Chapter Five
495 Words
Xavier didn’t stay.
That was the first mistake.
The second was thinking distance would quiet the pressure in his head.
The moment he stepped outside the hospital wing, the low-grade tension he’d been ignoring sharpened—not pain, exactly, but awareness. Like something just out of alignment. He rolled his neck once, jaw tightening.
Four days unconscious didn’t happen without reason.
He pushed the thought aside and headed toward the council hall. Paperwork waited. Patrol rotations. A border dispute that needed addressing. Familiar problems—manageable ones.
Karma Slivermoon was not manageable.
“She awake yet?”
Lyra’s voice followed him down the hall, light and casual, like she hadn’t already scented the change in him. She fell into step beside him, fingers brushing his arm like it was habit.
“She is,” he answered.
Lyra smiled. Too quickly. “Good. I was starting to think you’d gone soft.”
He stopped walking.
Her smile faltered just slightly.
“This isn’t about softness,” he said evenly. “She collapsed on our land.”
“And you carried her,” Lyra replied. “Personally.”
“She was dying.”
Lyra laughed softly, but her eyes hardened. “You don’t usually involve yourself with strays.”
That word earned her a warning look.
“Careful,” he said.
Lyra lifted her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying—you’re letting this outsider disrupt your rhythm. The pack notices.”
Good, he thought. Let them.
The pressure flared again, dull and persistent, blooming behind his eyes. He exhaled slowly through his nose.
Not now.
“I’m fine,” he muttered, more to himself than her.
Lyra tilted her head. “You don’t look it.”
“I said I’m fine.”
She studied him for a moment, then leaned in, lowering her voice. “Whatever she is, Xavier… don’t let her weaken you.”
He turned to her fully now. “She hasn’t.”
But the words rang hollow even to him.
Later—alone in his office—he poured over reports without absorbing a word. The pressure ebbed and flowed, worsening whenever his thoughts drifted back to the hospital wing.
He stood abruptly.
This was wrong.
Not attraction. Not curiosity.
This felt… reactive.
Like his instincts were responding to something they didn’t fully understand yet.
When the headache spiked again—sharp enough to make him brace a hand against the desk—he knew one thing with certainty.
It wasn’t coming from him.
It was echoing.
He closed his eyes, breathing through it until the pressure eased. When he opened them, the decision was already made.
She wouldn’t be leaving pack land.
Not yet.
Not until he understood what was happening—and why his control was slipping in the presence of a woman who didn’t even know what she was stirring.
Xavier straightened, expression hardening.
Whatever Karma Slivermoon was running from, it had found her.
And now?
So had he.
- Writer
