My wolf reacts before I can think. Not a conscious decision, just pure instinct. The anchor sense opens up, that part of me that tracks emotional resonance in my pack across miles. Itreaches for Cameron the way it reaches for Rook, for Sienna, for any wolf who carries my bond.
It shouldn’t work. Cameron isn’t pack. He’s Ravenclaw. Different bloodline, different bond structure, different everything.
It works anyway.
How?
Yet, I feel him. The boy’s terror, sharp and blinding, a nightmare of concrete rooms and needles and hands that hold him down. Six months compressed into a single looping horror that his sleeping mind can’t escape. The magic is a defense mechanism, his body trying to burn its way free of a cage that isn’t there anymore.
I push calm through the connection. Not words. Not commands. Just the solid, heavy assurance of an alpha who isn’t going to let anything touch him. Safety. Ground. Anchor.
The heat wavers.
Cameron gasps. His eyes fly open, wild with reflected light. He stares at me, at the heat warping the air between us, at his own glowing hands.
“Easy,” I say. “You’re in the truck. You’re safe. Breathe.”
The light recedes. Slow. Reluctant. The temperature in the cab drops back to normal in slow degrees. Cameron’s breathing goes from ragged to rough to something approaching even.
He looks at his hands again. Then at me.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is choked. “I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t apologize for something that isn’t your fault.”
He turns away, pressing himself against the door. Ashamed. Scared of what he just did.
I give him a minute. Then: “Nightmare. Happens after trauma. The body remembers what the mind tries to forget. It’s not weakness.”
“It’s not just dreams.” He’s talking to the window. “It’s the magic. I can’t always control it. Ma used to help me. She’d—” He stops. Starts again. “She had a way of calming it down.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. She’d put her hand on my chest, and the fire would just… ease. Like she was telling it where to go.”
I think about what I just did. The anchor sense finding him, connecting, settling the blaze. Same function. Different mechanism.
I think about why it worked when it shouldn’t have.
The answer is right there. I don’t look at it directly.
“Try to rest,” I tell him. “We’ve got a long drive.”
He nods. Doesn’t close his eyes. Stays awake, watching the dark pines roll past, one hand pressed against his own chest where his mother used to put hers.
I drive.
The ring burns warm against my sternum. My anchor sense is still connected to the boy, a thread I didn’t create and can’t seem to cut. It pulls between us, steady and certain, and my wolf knows exactly what it means.
My eyes stay on the road. South. Toward Ravenclaw.
In the side mirror, Rook’s headlights follow without hesitation. Their decision’s been made.
And I’m leading them all to an uncertain situation that my past created for me.
Chapter 2
Merric
