He understood now why Avine had found a home here so quickly. These women didn’t ask permission to care. They simply did.
Dahlia had claimed the kitchen, producing an endless stream of tea and broth and small plates of food that appeared at Theo’s elbow with quiet insistence. He hadn’t touched most of it, but she kept bringing more anyway, her usual brightness dimmed to fierce focus. Marzipan sat on the dresser, watching Avine with unblinking intensity, occasionally letting out a low, worried sound.
Junie paced the hallway outside, her footsteps a constant rhythm that Theo could track even through the closed door. Every hour, she appeared with a new potion—recovery elixirs, magical stabilizers, experimental solutions she’d mixed on the spot. “This one promotes cellular regeneration,” she’d announce, or “This should help with magical exhaustion,” and then she’d pour it carefully between Avine’s lips before retreating to pace some more. Glimmer coiled around hershoulders, occasionally lifting its head to taste the air with nervous flicks of its tongue.
Outside the window, the weather churned in ways that had nothing to do with natural patterns. Storm clouds gathered and dispersed, gathered and dispersed, responding to Cassia’s barely-contained emotions. She stood on the widow’s walk, hands raised, wrestling the sky into submission through sheer force of will. Theo had seen her once, during a brief moment when he’d gone to the bathroom—her wild curls whipping in the wind she was simultaneously creating and controlling, her face set in grim determination. Gust circled overhead, crying out warnings whenever the pressure built too high.
And Narla sat in the corner of Avine’s room, silent and still, surrounded by candles that burned with steady blue flames. Her face was grim, her gaze fixed on the air above Avine’s body—reading energy, maybe, or watching for signs of change. She hadn’t spoken since she’d arrived, but her presence was an anchor. A quiet certainty in the chaos.
They were all waiting. All holding their breath.
Theo understood. He was doing the same thing.
Night fell.The healers came and went, checking vitals, adjusting spells, murmuring in voices too low for him to hear. One of them—an older witch with silver hair and knowing eyes—touched his shoulder on her way out.
“She’s strong. Stronger than anyone expected.” A pause. “So are you, Alpha. But even strength has limits. You should rest.”
Theo didn’t answer. The healer sighed and left.
He should rest. He knew that. The pack needed him functional, not running on fumes and desperation. There werethings to handle—the aftermath of the attack, the investigation into who’d planted those sigils, the reassurance his wolves needed that their alpha was still in control.
He couldn’t make himself leave. Every time he thought about walking out that door, something primal locked his legs in place.
Sometime after midnight,the need to shift became unbearable.
The wolf had been pressing at his edges for hours, demanding release, demanding action he couldn’t give in human form. Theo finally stopped fighting it.
He stripped out of his clothes, folding them neatly on the chair—old habit, even now—and let the change take him. Bones shifted, muscles reformed, fur rippled across skin. Within seconds, a massive gray wolf stood where the man had been.
The world sharpened. Scents became clearer, sounds crisper. He could hear Avine’s heartbeat now—steady but too slow, her breathing shallow. He could smell the magic the healers had woven into her skin, the lingering trace of the sea-power that had nearly killed her.
He padded to the bed on silent paws and, carefully, climbed onto the mattress at her feet. The wolf curled around itself, positioning its body to share heat, to guard against threats that might not be coming but that he couldn’t stop watching for anyway.
In this form, everything was simpler. The wolf didn’t question. Didn’t analyze. Didn’t worry about what his presence meant or what the pack would think or whether he was making a mistake he couldn’t take back.
The wolf knew: she was his, and she was hurt, and he would stay until she was better.
Close. Safe.
Narla glanced up from her candles, her expression unreadable. She didn’t comment. Didn’t suggest he leave. She returned to her vigil, and Theo was grateful in a way he couldn’t express.
He didn’t sleep. Couldn’t. But with his fur brushing against her blanket-covered feet, with her heartbeat steady in his ears, the wolf finally stopped snarling.
It was enough.
TWENTY-FIVE
THEO
Dawn came gray and reluctant, filtered through clouds Cassia still held at bay.
Theo had shifted back sometime in the early hours, pulled on his clothes, and resumed his place in the chair. His fingers found hers again, wrapping around her palm as if they belonged there. She was still breathing. Still here, even if she wasn’t awake.
He talked to her sometimes. When the room was quiet, when Narla’s eyes had drifted closed over her candles, when the sounds of the others had faded to distant background noise. He didn’t plan what he said. The words came on their own.
“Come back.” His voice was rough from disuse, barely above a whisper. “You come back to me, Avine.”
Her hand didn’t twitch. Her eyelids didn’t flutter. But he kept talking anyway, because silence was worse.
