CHAPTER 6 – NULL

The moon wasn't supposed to be full for another night.

It was coming through Karl's bedroom window anyway, white and too bright, painting stripes across his bed. Across his back. Across my hands where I was holding onto him like he'd disappear.

My bones were on fire.

Not aching anymore. Burning. Like someone had poured hot metal into my spine and it was trying to find a way out.

"Karl," I gasped. "It's worse."

He was still over me, pinning me down with his weight, his mouth on my neck where he'd bit me in chapter 5. His eyes were full gold and wild.

"I know," he growled. "I can smell it."

He pressed his forehead to mine. His skin was even hotter than before. Sweat stuck his hair to his temples.

"Your scent changed again," he whispered. "It's not sweet anymore. It's sharp. Like ozone. Like before a storm."

Another wave hit. My back arched off the bed. I couldn't stop it. My fingers dug into his shoulders, nails breaking skin.

He didn't flinch. He groaned low in his throat and pushed his hips harder against mine, holding me still.

"Breathe with me, Theo," he ordered. "In. Out."

I tried. My lungs wouldn't work right. Every breath I took filled my nose with him — cedar and chlorine and that wild thing underneath. But now I could smell more. I could smell the soap on his sheets. The old blood under his fingernails from the locker in chapter 1. The fear-sweat coming from the hallway downstairs.

I could hear it too. Three heartbeats downstairs. Jace and the other two, pacing. I could hear the watch ticking on Karl's desk. I could hear Karl's heart hammering against my chest, too fast.

"Too loud," I whimpered. "Everything's too loud."

"That's your wolf waking up," Karl said. He kissed my temple, my cheek, the corner of my mouth. Not sexual. Desperate. "Focus on my voice only. Nothing else."

He slid one hand under the shirt I was wearing — his shirt — and pressed his palm flat against my bare stomach. His hand was huge and hot.

"Here," he said. "Feel me."

The cramp hit right under his hand. I cried out and doubled over. My forehead hit his collarbone.

"Shit — Theo, look at me."

I couldn't. My vision was blurring at the edges. Not black. White. Like the moonlight was inside my eyes.

Karl grabbed my chin and forced my head up.

His gold eyes went wide.

"What?" I panted. "What is it?"

"Your eyes," he whispered. He sounded scared, and Karl never sounds scared. "They're not turning gold."

My stomach dropped. In chapter 3 he told me latents turn gold. "What color?"

"Silver," he said. "Latents don't do that. Wolves don't do that."

He let go of me and went to his dresser fast. He pulled out a thick leather cuff, like a wide bracelet, and came back to the bed.

"Give me your wrist," he said.

"Why?"

"At the pool I used blood because we were in public," he said, strapping it on my left wrist. It was warm from his skin. It smelled like him, strong enough to make my head spin. "This is private. It's got my scent soaked in from three years of training. It'll hold you better than a surface mark."

The second it clicked shut, the burning in my bones eased. Just a little. Enough that I could breathe.

"Better?" he asked, his voice rough.

I nodded. "Yeah."

The bedroom door burst open.

No knock. No warning.

Jace stood there with Silas right behind him. Two other wolves flanked them.

Jace's nose twitched. He inhaled deep and his eyes blew wide. He looked straight at me in Karl's bed, wearing Karl's shirt, with Karl's bite on my neck and Karl's cuff on my wrist.

"Holy fuck," Jace said, smiling. "He's not latent."

Silas pushed past him into the room. The Alpha didn't look angry. He looked at my face. At my eyes.

He inhaled once, slow. Then his eyebrows lifted. Just a fraction.

"Silver," Silas said quietly. "That's not a normal latent."

Karl moved before I could blink. He was between me and his father in a second, shirtless, shoulders back, growling low.

"He's mid-shift," Karl snarled. "Get out."

Silas ignored him. "A null," he said. "A rare kind of latent. One in ten thousand. They don't follow scent. They cancel it."

My heart was going to beat out of my chest.

Karl turned his head slowly to look at me. His gold eyes were locked on my silver ones.

"Theo," he said, voice barely human. "What are you doing to me?"

I felt it then. The cuff on my wrist was pulsing with heat. But it wasn't Karl's heat anymore. It was mine. And every pulse was pushing Karl's scent back, out of my lungs, out of the room.

Karl stumbled back a step like I'd shoved him. He pressed a hand to his chest, breathing hard.

"Stop," he gasped. "Whatever you're doing — stop."

"I don't know how!" I shouted.

Jace was grinning now. "He's canceling you, heir. Your own claim can't hold him."

Silas held up a hand. Everyone shut up.

"The full moon is tomorrow," Silas said calmly. "If he finishes this shift as a null, every wolf in a mile radius will lose their wolf when he's near. Including my son. Including me."

He looked at Karl. "You brought a weapon into your bed, Karl."

Karl wasn't listening. He was staring at me like he was in pain. Like I was hurting him just by breathing.

"Theo," he whispered. "Come here."

I got off the bed on shaky legs. I was still wearing his shirt. His cuff. His bite was still on my neck. I walked to him.

The closer I got, the more his gold eyes faded back to brown. The more his shoulders dropped.

When I was a foot away, he dropped to his knees.

Right there in front of his father, in front of Jace, in front of the whole pack, Karl Maddox — Alpha heir, captain, golden boy who'd looked through me for two years — sank to his knees and pressed his forehead against my stomach.

He'd never knelt for anyone. He was on the floor because of me.

He inhaled deep against my skin. And he shuddered.

"Mine," he said, voice broken. "Even like this. Even if you kill my wolf. You're still mine."

Silas made a low sound. "Impossible. A null can't be claimed."

Jace pulled out his phone. "Alpha, I'm recording this. The council needs to see—"

Karl moved so fast no one saw it. One second he was on his knees, the next Jace was slammed against the wall with Karl's hand around his throat, feet dangling.

"Delete it," Karl snarled, eyes flashing gold again despite me standing right there. "Or I rip your throat out and let him watch."

He looked back at me over his shoulder, still holding Jace up with one hand.

"Theo," he said. "Tell me to stop."

My legs were shaking. My eyes were burning silver. My whole body felt like it was being rewired. And the most dangerous wolf on campus was asking me for permission.

I walked up to him and put my hand over his on Jace's throat.

"Stop," I whispered.

He let go instantly. Jace dropped to the floor gasping.

Karl turned to me, breathing hard, and cupped my face with both hands.

"You just gave an Alpha an order," he said, amazed. "And I obeyed. Because of what you are."

Downstairs, the front door crashed open. More wolves poured in, drawn by the scent of a null waking up.

Silas looked at the window, at the moon, then at me.

"Son," he said to Karl, "if you can't control him by sunrise, I will put him down myself. Null or not. Pack law."

Karl pulled me against his chest, one arm locked around my waist, the other hand on the back of my neck over his bite.

"Then you better hope I can," Karl said, "because I'm not letting go."

Outside, the pack started to howl — not at the moon.

At me.