Chapter 4 Bloom

By the time I left the hospital, the city's noise was getting on my nerves. After the silence of the forest, the growl of engines, blaring horns, and overlapping conversations all blurred into one relentless wall of sound. An hour ago, I never would've believed I'd miss the rustle of leaves. The moment I stepped inside my cabin and locked the heavy steel door behind me, my shoulders relaxed on their own.

The chaos outside disappeared. This was my refuge.

My mother's books still sat exactly where she'd left them, lining the shelves. In the opposite corner, my father's old training equipment waited in silence, just as it always had. Every object in this house carried a memory. Maybe that was why I'd never felt lonely here.

As I shrugged off my jacket, dried blood caught my eye.

I stopped. It had all been real.

I walked into the bathroom and faced the mirror. The shallow cuts on my face had already begun to heal, but the blood was still there. I turned on the shower and stepped beneath the hot water. As the heat loosened the tension in my muscles, I closed my eyes.

No matter how hard I tried, my thoughts always found their way back to the same place.

The silver she-wolf. Her eyes. The quiet nod before she left. Why had she helped me?

When steam completely covered the mirror, I opened my eyes again. My reflection had vanished. For a split second, I thought I saw another silhouette standing behind the fogged glass. This time, I didn't flinch. Maybe I still hadn't recovered from everything that had happened.

After my shower, I changed into clean clothes and collapsed onto my bed. The moment my head touched the pillow, every ounce of exhaustion crashed over me. The scent of the forest slowly faded, replaced by the smell of freshly washed sheets. I closed my eyes. Sleep claimed me almost instantly.

***

I was standing in a dim, endless void. A cold, perfectly smooth surface stretched beneath my feet. Thick mist surrounded me, so dense I couldn't see more than a few yards ahead.

Then I heard a voice.

"Bloom Fox..."

It came from far away.

As though it were rising from beneath deep water. It wasn't my father. It wasn't my mother.

This voice was older. Deeper. It seeped into my bones like something calling from beneath the earth. Without thinking, I started walking. With every step, the ground changed beneath me. Cold stone became damp earth. The fog slowly drifted away. Suddenly, every one of my senses sharpened.

The scents around me separated into distinct trails. A deer moving somewhere nearby. Water flowing in the distance. The path the wind carved through the trees. Something was changing. I just didn't understand what.

Then I was running.

But nothing about it felt familiar. Every time my legs pushed against the ground, an indescribable strength surged through me. My body felt lighter. Branches seemed to bend out of my way, and the wind itself shifted to clear my path.

Then a scent reached me. Prey. Something deep inside me answered instantly. I didn't think. I simply moved.

My muscles coiled. One leap was all it took to close the distance. The wind roared past my ears, and the instant I reached my prey, an overwhelming sense of peace settled inside me.

This was it. The thing I'd been missing my entire life without ever knowing it. Breathing hard, I lowered my head. The world stopped.

I had no hands. I stared at the black paws planted against the earth. My fur was as dark as the night itself, fading to soft white only at the tips, where it caught the moonlight. I couldn't look away.

No...

This wasn't a stranger. It was me. The missing piece I'd believed never existed stood before me at last. My wolf.

I had a wolf. A howl rose from somewhere deep inside my chest and rolled through the entire forest. I didn't just hear it. I felt it echo through my bones.

For the first time in my life... I wasn't incomplete.

***

My eyes flew open. My heart hammered so hard it felt ready to burst from my chest. As I fought to steady my breathing, I looked down at my hands.

Human hands. Fingers. Fingernails. It had been a dream. But what I'd felt inside it had been real. A smile tugged at my lips before I even realized it. Maybe, for the first time, I wasn't disappointed to wake up from a dream. Because now there was hope.

***

My second year of college had officially begun. The campus looked exactly the way I remembered it. Crowded hallways, students rushing to class, and an endless line at the coffee shop.

After spending the entire summer surrounded by the quiet of the forest, all the noise felt overwhelming. I headed straight for the cafeteria. The moment I stepped inside, a strong scent hit me.

Blueberries. Juniper.

I stopped without meaning to. This wasn't an ordinary scent. It belonged to a werewolf. And whoever it was... they were close.

Without drawing attention to myself, I scanned the room. I grabbed a tray, found an empty table, and pulled out my phone as I picked at my breakfast, pretending to check my class schedule.

In reality, I wasn't looking at the screen. I was tracking the scent. A few seconds later, I found them. Two men sat side by side on the other side of the cafeteria. I'd never seen either of them before. But I knew the scent belonged to them.

People around them kept sneaking curious glances without even realizing they were doing it. That wasn't the strange part. The longer I looked at them, the stronger the uneasiness growing inside me became. Something felt off. I didn't know what it was yet.

All I knew was that my instincts refused to let me look away.

The brown-haired one noticed me first. His hazel eyes held an easy, almost carefree expression. When I didn't break eye contact, the corner of his mouth lifted into a grin. Then he winked at me. Actually winked. And went right back to eating his breakfast like nothing had happened.

I frowned. Did he seriously just wink at me? I was about to roll my eyes and go back to my food when the man beside him finally looked up.

His blue eyes locked onto mine. The first thing I noticed wasn't their color. It was the way he looked at me. Steady. Silent. Unsettlingly calm. As if this wasn't the first time he'd ever seen me.

A knot tightened in my stomach. I didn't want to run. But I didn't want to sit beneath that gaze for another second either. He wasn't simply looking at me. He was studying me. Like he was trying to figure something out about me before I even knew it myself.

Breaking eye contact took more effort than it should have. The rumors I'd heard about newcomers moving into town drifted back into my mind.

So these were the people everyone had been talking about. And they were werewolves.

I forced my attention back to my breakfast. Then another familiar scent reached me. I looked up and froze. The woman from last night had just walked into the cafeteria.

She looked nothing like the warrior I'd fought beside in the forest. She wore an oversized, colorful cardigan. Her blonde hair fell loosely over her shoulders, and the warm smile on her face made it almost impossible to believe she'd been fighting for her life only hours earlier.

The moment she spotted me through the crowd, she waved.

No...

She wasn't... She was definitely walking toward me.

"Hey!" she said brightly as soon as she reached my table. "I was hoping you went here. This campus is basically a maze."

Before I could answer, she pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. Then she glanced at the croissant on my tray.

"Wow. Whoever calls this breakfast should be ashamed of themselves."

A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. I immediately caught myself. Why was I laughing?

"Tell you what," she said as naturally as if we'd known each other for years. "I'll take you somewhere good tonight. I'm new around here, so I need a tour guide."

My fork nearly slipped from my hand.

"You..." I said before I could think. "How are you here? I mean... what are you doing on campus?"

Her eyes widened dramatically. "Now that's a great question." She burst into laughter.

"I had no idea there was another wolf around here," she said. "I don't even know you yet, but I have a feeling we're going to get along really well."

I still had no idea what to say.

"Our first meeting wasn't exactly normal," she said, holding out her hand. "Let's start over."

Her smile never faded. "I'm Ivy Storm."

She kept her hand extended for a few more seconds before glancing at my wrist.

"I've gotta run or I'll be late for class," she said, jumping to her feet. "But I'm getting your number later. You owe me a coffee."

My number? When had that become her decision?

"By the way," she asked, "what's your name?"

My brain was still trying to catch up. "Bloom," I answered, sounding far more robotic than I'd intended. "Bloom Fox."

"Nice to meet you, Bloom."

Then she simply turned around and disappeared into the crowd without another glance. I stayed exactly where I was. The silence at my table drew my attention back across the cafeteria. I looked up.

The blue-eyed man was still watching me. This time, his expression was harder. His gaze flicked briefly toward Ivy's retreating figure before returning to me.

That same uneasy feeling stirred inside me again. The strange part was... He wasn't the one occupying my thoughts anymore. All I could think about was the unpredictable woman who'd barged into my life less than five minutes ago.

I'd never imagined my second year of college would become this complicated before the first day was even over.