"I was a student."
The words hit me like a physical blow.
Stone opened his eyes. Looked at me for the first time since he'd started talking.
"Frosthaven. I was a student here."
Here. This place.
"I had classes. Friends. A roommate whose name I can't—" His voice broke. He forced himself to continue. "I wasn't feral. I wasn't broken. I wasn't dangerous."
The bond screamed with his anguish.
"They took me. From here. From my life." His hands were shaking now. Tremors that ran up his arms and into his shoulders. "And they put me in that room. On that table. And they—"
He couldn't say it. He didn't have to.
"I wasn't born like this, Lumi." His eyes met mine. Gray and devastated and so full of grief it stole my breath. "I wasn't born feral. They made me this way."
"I fought."
His voice had dropped to barely a whisper.
"The whole time. Everything they did. I fought."
I moved closer. Slowly. Carefully. Stopped at the edge of the bed.
"My wolf. He fought too. Whatever they were putting into me, whatever they were doing—he tried to reject it. Tried to push it out." Stone's breathing was ragged now. "But it was too much. Too strong."
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
"I felt it. The moment it happened. Something inside me just—" A sound escaped him. Not quite a sob. Worse. "Tore. Likefabric ripping. My thoughts started fracturing. Pieces of me breaking off and floating away."
Tears slipped down his cheeks.
"I tried to hold on. Tried to stay myself. But I couldn't find the edges anymore. Couldn't tell where I ended and the wolf began." His whole body shuddered. "And then I couldn't pull back. I reached for control and there was nothing there. Just... gone."
He dropped his hands. Looked at me with hollow eyes.
"That's when I stopped being me."
I moved without thinking.
Sat beside him. Wrapped my arms around him. Pulled him against me.
For once, he didn't resist.
His body shook. Not with rage—with trauma. Years of it, locked away, finally breaking free. He buried his face in my shoulder and let himself fall apart.
I held on.
Felt his pain through the bond. Let it wash over me without trying to fix it or push it away. Just absorbed it. Anchored him.
"I've got you," I whispered. "I'm here. I've got you."
He clung to me like I was the only solid thing in a world that had ripped everything else away.
We stayed like that for a long time.
