POV: Rena Vale
Heat hangs between us like a held breath, my back to brick, his shadow cutting the light.
“Start talking,” Kai says, voice low and forced into calm. “Exactly what you saw. No edits.”
“My dream,” I manage. “Your wolf was in it.”
A curse slips under his breath. He drags a hand across his jaw, pacing a short line in front of the cedars, sunglasses clenched in his fist. “This bond isn’t supposed to exist,” he mutters. “Not like that. Not now.”
“It felt real,” I whisper. “Forest. Light. He pressed his forehead to mine and said—” Heat floods my face. “Said something.”
“Rena.” His eyes lock on mine. “What did he say.”
“You’re mine,” I breathe, hating how my pulse leaps for the words.
He flinches like I hit him. Two strides erase the space between us. “He said it,” he repeats, softer, disbelieving and hungry at once. “My wolf said it.”
“Yes.”
He looks away fast, jaw flexing. “That’s not how this works.”
“Then tell me how it works,” I snap, fear sharpening my voice. “Because last night I collapsed, this morning I woke up on fire, and an hour ago you walked through the gate like my nerves were waiting for your footsteps.”
Silence drops. Someone laughs out on the quad; it sounds wrong here. Kai plants his hands on his hips, breathing slow like he’s counting.
“This shouldn’t be possible,” he says. “We are not—” He cuts himself off. “I am not—”
“Destined?” I choke.
“I don’t use that word lightly,” he says.
“Then what do you call this?”
“A problem,” he answers. Then, quieter: “A problem I won’t solve by pretending it isn’t there.”
My palms sweat. Before I can think better of it, I reach—just a brush of my fingertips against his bare forearm where his jacket rides up.
Something snaps.
Not sound. Impact. Static leaps from him into me, bright and vicious. My knees buckle; the world tilts.
He catches me before I hit the ground, one arm around my waist, the other braced at my shoulder. Necessary, not gentle, not rough—like holding me up is instinct, not choice. Heat slams through me in a wave that leaves everything shaking.
“Don’t,” he says at my ear, voice shredded and low. “Don’t touch me like that unless you want me to lose control.”
Cheeks burning, I blurt, “What if I do?”
His grip tightens for one heartbeat, then drops away like he touched fire. He steps back so fast air rushes between us.
“Rena.” My name comes out raw. “Careful.”
“I didn’t mean—” I hear the lie and swallow it. “I didn’t plan to.”
“No plans survive this.” He scrubs a palm over his mouth, shoulders hitting the hedge. “I thought restraint would be simple.”
“Is it ever?” My laugh is thin.
“Not with you.” The words slip out; his eyes shut like he wants to drag them back. “Damn.”
“Stop acting like you’re the only one struggling,” I say. “You’re not the only one who can’t stop replaying that dream.”
“Say it,” he challenges. “Say what you want.”
“I felt you,” I whisper, shame and relief tangled. “In the dream. And now.”
He nods once, accepting a sentence. “I felt you too.”
“How do we turn it off?” I ask. “Or down. I can’t sit in math and pretend my veins aren’t screaming your name.”
“You don’t turn it off,” he says quietly. “You ride it without letting it ride you.” A beat. “You trust me to keep you from breaking when the wave hits.”
“I don’t even trust myself.”
“Trust me anyway.” His tone softens. “Trust me to say no to us when the answer has to be no.”
“Has to,” I repeat.
Footsteps pass at the mouth of the path. They don’t look in. The cedars hold our secret.
“What did you feel,” he asks, “when you touched me?”
“Like sticking a fork in an outlet,” I say. “But… good. Terrifying-good.”
His mouth almost curves, then doesn’t. “Accurate.”
“You didn’t move,” I add. “You didn’t pull away.”
“I was busy calculating how to catch you without pinning you to the wall,” he says. “And how to keep my wolf from taking a mile because you offered an inch.”
“Is he loud?” I ask.
“Right now?” His gaze flicks to my mouth, then away. “He’s a storm pounding on a locked door.”
“Did you dream before last night?” I ask.
“No.” He straightens off the hedge. “I fought him. I thought I won.”
“We’re both bad at pretending.” My smile breaks midway. “What happens now?”
“We get you out of open spaces,” he says, scanning angles. “We breathe. We do not touch.”
“You’re definitely saying that to yourself.”
“I am.”
“Say it again.”
“We do not touch,” he repeats, every word iron.
“I heard you,” I whisper. “I don’t like you.”
“Good.” Deadpan. “Keep that energy.”
“Liar.” I cross my arms because I can’t cross the distance. “You like me too much.”
He chokes on something almost like a laugh. “I like you enough to be terrible at my job right now.”
“What’s your job?”
“Protecting you from threats,” he says. “Including this one.”
“Meaning you.”
“Meaning us.”
“Don’t make me feel noble about starving,” I mutter. “I’m not noble.”
“You’re honest.” He nods once. “That’s worse. I can fight lies. I don’t know what to do with you telling the truth.”
“I don’t know what I want,” I whisper.
“You want both safety and fire,” he says, stepping closer by an inch. “I’ll give you the first. I’ll refuse you the second until the first can survive it.”
I hate that I like that answer. “I hate plans.”
“Me too.”
We stare. Shade thickens.
“Leave,” he says, soft. “Go to class. If the heat climbs, text the number in your phone. One word: ‘Rising.’ I’ll find you.”
“You put your number in my phone?” I blink. “When?”
“After you fainted,” he says. “I wasn’t going to risk not reaching you.”
Dangerous, every word. “Okay.”
“Say it.”
“Okay,” I repeat.
He exhales. “Good.”
“I should go.”
“You should,” he agrees, and stays where he is.
“Move,” I say, and somehow I’m smiling.
He finally steps aside, leaving just enough room for my body to pass. I take it. One step. Two.
“Rena,” he says behind me, voice low enough to shiver down my spine. “Don’t touch me like that again.”
“Don’t stand where my hand can find you,” I shoot back, not turning.
“Careful,” he warns.
“Always,” I lie.
Heat licks up my throat, sudden as a match. My heartbeat stumbles, then slams into that deep, dragging rhythm from the dream. Lyria lunges behind my eyes. Hold the line—
Too late.
Vision sharpens until edges glow. Shade brightens. Silver skims across my sight from the inside out.
Kai goes still. “Rena.”
“I… can’t stop it,” I whisper, breath fracturing. “It’s—”
Light floods my pupils, bright and uncontrollable, spilling through me in front of him.