The next morning at breakfast Lily looks at me across the table and says, "You look terrible."
"Thanks."
"I'm serious. When's the last time you actually slept?"
I think about it. "I don't remember."
She frowns but doesn't push it, and we eat in silence for a while. The dining hall is loud this morning, louder than usual, and that pulling sensation is there in the background like it always is when Caspian is somewhere in the room. Low and constant, a fishhook dragging at my sternum, asking me to look up and find him even when I've decided I won't.
I keep my eyes on my plate.
I haven't slept more than two hours in three days, not since the pull started waking me. I don't fully understand what's happening to my body, only that it's doing something without my permission, orienting itself toward a person who has made it clear he wants nothing to do with me. My skin feels too tight. There's a low ache under my ribs that never fully switches off,just quiets when I'm alone and surges when I'm anywhere near him, and the exhaustion of fighting it is starting to sit in my bones like something physical.
I'm trying to ignore all of it when someone sits down at the table beside ours.
Not right next to us, but close enough that it's intent. A boy I recognize from the library, curly brown hair and glasses, always bent over mathematics texts. He's got his breakfast tray and he isn't looking at us but he's close enough that the empty radius people have been keeping around me now includes him.
Lily notices. "Huh."
"What?"
"That's Theo Carver. Third year. He just sat in the exclusion zone."
"So?"
"Nobody sits in the exclusion zone. Not unless they're making a statement."
I look at Theo but he's focused on his food, not acknowledging us at all. Something about it, the way he just sat down and started eating, completely unbothered, makes my throat tight.
I look away before he catches me staring.
In Shifter Biology that morning Ms. Rivera continues her lecture on mate bonds, and every sentence she says lands somewhere in my chest with the weight of something I'm not supposed to know applies to me.
"The bond can form between any compatible shifters," she says, walking the front of the room with her notes, "but it is strongest between wolves. The pull is biological and undeniable.Some describe it as aching, others as magnetic attraction. The bond seeks completion through physical proximity and eventual claiming."
I am writing this down. I am keeping my hand steady on the pen.
"However," she adds, "the bond can only complete between two shifters. A human cannot complete a mate bond, no matter how strong the pull feels from the shifter's side."
My pen stops.
Several students turn to look at me, heads tilting in unison like they smelled something interesting, and I keep my eyes on my notes and I feel my face go hot from the neck up.
After class Rivera stops me at the door.
"Nova, that wasn't directed at you specifically."
"I know, ma'am."
"Do you?" She's watching me with careful attention, like she's trying to help without overstepping. "If you're experiencing something you don't understand, you can come talk to me. I have office hours Monday and Wednesday."
"I'm fine, ma'am. Thank you."
I leave before she can say anything else.
In the corridor between Biology and History I'm walking with my head down, books against my chest, watching the floor tiles and thinking about nothing important, when I round a corner and nearly walk straight into someone.
Caspian.
