第7章

During the first awakening session, the pain almost made me dig my nails into my palms.

Dr. Monroe guided me as I searched for my shift core.

But my mind held nothing except scrambled static, splintering bones, and the memory of wolfsbane burning into my blood eight years ago.

"Hold on a little longer."

My body began to shake out of control.

Elias stood outside the observation window.

The moment he saw my body start to convulse, he shoved open the training room door and hit the emergency stop.

The machine's hum cut out.

He crouched in front of me and took my sweat-soaked hand in his.

"If it hurts, cry out. If you can't take it, stop.

"Elena, here with me, you don't have to prove your strength by letting yourself get hurt."

Tears spilled before I could stop them.

Not from the pain.

Because there really was someone in this world who knew that pain was allowed to stop.

No need to be sensible.

No need to endure.

No need to grind myself into a silent wasteland just so someone else could be whole.

After the accident, the Inter-Pack Council postponed the next day's reinstatement ceremony by ten days, citing the wolfsbane leak and the injuries on site.

On the tenth day, the postponed ceremony began as scheduled.

Vivian stood before the entire Black Pine Pack, ready to recite the reinstatement oath.

Then the hall's screen abruptly cut to the security footage from eight years ago.

In the footage, Vivian hid my stabilizer in her bag.

Then she injected wolfsbane into the backup medicine herself and handed it to me.

The whole pack erupted.

The second clip was the unedited recording of the reinstatement hearing.

In it, Vivian asked Adrian whether the $480,000 had been meant to wake my wolf.

Adrian said nothing.

He didn't deny it.

The third file held every record of the canceled treatment, the diverted funds, and the buried investigation.

Vivian's head snapped toward the front row.

Adrian was sitting there.

She thought he would stand up and shield her, the way he had eight years ago.

But this time, Adrian didn't move.

He just watched the screen.

Watched me drink that bottle.

Watched me fall from the trial platform.

Watched his younger self grab Vivian's bag before anything else.

The reinstatement ceremony collapsed completely.

The Inter-Pack Council announced a new investigation into the wolfsbane incident of eight years ago.

The Black Pine Elders suspended Vivian's reinstatement eligibility.

The news reached me just as I finished my fifth training session.

Elias handed me the tablet.

I gave it one glance and handed it back.

"It has nothing to do with me anymore."

Elias put the tablet away.

"Then let's keep training."

The treatment was long.

Every day brought detox, tests, and partial-shift practice.

I began learning to find the wolf inside my body again.

The first time, I felt only a faint breath.

Later, I could see a pair of blurry eyes in my mind.

Dr. Monroe said that was good progress.

I thought so too.

At least every step forward truly belonged to me.

News from Black Pine still drifted in now and then.

Adrian went to the hospital where I had been treated all those years ago.

The doctor handed him that cancellation request again.

He told Adrian that on the night before my treatment, I had woken and asked three times whether I would really be able to shift again.

"She never gave up. Not once.

"She was always waiting for you to bring her back."

Adrian sat in the hospital corridor all night, holding that sheet of paper.

The Black Pine Elders emailed me too.

Their tone slid from blame at the beginning to pleading at the end.

They said Adrian hadn't slept in ages.

They said the severed mate bond kept driving his wolf out of control.

They said Vivian went looking for him every day, and he refused to see her even once.

I read it all, then deleted it.

One full moon night, Adrian came to Silver Ridge in person.

When Elias pushed open the training room door, the cedar scent around him was cold enough to bite.

"That Black Pine Alpha is outside.

"He says he only wants one minute with you."

I kept my head down, adjusting the training equipment.

"No."

Elias watched me for two seconds, unconcealed satisfaction and possessiveness plain in his eyes.

"Exactly what I wanted to hear.

"He's been waiting six hours. Any longer, and I might not be able to resist throwing him out of Silver Ridge."

I didn't stop him.

Before dawn, Adrian finally left.

He never saw me. He left behind only a complete statement for the Inter-Pack Council and a request to suspend his own Alpha authority.

At the tenth-week checkup, Dr. Monroe confirmed that the last trace of mate response between Adrian and me had vanished.

The rejection had finally severed the old bond completely.

I no longer startled awake when he lost control.

He could no longer find me through any psychic channel.

Every trace of Adrian's scent disappeared from my life.

Three months later, I completed a partial shift for the first time.

When a silver-white paw came into view, I cried for a long time.

The training room door had barely opened before Elias was striding to my side.

He pressed a bottle of water into my hands, then bent and cradled that newly recovered silver-white paw, the joy in his eyes blazing brighter than my own.

"I knew you'd come back."

The cedar scent drew close again.

Deep in my mind, those blurry eyes snapped open.

Elias's breath caught too.

We both recognized the newly awakened bond at once. It was my second mate bond.

I stepped back on instinct.

Elias lowered his Alpha aura so it wouldn't overwhelm me, but he made no effort to hide the longing in his eyes.

"So it really is you.

"The first time I saw you at the airport, my wolf wanted to charge over and hold you. Every day since, I've been waiting for you to wake up. Waiting for you to feel me too."

He came half a step closer, his heated cedar scent winding through every breath I took.

"Elena, I want you to be my mate."