Today it was just me and Nate.
He stood across from me, bouncing lightly like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to fight or run. He’d always been built like Anna—long-limbed, restless, graceful in that way that made you forget he was capable of being a menace. But the bite changed things. It didn’t just mark him.
It rewrote him.
I climbed through the ropes with the pads under my arm and tried not to show how tired my bones felt. “Hands up,” I said. “No thinking. Just move.”
Nate’s mouth twisted. “You’re already in drill-sergeant mode?”
“I’m always in drill-sergeant mode at six a.m.”
“I hate mornings.”
“You’re the one who texted me at five-thirty.”
“Yeah, because if I don’t get this out of me, I’m going to—” He cut himself off, jaw flexing, gaze flicking away like he didn’t want to say the word.
Wolf.
I lifted the pads. “Then hit.”
He did. A jab that was clean, sharp, and—on purpose—soft.
It landed with that careful restraint he’d been wearing like a second skin these past months. Like he was afraid of what came out when he didn’t choke it down.
I waited through a few more. Let him pretend.
Then I lowered the pads. “You’re holding back.”
Nate’s shoulders tightened. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m being careful.”
“There’s a difference,” he snapped, then immediately looked guilty, like he hated his own tone.
I didn’t flinch. I’d gotten good at not flinching. “Careful is control. This is fear.”
His eyes went sharp, gold flickering just under the brown. “You don’t know what it feels like.”
I took a breath through my nose and tasted the old rubber in the air. “No,” I said quietly. “I don’t.”
That was the hardest part, most days. Not being able to step inside whatever hell my kid was carrying now. Not being able to fix it.
Nate blew out a rough laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “Last week,” he said, like he couldn’t stop the words once they started, “I dented Evan’s truck door.”
I blinked. “Dented it how?”
“By leaning.”
I stared at him.
His cheeks went red. “I swear, I just leaned back while we were talking. Like a normal human being. And the metal—” He made a frustrated gesture with both hands. “It crumpled. Like it was made of soda cans.”
“And Evan?”
Nate’s eyes narrowed. “Evan didn’t get mad.”
