But I hoped. That was the terrible thing. I couldn't stop hoping.
"Hey," I said softly, closing the door behind me.
His head came up immediately. Golden eyes found mine, and the bond flooded warm—recognition, relief, something that felt almost like joy. He was on his feet before I'd taken two steps,crossing the room to meet me, pressing his nose into my palm like he needed to confirm I was real.
I let him. Stood still while he circled me once, twice, scenting the air, cataloging the places I'd been. He could probably smell the cafeteria on my jacket. The coffee smell from Tomlinson's lecture hall. The particular staleness of academic buildings and the faint traces of other students who'd brushed past me in crowded hallways.
He could smell James, too. That always made him tense—just for a moment, a flicker of something territorial that he couldn't quite suppress. But it passed quickly now. The bond saidpack, and he was learning to listen.
When he'd finished his inspection, he settled beside me, leaning his weight against my legs. Heavy. Warm. Solid in a way that made something in my chest loosen.
"I'm here," I said, threading my fingers through his fur. "I'm not going anywhere."
The bond hummed between us. Steady. Almost peaceful.
Almost.
I felt his emotions shift.
A ripple through the bond—something dark and uneasy, surfacing from wherever he kept it buried. North's body went rigid against my legs. His ears flattened. A low whine built in his throat, soft and involuntary.
He pulled away from me. Started pacing—tight circles, head low, movements jerky and wrong.
"North."
He didn't look at me. Kept moving, kept circling, like he was trying to outrun something he couldn't escape.
I'd seen this before. The guilt that lived in him, deeper than memory. He didn't know what he felt guilty about—the specifics were still buried, locked away in whatever part of his mind the feral years had consumed. But his body remembered. His instincts remembered.
He'd left something behind. Someone. And even though he couldn't name it, the weight of it was still there.
"It's okay," I said, keeping my voice low and even. "Whatever it is, it's okay."
He stopped pacing. Stood frozen in the middle of the room, eyes fixed on something I couldn't see.
Then, slowly, he came back to me. Pressed his head against my thigh. A soft, apologetic sound escaped his throat.
The bond translated what words couldn't. I felt his confusion, his shame, the desperate need for reassurance he didn't know how to ask for.
I knelt down. Took his face in my hands.
"You're safe," I said. "You're here. Whatever happened before—we'll figure it out. But not today. Today, you just have to be here."
His eyes met mine. Golden, searching, full of things he couldn't say.
I held his gaze until the tension drained out of him. Until his breathing steadied and his body relaxed and the bond settled back into something quieter.
Not healed. But okay. For now.
I felt Neal before I saw him.
The bond between us was different from the others—sharper, more complicated, wrapped in layers of resistance he'd built andI hadn't tried to tear down. It pulsed now at the edge of my awareness, a tight knot of controlled tension.
I looked up.
He was in the hallway, visible through the observation window. White coat, tablet in hand, attention fixed on something in the opposite direction. Professional. Distant. Every line of his body arranged to communicate that he wasn't looking at me.
He was, though. I felt it through the bond—the awareness, the effort it took to maintain the pretense.
