"Why do you ask?"
"Because I just felt a third one. And I need to know if it stops."
Lumi is quiet for a long time. The candle flickers. Outside, the wind pushes against the window.
"It stops," she says. "When the bond is complete. When all of them have found you."
She watches me. Reading. Whatever she sees makes her sit forward — elbows on knees, hands folded. Closer than she usually positions herself. Less therapist, more person.
"I think it's time I told you something," she says. "Not about the bond mechanics — you've been living those. About how I know what I know."
"I want to ask you about RJ," I say.
"That's where this starts." The caution is back in her face, but not the wall — more like she's deciding which door to open and how far. "What do you want to know?"
"Sven said he's been here longer than anyone. Leo said he was the first permanent placement. That the rules were built around him." I hold her gaze. "Cal told me he was feral once. That he came back to work here because he wanted to help. But he didn't tell me how RJ got here. Or why RJ's the one still in a cage while Cal's grading homework."
Lumi is quiet. Not the therapeutic pause. Something deeper. The candle flickers and her eyes go somewhere internal — like she's deciding how much of her own story to put on the table.
"I found them," she says.
I wait.
"I had visions. For years — dreams, sensory impressions, a pull I couldn't explain. Toward Denali. Toward something on the mountain that needed me." She says it without drama. Like she's describing a commute. "I found Cal first. He'd been separated from the others. Alone. Feral."
She pauses. Something crosses her face that isn't clinical.
"I brought Cal to a medical center at Frosthaven Academy. Neal — a doctor there — helped stabilize him. And during that process I realized Cal wasn't alone on Denali. There were more. RJ, Gray, Stone, Jake, and Jim."
Five wolves on a mountain. Six, counting Cal. I try to imagine it — the cold, the altitude, the animal logistics of surviving as a pack when half of you can't decide whether to be human.
"You went back up," I say.
"Yes. The recoveries were difficult." She pauses. "Stone is an alpha. His recovery was intense. Cal's was different. Each of them required a different approach."
"And you bonded with them."
She looks at me. Steady. No surprise that I said it.
"Cal and Stone, yes. The omega bond — my bond — was part of what stabilized them. It gave their systems something to anchor to. Something that wasn't just survival instinct and feral override." She holds my gaze. "I know what you're going through, Alex. Not from textbooks. I've lived it. I'm bonded to five mates, two of whom were feral wolves I pulled off a mountain."
Five. Lumi has five mates.
"Cal and Stone aren't traditional staff," she continues. "They're here because their pack brothers are here. RJ and Gray are family. Not the way humans use that word. Pack. Cal and Stone carry that. Every test Cal runs, every walk Stone takes with a resident — they're trying to reach the people they survived with."
"And Jake and Jim?"
Something shutters in her face. Not closed — guarded. A door she's choosing not to open all the way.
"Not at Feral Academy," she says. "Not currently."
The way she says it doesn't invite follow-up.
"RJ was making progress at the medical center," Lumi says, returning to the thread. "Verbal capacity. Physical regulation. Cal hung out with him every day. For weeks, the trajectory was remarkable."
"He could talk."
"Yes. Some fragmented sentences. But real communication." Her voice softens.
