Sweat stings my eyes as Rhett's massive palm guides my hip, adjusting my center of gravity. His scarred throat works above me, the damaged tissue pulling tight as he swallows.
"Use the size difference," he rasps, his breath warm against my temple. "Let me come in close, then drop."
I let him advance, pretending to stumble backward until his bulk blocks the sun—then I fold, sliding between his legs, coming up behind to press my forearm against where his kidney would be. My heart hammers against my ribs, not entirely from exertion.
"Better." His damaged voice drops lower. "Again."
Theron takes the afternoon session, and speed bleeds into something cruel. He moves like liquid, all golden charm transmuted into lethal grace. When he demonstrates a sweep, his body aligns with mine, chest to chest, hip to hip, the hard planes of him fitting against my softer angles in ways that have nothing to do with combat.
"Evasion is anticipation," he breathes, his lips brushing my ear as he twists me out of an invisible strike. His hand splays across my stomach, fingers spreading wide, possessive. "Feel where I'm going before I move."
I feel exactly where he is. Hard muscle, rising heat, the bond between us humming like a plucked string stretched too tight.
Grogan corrects my stance at dusk, his aristocratic patience wearing thin in fascinating ways. His fingers trace my spine, pressing between my shoulder blades until I arch.
"Straighter," he commands, and there's an edge to his voice that wasn't there yesterday. His thumb brushes the nape of my neck, right where my hairline meets skin, and I shiver. "Power comes from the core, Abby. Not the arms. From here."
His hand splays across my abdomen, spanning from hip bone to hip bone, and the sealed bond between us flares hot. Three weeks of hauling dishes at Mercer's built endurance, but nothing prepared my body for this constant proximity—to be touched, adjusted, handled by five different pairs of hands, each leaving their brand on my muscle memory.
I am improving. I feel it in the efficiency of my blocks, the sharpness of my pivots. But I feel something else building too—a pressure behind my sternum that has nothing to do with combat and everything to do with the way Hrollok watches from the tree line, green eyes burning, never offering instruction but never leaving either.
"Water break," Theron calls, tossing me a canteen.
I catch it, drinking deep while the five of them arrange themselves around me. Too close. Always too close now, the bonds drawing tight like spokes around a hub. I can feel their attention like hands—Grogan's steady focus, Rhett's protective weight, Jarek's analytical cataloging of my improvements, Theron's frank appreciation, and Hrollok's... hunger, wrapped in barbed wire.
"We're training our own leash to fight," Hrollok mutters to Theron, just loud enough to carry. "How generous of us."
Theron's charming mask slips, revealing something feral beneath. "She's our mate. All of ours. The sooner you accept that—"
"She's your mate." Hrollok's gesture sweeps the clearing, encompassing all of them. "And his. And his. Five wolves, one center. Do the math on how that ends, golden boy."
The silence that follows tastes like copper.
"She has alternatives," Hrollok continues, advancing, his body coiled with tension that bleeds through our bond—sharp, metallic, aroused and enraged in equal measure. "Four other options for every need. Touch, comfort, sex. While each of us?" He laughs, bitter and broken. "We get crumbs. Fragments. One-fifth of a woman who was never supposed to exist."
I set the canteen down with deliberate care. "Stop talking about me like I'm livestock you're divvying up."
They freeze. Five sets of eyes snap to me, pupils blown wide, predators caught mid-hunt.
"I'm right here," I say, stepping into the center of their circle. "Not a ration card. Not a math problem. If the bond makes you jealous, that's your damage. If it makes you hard, that's biology. But if you ever discuss my body like it's territory to be negotiated again, I'll break your noses and see how the math works when you're all eating through straws."
Hrollok's lip curls, but beneath the hostility, I feel his reaction through the bond—sharp interest, arousal he can't control, hatred for his own desire. "Touched a nerve?"
"You wish you could touch anything else." I turn my back on him, addressing Grogan. "What next?"
His gray eyes hold mine, heavy with things we haven't spoken aloud since the forest. "The wolf," he says quietly. "If you're becoming Alpha, the animal must be present. We need to know if you can shift."
Night falls, and they bring me to a circle of stones beyond the cabins. Grogan guides me to sit, arranging my limbs with careful hands until I'm cross-legged, spine straight, palms upturned on my knees. The others form a ring around me—Rhett behind, a solid wall of warmth; Theron and Jarek flanking; Hrollok lurking at the edge where shadow pools thickest.
"Close your eyes," Grogan murmurs, settling before me. His knees bracket mine, close enough that our breath mingles. "Reach inward. Past the thoughts, past the heartbeat. Find the second pulse beneath your own."
I obey. Darkness blooms behind my lids, filled with the bond-sense of five aroused, anxious wolves. I push past them, diving deeper, seeking something animal, something wild.
Silence.
I search the hollow behind my ribs where the bonding magic lives. I trace the scar on my collarbone, feeling for the wolf Thorne claimed should be stirring. I reach for instinct, for fur and fang and the wildfire of transformation.
Nothing answers.
Only the steady thump of my human heart. The familiar architecture of bone and blood, entirely mundane beneath the magic layered on top.
"I don't feel anything," I whisper.
"Try again," Grogan urges, his hands settling on my knees. The contact burns. "The wolf is the birthright. If you're Alpha—"
"I'm not Alpha," I say, opening my eyes. "I'm something else."
Jarek's pen scratches against paper, clinical in the dark. "No physiological markers of transformation. Heart rate elevated but within human parameters. No scent shift, no thermal change."
Rhett's massive hand settles on my shoulder, heavy and warm. "It may take time. The bond is still forming—"
"Stop." I stand, brushing dirt from my thighs. "Stop reassuring me like I'm a child who lost a pet."
I catch the look passing between Rhett and Theron—a glance of pure concern, edged with doubt. They are wondering what Thorne wondered. If I'm not Alpha, not wolf, not anything their traditions recognize... what am I?
The bonds between us pulse, five threads of connection pulling taut. I feel their desire, their fear, their need to possess me warring with their need to protect me. Five men who never learned to share, now forced to divide what cannot be divided.
"She can't shift," Hrollok says from the shadows. Not triumphant. Hollow.
Grogan rises, his silver hair catching moonlight. "Then we adapt. We find what she is, not mourn what she isn't."
But I see the truth in their posture—the way Theron's shoulders curl inward, the way Jarek's calculations falter, the way Rhett's scarred throat works around words he won't speak.
If I cannot become the wolf they need, I am still the leash. Just one that can't bite back.
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