The Fifth Howl

Chapter 7 The First Night

I had never slept in a bed that wasn't broken.

My dorm cot had a spring that stabbed me in the spine every time I turned over. I learned to sleep on my side, perfectly still, like I was already in a coffin. Seraphina said it was fitting.

The bed in the Tower was... not a bed. It was a disaster.

Jaxon had dragged every blanket in the common room up to Kade's second floor - which Kade was furious about - and made a nest on the floor in front of the fireplace. Because "gods shouldn't sleep on high places during surge, they fall and c***k the mountain."

"That's not a thing," Silas said, but he helped him anyway, arranging pillows with careful hands.

"Is now," Jaxon said.

So that's where I was. In a pile of stolen blankets, in Kade Nocturne's room, wearing a shirt that was so big it fell off one shoulder. It was Kade's. Rhys had tried to give me one of his soft sweaters, Silas had offered a silk thing that probably cost more than my life, but Kade had just taken off his own uniform shirt, thrown it at me, and stormed out muttering "you reek of fear."

It smelled like him. Cold night and shadows and that sharp iron scent that made Lyra roll over in my head.

Mate smells nice.

He is not our mate, he is our jailer.

Same thing in old tongue.

I pulled the shirt tighter around me and stared at the fire.

Downstairs, I could hear them arguing in hushed voices.

"She should not be on your floor, Kade," Rhys was saying. "It's your rut week. You know this."

"My rut is controlled."

"Your shadows are currently wrapped around her ankle under the floorboards, Kade. That is not controlled."

A pause. A low growl.

"She is cold."

"She has six blankets."

"She is still cold."

Jaxon laughed. "Oh, we're so f****d. We're all so f****d. Did you see her when she said 'call me Elara'? I almost shifted right there."

"You almost shift when the wind blows," Silas murmured.

"Not the point! The point is Elder Thorne is right. We are tethered. I felt it snap when she said Lyra's name. Did you guys feel it?"

Silence.

I held my breath, pretending to be asleep.

Rhys: "Yes."

Silas, softer: "Yes. It felt like coming home."

Kade, after a long time: "...yes."

My heart was hammering so loud I was sure they could hear it upstairs. Tethered. The word Thorne used. I didn't know what it meant, not fully, but Lyra did, and she was purring so loud my chest vibrated.

It means we were one wolf once. Now we are five bodies, one soul. They feel it too.

Is it like... mates?

Better. Mates can be rejected. Tether cannot be cut. Even death cannot cut it. We tried.

That last part was sad.

Downstairs, footsteps. Someone coming up the stairs.

I quickly closed my eyes, face half-buried in Kade's shirt.

The door opened. Cold air. Kade's scent, stronger.

He stood there for a long time. I could feel him looking at me.

"You are awake," he said.

Busted.

I opened one eye. "Maybe."

He was in just sweatpants, hair wet from a shower, shadows curling low and lazy around his shoulders. Without his uniform jacket, he looked younger. And the black runes that covered his arms - the Nocturne shadow marks - were glowing faintly violet.

Just like mine had.

"Your marks," I whispered, sitting up. The shirt slipped more. I yanked it back. "They're glowing."

He looked down at his arms like he'd forgotten they existed. "They started after you manifested. All of ours did."

"All of yours?"

He stepped closer, crouched by the nest. He didn't touch me. He never touched me unless he had to. Like touch burned him.

But his shadows did. One thin tendril, shy, brushed my bare ankle where the blankets had slipped.

"Jaxon has fire marks on his back. They were orange. Now they have violet tips. Rhys's mind marks behind his ears are violet. Silas's soul marks on his chest..."

He stopped.

"What about them?" I asked.

"They spread," he said quietly. "When he touched you."

I remembered Silas's nosebleed.

Kade's eyes dropped to my hands. "Show me your claws."

"I don't know how to call them."

"Think about being angry."

"I'm not angry."

"Think about Seraphina."

My claws shot out. Instant.

Kade caught my wrist before I could scratch myself. His hand was big, warm, rough. This time he didn't let go.

"Good," he said, turning my hand over, examining the black claws that glinted violet in the firelight. "Control will come. Lyra knows how. You just have to let her teach you instead of caging her."

He said her name like it was a weapon.

"Are you scared of me?" I asked before I could stop myself. The question that had been sitting in my throat since the courtyard.

Kade looked up. His grey eyes were not cold now. They were stormy.

"I have been scared every day since I was seven and my wolf spoke for the first time and told me there was a fifth piece missing," he said. "I thought we were insane. All four of us. Hearing a girl's voice in our heads, crying. Now I know we were just hearing you."

My breath caught.

Kade...

Lyra whispered it, sad and fond.

Kade's eyes widened slightly. "She... she just said my name."

"She remembers you," I whispered. "Shadow."

And then, because I was in his shirt and in his nest and his hand was on my wrist and the war beacons were still burning outside and I might die tomorrow, I did something stupid.

I leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

It was quick. Dry. My lips barely brushed his stubble.

Kade froze. Completely. Like a statue.

His shadows exploded.

Every shadow in the room - under the bed, behind the curtains, in the fireplace - slammed into the walls, making the runes blaze white-violet. Downstairs, I heard Jaxon yell "WHAT DID YOU DO? I FELT THAT!"

Kade's hand tightened on my wrist, not hurting, but possessive. His eyes were black now, pupil blown.

"Elara," he said, his voice gravel. "Do not ever do that again unless you mean it."

"Mean what?"

"Claiming a Nocturne."

He stood abruptly, letting me go like I'd burned him, and walked to the far window, his back to me, shoulders heaving.

"Go to sleep," he ordered, but his voice shook.

I lay back down in his nest, my cheek burning where I'd kissed him, my wrist tingling where he'd held me.

Downstairs, Rhys's voice: "Kade? What was that pulse?"

Kade, shouting down, furious: "NOTHING! GO TO SLEEP!"

I smiled into his pillow.

For the first time in nineteen years, I wasn't invisible.

I was dangerous.

And I was finally, finally warm.