief and physical discomfort.
Back home, today was the day of the First Shift.
Down in the valley, the air would be turning sweet with the first thaw.
All my packmates, the ones I had grown up with and ran through the woods with, would be waking up to the heat of their first change.
They would be surrounded by family, their voices finally joining the pack song.
I was eighteen. Today was supposed to be my day. I should have been one of them. Instead, I was here in a city of shadows at the top of the world, still trapped in a body that felt like a silent, empty house.
I squeezed my eyes shut, expecting the hollow ache of being a Null to follow the thought.
But the ache did not come. Instead, a pulse of heat thudded behind my ribs, so strong it made my vision flicker.
The realization that I would never belong to that world again sat in my gut like lead. I missed my mother and father.
A sob threatened to break. I grabbed my pillow, burying my face into it, desperate for something cool to ground me.
But the pillow was warm. It was firm, moving with a steady, rhythmic rise and fall that I could hear with terrifying clarity. I could hear the slide of lungs against ribs, the faint click of a throat, and the heavy thrum-thrum of a heart that was not mine.
I froze. Memory came rushing back. The door shuddering under Skarde’s assault, the terror, and the moment I had practically tackled the Gamma just to feel a pair of human arms.
I pulled back, my face heating with a mortifying blush as I realized I had not been clutching a pillow at all. I had spent the night using Rhys as one. He was sitting on top of the duvet with his back against the headboard, his eyes already open and watching me with a deep, stormy slate gaze.
“You are awake,” he said, his voice that familiar sandpaper rasp. He did not move away, though the dark circles under his eyes suggested he had not slept a wink.
“I... I thought you were a pillow,” I stammered, scrambling backward until I hit the opposite edge of the bed. “I am sorry. I should not have...”
“Do not worry about it, little ghost,” Rhys said, stretching his lean frame until his joints popped. “I have been called worse things than a pillow.”
He looked toward the door, his expression shifting to something more guarded. “The Boss is back. He is down in the medical wing with Saga.”
“The Boss?” I whispered, my heart skipping.
“Skarde,” Rhys clarified. Unlike Torin, who spoke of the Alpha with a rigid military chill, Rhys used the title with a quirky, casual edge that made the monster feel almost human.
I looked at the sliding door, my pulse quickening. “Does he know you stayed?”
Rhys paused, his hand hovering over the buckle of his tactical vest. A ghost of a smirk touched his lips, one that reached his eyes and softened the rugged planes of his face.
“Oh, yes. He knows,” Rhys said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hum.
He leaned in just a fraction, his gaze dancing with a flicker of mischief.
“He was standing at the end of the hall when I came out to grab a coffee at 3:00 AM. If looks could actually decapitate a man, my head would currently be a decorative centerpiece on the dining room table.”
He winked, a gesture so normal and so human that for a heartbeat the terror of the previous night felt like a bad dream.
“But do not worry, little ghost,” he added, patting his vest. “I am a Gamma. We are notoriously hard to kill, and I make a much better pillow than a corpse. Besides, he actually wants to apologize to you, believe it or not. He knows he went too far last night.”
I went to answer, but suddenly the words died in my throat.
The simmering heat in my chest suddenly boiled over.
A wave of fire, intense and searing, ripped through me.
It was not a blush. It was a hot flash so violent it felt like I had swallowed a live coal.
My vision swam, the grey morning light of Ember-Fell turning into a jagged, blinding blur of white.
A strange, high pitched ringing started in my ears, drowning out the world.
“Wren?”
Rhys was off the bed in a second, his hands catching my shoulders. His touch, usually so cool, felt like ice against my skin, which was suddenly radiating feverish heat. I could see his lips moving, but his voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a deep well.
“...shift... dammit... Saga...”
“What?” I gasped, my breath coming in short, panicked hitches. I felt like I was vibrating, every nerve ending in my body screaming for something I could not name. “Help me! Rhys, it hurts!”
I clutched at his arms, my fingers digging into the tough material of his gear. The ringing was getting louder, a rhythmic pulsing that matched the heavy, frantic thud of my heart.
Rhys did not answer with words I could understand. He just gathered me up, lifting me into his arms with no effort.
“Saga!” was the only word that cut through the noise.
We moved through the halls in a blur. Everything felt like sandpaper and fire against my skin. By the time we reached the heavy steel doors of the medical wing, I was leaning heavily into Rhys, my head lolling against his shoulder, my consciousness slipping in and out of the heat.
Saga was standing by a sleek metal table, but my eyes did not stay on her. They locked onto the figure standing in the shadows of the corner.
Skarde.
He was dressed in black, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression unreadable. But the moment we stepped inside, his posture changed. His nostrils flared, his eyes tracking the way my hand was hooked into the collar of Rhys’s vest and the way my feverish body was draped against the Gamma.
The apology I had been promised felt very far away as the air in the room suddenly turned electric with a different kind of tension.
“She is burning up,” Rhys said, his voice strained.
Skarde took a step forward, the guilt in his expression instantly incinerated by a flash of lethal, bruised violet. “What the fuck did you do, Rhys?!”