"Relax," I murmured.
"I am relaxed."
"You're about to crack your jaw from clenching it."
He didn't respond. Just started eating with mechanical precision, his eyes scanning the room.
I tried to do the same. Tried to focus on the food, on the simple act of chewing and swallowing. But the whispers kept pulling at my attention, fragments of conversation drifting across the crowded space.
"—saw them from the window, I swear, actual wolves—"
"—lockdown lasted three hours, my mom was freaking out—"
"—she's the one who brought them, that Orlav girl—"
I kept my head down. Kept eating.
"—heard they're keeping them in the Healing Center, like some kind of zoo—"
"—dangerous, obviously, why else would they lock down the whole campus—"
"—feel sorry for her roommate, imagine living with someone that crazy—"
James's fork bent in his hand.
I looked up. His eyes had gone gold at the edges, the wolf bleeding through. His shoulders were rigid, every muscle coiled with the effort of holding himself still.
"James."
He didn't respond. His gaze was fixed on a table across the room — a group of students I vaguely recognized from one of my classes. They weren't looking at us, but they were talking loudly enough to be heard. Deliberately, I realized. They wanted us to hear.
"—probably some kind of animal hoarder, my cousin says she spends every night there—"
James started to stand.
I grabbed his wrist. "Don't."
"They can't—"
"They can say whatever they want. It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me." His voice was rough. Wrong. The wolf pushing at his vocal cords, trying to reshape them. "They're talking about you like you're—"
"I know what they're saying." I tightened my grip on his wrist, let the bond between us pulse with calm I didn't feel. "And I know that if you shift in the middle of the dining hall, everything gets worse. For me. For the ferals. For everyone."
He was shaking. I could feel it through my grip — fine tremors running through his body as he fought the change. His eyes were more gold than brown now, his canines lengthening behind his lips.
"Breathe," I said softly. "Look at me. Just look at me."
Slowly, painfully, he turned his gaze to mine.
I held it. Let the bond carry everything I couldn't say aloud — trust, love, the desperate need for him to stay human right now.
The gold faded. His shoulders dropped. The tension bled out of him in increments, leaving exhaustion in its wake.
"I hate this," he said quietly.
"I know."
