Probably wishful thinking.
But I held onto it anyway.
"Okay," I said. "We wait."
Outside the window, snow was starting to fall. Inside, the wolf breathed, and we waited for him to find his way back.
However long it took.
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.
