"You don't have to—"
"I want to." His hand found my face. Rough fingers tracing my cheekbone, the same gesture he'd made that first time, when the bond with Neal had cracked him open. "Cal. My pack. You. I want to remember all of it."
"You will," I said. "We'll work on it. Together."
He almost smiled.
Then the shift took him.
It was gentler this time — not the violent snap I'd witnessed before, but a slow surrender. His bones shifted, his skin rippled, and where a man had been, there was a wolf again.
Golden eyes blinked at me. The same eyes. The same soul behind them.
But different, too. Calmer. More present.
Like something had healed, just a little, in the space between one form and another.
I reached out. Ran my fingers through his fur.
"Cal," I said softly.
His tail moved. Just once. But it was enough.
He remembered.
I made it to the hallway before I broke.
It hit me all at once — the weight of it, the enormity. Cal's voice, rough and desperate. The grief in his eyes when he talked about his pack. The way he'd held onto me like I was the only solid thing in a world made of smoke.
There are others. I left them.
My back hit the wall. My legs gave out.
I slid to the floor, knees pulled to my chest, and the tears came before I could stop them. Not quiet tears — the ugly kind, the kind that ripped out of your chest and left you gasping.
Too much. It was all too much.
Cal. Neal. The bonds pulling me in different directions. Twilson watching. The mountain and the pack and the impossible promise I'd just made to find them.
I couldn't do this. I wasn't strong enough. I was just a girl who'd stumbled into something she didn't understand, and everyone kept looking at me like I had answers when I could barely hold myself together.
The bond flared.
Not Cal's — he was settling, exhausted, already half-asleep. Not Neal's — his was tight and distant, as always.
James.
I felt him before I heard him. The warmth of his presence through the bond, steady and sure, followed by footsteps in the corridor.
Then he was there.
"Lumi."
His voice broke through the fog. I looked up, vision blurred with tears, and saw him crouched in front of me. Still in yesterday's clothes. Shadows under his eyes. He'd been waiting. All night, probably.
"I can't," I choked out. "James, I can't—"
"Hey." He caught my face in his hands. Warm palms, rough calluses. "Hey. Look at me."
