4

Zoey

By the time I reach the end of the west corridor, my hands are numb from cold and my brain feels like it’s been running on fumes for days.

Someone asks me what day it is earlier, and I blink at them like they’ve asked me a trick question. Monday? Thursday? Full moon? I don’t know. The days blur together when all you do is unlock doors, flip breakers, bleed radiators, and drag furniture around until your shoulders ache and your lungs burn.

“Zoey,” someone calls down the hall. “Did you check the south wing yet?”

“I did,” I shout back without stopping. “Hot water works. Lights too. One of the windows doesn’t close all the way.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” the voice mutters.

I don’t bother correcting them. Everything in this place is half-broken and forgotten. Just like the people who live here.

The boarding school looms around me, all long corridors and high ceilings, built for children who were meant to grow up safe. Now it houses the ones no one wants to deal with. The unranked. The inconvenient. The ones who don’t fit cleanly into the pack’s story of strength and dominance.

I get the smallest room because I’m the easiest to ignore.

It’s at the end of the hall, where the heat barely reaches and the pipes scream in winter. If I need the bathroom at night, I have to walk past six doors and a flickering light that makes the shadows stretch wrong. I learned a long time ago to keep my shoes close and my robe within reach.

“Lowest of the low,” Dion once laughed. “Fitting, don’t you think?”

I shove that memory down and move on.

Basement doors. Storage rooms. Empty apartments that still smell like dust and old fear. I chase a raccoon out of one crawlspace earlier, heart pounding like I’d just survived something epic.

I almost laugh at myself afterward.

This is what bravery looks like for me now.

By the time I finish my last check, the sky outside has turned that bruised purple that means evening is coming fast. Wolves are arriving in waves now, their scents bleeding into the air. чужие. Strangers. Power rolling off them in thick currents that make my skin prickle.

They’re excited.

I hear it in the way they talk. In the way laughter carries too loud, too sharp. In the way someone says, “Finally,” like war is a party they’ve been waiting for.

I don’t feel that way.

I feel wrong about all of this. About the council meeting. About how fast everyone jumped at the chance to unite, to fight, to spill blood. It felt rehearsed. Too eager.

“You’re overthinking,” Emma told me earlier when I tried to say something. “This is what we’re supposed to do.”

Maybe.

Or maybe this is how people convince themselves violence is necessary.

I don’t say that out loud. I know better.

By the time I reach my room, my shoulders are tight and my head aches. I pause with my hand on the door, staring at the peeling paint like it might offer answers.

Someone laughs nearby. A group of girls from my pack drift past, talking fast and loud.

“Did you see the guys from Silver Shadow?” one of them says, practically vibrating. “I swear one of them looked at me like he already knew how I taste.”

Another giggles. “Please. I call dibs.”

“They can’t do anything,” a third says, lowering her voice anyway. “Not officially.”

“That’s never stopped anyone.”

Their laughter trails off down the corridor.

I wait a beat, then grab my towel and robe. I need a shower. I need hot water and steam and something that isn’t thinking.

The bathroom door is heavy, old wood swollen from decades of moisture. I push it open—

—and freeze.

Sound hits first.

A broken gasp. A low growl that vibrates through the room and straight into my spine.

“Oh… fuck—yes…”

The girl is sitting on the edge of one of the sinks, skirt pushed high on her thighs, head tipped back until it thumps softly against the mirror. Her eyes are closed, lips parted, breath shaking like she’s barely holding herself together.

A man stands between her legs.

I don’t recognize him, but his presence fills the room. Broad shoulders. Dark hair damp with sweat. His hands are locked on her hips like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he lets go.

“Say it again,” he murmurs, voice rough and low. “I didn’t hear you.”

She whimpers, fingers tangling in his hair. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

The sound crawls under my skin.

I should back away. I should apologize. I should close the door and pretend this never happened.

I don’t.

I stand there, breath caught, heat pooling low in my stomach in a way that makes me dizzy. I’ve seen sex before. I’ve heard it through walls, through tents, through open doors at full moon gatherings.

This is different.

This feels… intimate. Possessive. Like something dangerous is unfolding and I’m not supposed to witness it.

He makes another sound against her skin, and she arches toward him, nails scraping his shoulders.

“Oh god,” she gasps. “You’re going to ruin me.”

A shiver rips through me.

My foot shifts without permission, the faint scuff loud in the silence between breaths.

Her eyes snap open.

They lock onto mine instantly.

For half a second, no one moves.

Then her lips curve slowly, deliberately, into a smile that feels like a challenge.

She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t cover herself. She tightens her grip around his neck instead.

“Well,” she says breathlessly, eyes never leaving mine. “Looks like we have an audience.”

He turns.

The moment his gaze hits me, the room tilts.

Something slams into my chest, sharp and electric, like my body recognizes him before my brain can catch up. His eyes flick over me, slow and assessing, then narrow just slightly.

“Who are you?” he asks.

My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

The girl laughs softly. “She’s watching,” she says, dragging her thumb along his jaw. “Does that bother you?”

His attention never leaves me. “Not really.”

My skin burns. My pulse is loud in my ears.

“I— I’m sorry,” I manage, finally. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t apologize,” the girl interrupts. “You didn’t interrupt anything.”

She tilts her head, studying me like I’m something curious. “Have you never seen a mating before?”

My throat tightens. “I have.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

There isn’t one.

That’s the terrifying part.

He steps back from her just enough to look at me fully. “You should leave,” he says, not unkindly. “Before this gets confusing.”

Confusing.

As if it isn’t already.

I nod too fast, turning toward the door on unsteady legs. My body feels overheated, hypersensitive, like every nerve is awake and screaming.

Behind me, I hear her laugh again. Soft. Victorious.

“He’s mine,” she says clearly. “Just so you know.”

Mate.

The word isn’t spoken, but it lands anyway.

I step into the hallway, heart racing, skin buzzing, knowing one thing with terrifying clarity.

Something just woke up inside me.