Rhea

The room had gone quiet in that careful way the Packhouse does—like the stone itself is holding its breath so you can find yours. Out beyond the mullioned windows, the last of the afternoon light smeared silver across the pines. The wards in the paneling hummed low and tender, threads of moon-sigil and ember-sigil braided together—Ridge Storm’s way of saying: you’re inside, you’re safe, breathe.

I lay on my back across the ridiculous bed—silk coverlet, too many pillows, the whole “Alpha heirloom suite” production—counting the faint prickle of magic where the headboard’s inlays met my scalp. At the academy, the sigils flare like sirens if you so much as clench your jaw too hard. Here, they’re softer, more… polite. They glow when the room likes you. They dim when it doesn’t. Right now, the silver filigree at the ceiling’s edge pulsed a quiet, steady light.

“I’m fine,” I told the ceiling. It didn’t argue. Rude.

The day unspooled behind my eyes in a too-fast montage: my shift faltering under the weight of four wolves’ dominance from across campus walls; the whispers; the dean’s precise worry; the way my bones had hummed when that tether inside me went taut. Ten out of ten, the wards had said. Unheard of. Not a fever dream. A fact.

Also a problem.

A knock, knuckles on oaken grace.

I sat up too fast. The wards answered with a little pleased flare. Traitors.

“Come in,” I said, and tried to sound like someone who hadn’t nearly cried into a five-hundred-thread-count pillow.

The door opened on a wall of male. Leather, linen, wolf heat, a cut of winter air that somehow slipped in with them.

Callum first—because of course it was—moving like a verdict dressed in black. Jax behind him, slow and silent, Rory slid in sideways, a grin ghosting his mouth, eyes too careful; Seth kicked the door with his heel just to make it bang and winked at me like we hadn’t almost combusted a building before lunch.

The sigils along the crown molding gave a shy little blink. If the academy had eyes, it would gawk; the packhouse more or less purred.

I pulled my legs underneath me and hit them with my best unimpressed stare. “If this is a lecture, I’m really not in the mood.”

“Lecture?” Seth echoed, tipping his head. “Snowflake, if we were lecturing, you’d be over my knee and—”

“Finish that sentence,” I said sweetly, “and I will feed you to the ornamental koi.”

Rory coughed into his fist. Jaxon’s mouth twitched like a storm trying not to happen. Callum’s gaze cut across the room, took in my hair still damp from a shower, the book splayed face-down beside me, the untouched glass of water someone had left on the nightstand and—of course—filed all of it into whatever ruthless cabinet he keeps behind those eyes.

He didn’t come all the way to the bed. He set a small, velvet-wrapped box on the end of it instead. “We came to check on you, little Luna.”

There it was. The voice that doesn’t have to rise to be obeyed. My shoulders wanted to sit up straighter. I did not let them. “I’m functional,” I said. “Mostly.”

Jax’s attention slid over me—collarbone, wrists, the square of my knees under my leggings—as if taking inventory. He crouched without asking, forearms on his thighs so his eyes were level with mine. Up close, he was just heat and shadows and too much intent for one man to legally carry.

“How do you feel, sunshine?” he asked. No humour this time. No threat either. Somehow worse.

I inhaled on purpose. “Like I got hit by a truck full of emotion and then someone set it on fire.”

Seth made a noise like a laugh, and a snarl had a baby. “Relatable.”

Rory cut him a look. “Not helping.”

“I’m very helpful,” Seth said, and sprawled into the armchair like sin taking a nap. “You should try it.”

“Boys,” Callum said, and the wards themselves seemed to settle. Then, softer, to me: “Your wolf?”

“She’s… noisy,” I admitted. “Not mad. Not exactly. More like—” I groped for words and came up with something embarrassingly earnest. “Like she saw four bonfires and keeps trying to jump in. I keep dragging her back by the tail.”

Rory’s grin turned real at the edges. “Princess,” he said, and the nickname curled under my skin, warm, “that’s the bond talking. It’s louder for us. But I promise she’s not wrong. We’re fire. You won’t get burned.”

“Bold of you to promise that when you literally set the academy’s wards screaming earlier by existing too hard,” I shot back.

Jax’s eyes darkened. “They pushed first.”

“I sneezed,” I said.

Seth snorted and did not look even a little sorry. “It was a hot sneeze.”

Despite myself, a laugh escaped. Small. Jagged. But real.

The room breathed with me. The sigils along the ceiling brightened, as if they were listening and wanted to applaud.

Callum lifted the velvet box again and offered it across the space. “This is for you.”

I eyed it like it might sprout fangs. “If this is a collar, we’re going to fight.”

“It’s not a collar,” he said dryly, and—okay—some corner of my chest unclenched because he sounded legitimately offended. “Open it.”

I did, carefully, fingers not quite steady.

Inside lay a slender chain of moon-silver, almost white against the velvet, and at its center, a disc of moonstone shot through with faint gold veins. Someone—someone with far too steady hands—had etched the Ridge Storm crest on one face in miniature. On the other, delicately precise sigils arranged in a circle: ward-scripts. Personal. Old.

My throat went tight. “What is it?”

“A ward anchor,” Callum said. “Custom keyed. To you.”

Jaxon’s voice slid under his, low. “So the next time someone throws a wall of dominance at you from half a mile away, you don’t hit the floor.”

I swallowed around whatever emotion had built up in my esophagus. “You had this—?”

“This is ours,” Rory said quickly, leaning in, eyes bright. “Fae-crafted—legally—before you start. Nothing binding, nothing you can’t take off, no hidden sigils. It’s yours. It just helps you… filter.”

“Like a pop-up dome,” Seth offered. “For your insides.”

“Deeply romantic,” I told him.

“Thank you,” he said gravely.

Callum didn’t move until I nodded once. Then he stepped closer, slow enough I could flinch if I needed to, and I didn’t, and that surprised me. He lifted the chain and paused. “May I?”

I turned my back, swept my hair forward. His fingers barely skimmed my nape as he fastened the clasp; the chain settled, moonstone resting against my sternum. The wards in the paneling did a little pleased glow again, like a house cat kneading a blanket. Heat swept my cheeks. I pretended it didn’t.

The second the pendant lay against my skin, the room went… quieter. Not silent—my wolf still prowled, my heartbeat still stuttered when Jax’s breath brushed my shoulder—but the frantic clamor of the bond receded a degree. Not absent. Manageable.

I exhaled and didn’t realize it was a tremor until Rory’s knuckles nudged mine. “Better?”

“More like not drowning,” I said, touching the moonstone with two fingers. It hummed, faint and cool. Clarity, not erasure. “Thank you.”

Callum held my gaze a second too long, tipping his chin once like he’d just won a small, personal war. “We’re learning,” he said quietly. “With you, not at you.”

Jaxon’s hand landed warm and heavy over my knee—just that, no squeeze, no pull, like an anchor he’s offering instead of throwing. “We were wrong last night and today,” he said. “We let ghosts pick our teeth. We bared them at you.” A pause. “That won’t happen again.”

I flicked him a sideways glance. “You can’t promise that.”

“Watch me,” he said, and somehow it didn’t sound like reckless bravado. It sounded like a thing he’d carve into his own bones if he had to.

Seth drummed his fingers on the chair arm. “We’re not saints,” he said, always the one to pop the balloon before it floats too high. “You know that. We get pissy. Possessive.” His grin flashed, unapologetic and sharp. “We like being possessive. But the line is you. You draw it; we stand on our side.”

My chest did an inconvenient little ache. “And when I’m not in the room?”

Callum didn’t blink. “The line doesn’t move.”

The wards approved so hard the sigils threw a soft ring of light across the ceiling like a halo. I rolled my eyes at the ceiling and then hissed a laugh because fine, I liked hearing it. I did.

“Okay,” I said, softer than I meant to. “Okay.”

Rory rocked back on his heels like he couldn’t help it, that grin sneaking back. “Since we’re all being very healthy and communicative,” he said, tone pure faux-light, “we have two requests.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I hate this already.”

“First,” he lifted a hand, “you stop skipping meals.” He flicked a glance at the untouched fruit bowl on the sideboard. “Our kitchen cried earlier. Tears on the tiles. Very tragic.”

“It did not,” I said, and then, traitorously, “Fine.”

He beamed. “Second: let us take you shopping. Tonight. Lila’s party is tomorrow, and if my sister is going to parade around like the Moon herself kissed her forehead, our Luna is not showing up in anything less than obscene perfection.”

I stared. “You want to… come with me. To a mall.”

Seth spread his arms. “We can behave in public. Sometimes.”

“Define behave,” I said.

Jax’s mouth did that almost-smile thing again, the one that always looks like a secret. “You pick the dress,” he said. “We stand there and pay, carry, glare at anyone who thinks looking is touching, and fight only three security guards, max.”

“Jax,” Callum said, exasperated

“Kidding,” Jaxon said. He absolutely was not.

I looked down at the moonstone and then back up at the four of them, who somehow managed to look like a promise and a problem in the same breath. If you’d asked me yesterday whether I wanted to be escorted through retail like a princess under armed guard, I would’ve laughed until I choked.

Now, the idea of not doing it with them made my ribs go tight.

“I need to say it out loud,” I said, before the moment got too soft and sank into the bedspread. “I am trying. I told you I would, and I am. But I still—” I groped for the words, felt the weight of silver braids and abandoned blankets and a thousand quiet empty rooms. “I need to feel it. Not just the pull. Not just the sparks. Trust. I need to know the line doesn’t move when it’s hard or when it’s inconvenient or when some she-wolf bats her lashes.”

Rory’s teasing faded. He crossed his heart with two fingers, terribly solemn. “Cross my black one,” he said. “I don’t look away.”

Seth leaned in, grin gone, eyes dark and plain. “Neither do I.”

Callum didn’t swear. He didn’t need to. “You’ll have proof,” he said simply. “Not speeches.” He lifted the velvet lid from the discarded box and tucked it beneath his arm like he was tidying the moment. “Time. Behaviour. Choices.”

Jax’s palm slid from my knee to the bedspread, knuckles brushing the back of my hand once. “And if you bolt,” he murmured, just for me, “I chase. But only until I’m sure you’re safe. Then I sit where you sit and wait.”

A noise clawed at my throat. I swallowed it before it embarrassed both of us.

“Shopping,” I said briskly, because if I didn’t pivot, I was going to do something alarming like cry. “If we’re doing it, we’re doing it my way. No dragging me into a couture den where gowns cost more than tuition. We’re going to Night Market and we’re getting street snacks and if anyone growls at a vendor I will tie your shoelaces together.”

Seth’s grin snapped back on like lights after an outage. “Street snacks and violence? Be still my heart.”

“Night Market it is,” Callum said, adjusting seamlessly as if Night Market had been his plan all along. “We’ll leave after sunset. Less eyes. Fewer cameras.”

Rory clapped once. “I’m getting her a candy cloud the size of her head.”

“You are not getting her a sugar coma,” Callum said.

“Try and stop me, Cal,” Rory sang, and the use of the nickname loosened something that had been tight between all of us since last night.

“Two things before we go,” I said, pointing like a tyrant. “One: no fighting. Two: I pick the shoes.”

Jax’s look slid slow to my mouth and back. “You can pick our shoes,” he said, voice rough silk. “Any time.”

“Gross,” I told him, because if I didn’t, my cheeks were going to combust.

He didn’t look remotely chastised.

I slid off the bed and padded to the closet. The sigils over the door flickered when I approached, shifting from a cool silver. The closet, like the rest of the suite, was obscene: shelves of things I hadn’t put there, dresses I hadn’t bought, all in my sizes, my fabrics, my colours. Someone had done their homework. Fae gossip network, probably. Or Lila. Hard to say which was more terrifying.

I grabbed a simple black dress—soft, skims the line between casual and I might own you—and a leather jacket. When I turned back, they were… watching. Not like wolves eyeing a meal. More like men steadier for seeing something they want put on with her own hands.

“What?” I said, and fought a smile that wanted to go full rogue.

Rory gave me a low whistle. “Princess, you’re going to start civil wars.”

“Only small ones,” Seth said. “We can manage the casualties.”

Jax took the jacket from my elbow and held it so I could slip my arms in. He didn’t drag fingers along my forearms. He didn’t pull me back into him. He just—helped. Like we were ordinary. I hated how much that undid me.

“Thank you,” I said, a little unsteady.

“Always,” he said.

As we stepped into the corridor, I caught the pendant between two fingers and held it just off my chest. It thrummed once, like a heartbeat that belonged to all of us at once. Not a chain. An anchor—with the rope in my hand.

“Hey,” I said, and the four of them paused mid-stride. “One more thing.”

Four heads, four lines of attention hitting like a physical thing. I considered them—storm and shadow and laughter and teeth—and chose.

“I’m not promising forever tonight,” I said. “I can’t. But… I will promise tonight. I’ll try. I’ll let you try. We’ll see what the line looks like in the dark. Okay?”

Rory’s smile went lopsided and sweet. Seth did a mock salute that was somehow not mocking at all. Jax’s eyes warmed in a way that made my knees stupid. Callum nodded once, verdict rendered: accepted.

“Okay,” he said. “Tonight.”

We walked.

The corridor lamps brightened as we passed, a run of gold down the gallery like the house couldn’t help but show off. Below us, somewhere, kitchens murmured and fireplaces settled and, because fate is rude, I heard Lila’s laugh echo off a distant stone. The packhouse felt alive—breathing with us, tonight on our side.

“Street snacks,” Seth said as the stairwell approached, counting off on his fingers. “Dresses. Shoes. Zero arrests.”

“Two arrests,” Rory negotiated.

“Zero arrests,” Callum repeated.

“Define arrest,” Jax murmured, and if I hadn’t liked them already, that would have done it.

I tightened the jacket around me, tucked the pendant under the V of the collar, and let myself be bracketed by four dangerous, ridiculous men as we took the stairs down into the warm heart of our home.

I wasn’t naive enough to believe the hard parts were over. I still needed proof in daylight. I still needed the bond to feel like mine and not something that had swallowed me whole.

But as the wards chimed us through the last landing and the front doors swung open on a wash of night air thick with pine and moon and possibility, the ache in my chest wasn’t terror.

It was hope—small and stubborn.

And for once, the sigils glowed brighter for me.