Chapter 15 – The First Patient After
1414 Words
The first wolf they bring me after the council map isn’t from our pack.
He smells like wet stone and river mud—different territory, different rhythms. Two escorts flank him, wearing the lean look of wolves who don’t trust anyone else to watch their alpha’s blood.
Because that’s what he is, I realize the moment his eyes lift and meet mine.
Not alpha yet. But close.
He’s younger than Roenan, older than Selvi. Broad-shouldered, jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticks near his ear. Sweat darkens the collar of his shirt. There’s a faint tremor in his hands that doesn’t match the coiled power in the rest of him.
We’re in one of the smaller sitting rooms off the infirmary, a space I bullied Meren into letting me claim. Windows cracked for air. Two chairs. A low table. No sharp edges. Yellow zone, by design.
Roenan stands by the door, arms folded. Not looming—present. Backup, not shield.
The escorts deposit their charge and hover.
“You can wait outside,” I tell them.
One of them bristles. “With respect, Luna, our alpha—”
“He’s not your alpha yet,” the younger snaps, voice like gravel after a long run. “And if she says out, you go out. I didn’t come here to be watched like an i***t child.”
Our gazes lock again.
There. That’s the part that’s too familiar: the anger sitting on top of a much messier fear.
The escorts glance between us, then at Roenan. He gives them a single short nod.
“We’ll be in the hall,” he says. “Door stays cracked.”
They file out reluctantly. The young wolf exhales, shoulders dropping a fraction as the door clicks mostly shut.
“You can sit,” I say gently.
He glances at the chair like it might bite him. “If I sit, I might not get back up.”
I lift a brow. “That tired, huh?”
“That broken,” he snaps, then winces, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.
My wolf stirs, attention sharpened by the word.
I sink into the other chair, leaving enough space between us that neither of us feels cornered. “What’s your name?”
“Varen.” He swallows. “From the Stonebend pack. My father—”
“Sent you,” I finish when he can’t. “Because you’re scaring him.”
He laughs once, harsh. “He didn’t say that. He said I was… compromised. That my wolf has become… unreliable.”
“Same thing,” I say. “Different coat of paint.”
He huffs, eyes narrowing. “You’re not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Some… ethereal madwoman with white hair and prophecy eyes.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” I tuck my legs under my chair. “Tell me about the… unreliability.”
His hands flex on his knees. “You know what happens,” he says, jaw tight. “The other packs talk. They said you understand the ones who can’t control it.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But I want to hear it from you.”
For a moment he’s silent. Then the words tumble out, too fast, like they’ve been dammed for too long.
“Battle drills. Patrols. Any loud sound. Sometimes nothing at all. My heart starts racing. My vision goes black at the edges. The wolf pushes forward. Not for threat. For… everything. Noise. Smell. Touch.” He shakes his head, furious at himself. “I see my sister’s face and I don’t… recognize her. I know her. But my body doesn’t. It wants to… move. Tear. It’s like I’m watching myself from too far away.”
His breath saws in and out. His fingers dig into his thighs hard enough to blanch his knuckles.
I feel the echo of it in my own bones. The dislocation. The betrayal.
“Has anyone been hurt?” I ask quietly.
“Not yet.” His voice cracks on the yet. “I put my hand through a door. A wall. Shattered a training dummy. I woke up with my teeth in a tree.” Bitter laugh. “My father said if I can’t stand next to my own pack without wanting to rip something, I have no business leading them.”
“Did he ask what you’re afraid of?” I ask. “When it happens?”
Varen’s head jerks up, offended. “I’m not afraid.”
“I’m not talking about rational fear,” I say. “I’m talking about the alley inside you.”
He freezes.
Bullseye.
“How did you—”
“We all have one,” I say. “The place in our memory where everything went to hell so fast the wolf doesn’t understand we survived. What was yours?”
His jaw works. For a long beat, I think he won’t answer.
Then, very quietly:
“A cave-in,” he says. “We were tracking rogues through the old mines. The tunnel collapsed. Rocks. Dust. Screaming. My beta… didn’t make it out.”
My own ribs ache in sympathetic memory. Concrete. Smoke. Screams.
“How long were you trapped?” I ask.
“Six hours.” His hands shake harder. “Wolf clawing for air. No room to move. Smell of blood and… stone. Every time the ceiling creaks now, he thinks we’re back there. He wants to push. Break. Make space.”
“Has anyone told him he’s right?” I ask.
Varen blinks. “What?”
“To want space.” I lean forward a little. “To hate being closed in. To shove when it feels like the world is shrinking.”
“He’s dangerous,” Varen says through his teeth.
“He’s trying not to suffocate,” I counter. “So are you.”
He stares at me like no one has ever put it that way.
Behind the cracked door, a floorboard creaks. Roenan, shifting his weight. Listening.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I say, keeping my voice level. “Not today, not all at once. But soon.”
Varen’s shoulders tense. “If you say ‘exile’ I’m walking out.”
“I don’t do exile,” I say. “I do maps.”
His brow furrows. “Maps?”
I pull my folded copy of my own from the side table. Lines, circles, colors.
“Red,” I say, tapping. “Yellow. Green. For now, your red is caves. Mines. Basements. Enclosed training pits. Your yellow is crowded rooms with low ceilings. Your green is open ground, high sky, near exits. We mark it. Your pack sees it. They don’t shove you into red and call you weak when you break.”
He stares at the paper like it’s some kind of spell.
“That’s it?” he asks, flat. “Draw lines on a page and hope my wolf behaves?”
“No,” I say. “That’s where we start. Then we teach him what mine is learning: how to say ‘here’ when the cave-in in your head tells him ‘there’. How to trust that if he panics, someone will help you breathe instead of locking you in the dark.”
His throat works. “And if I still fail? If I still—”
“Then we answer for it,” I say. “In front of them. With you in the room. No more monsters made in silence.”
The bond hums, faint but present. I feel Roenan’s pride at my back like a hand.
Varen exhales, a shaky, disbelieving sound.
“My father said I’d come here and you’d either fix me or prove I’m worthless,” he mutters.
I huff a breath. “Your father has a very limited imagination.”
He almost smiles.
“Can you help?” he asks, voice small under the bravado.
“I can walk with you while you learn to live with that wolf,” I say. “I can show your pack what lines to draw so they don’t shove you back under rocks. I can’t erase the cave-in.”
He nods once, jaw tight.
“Good enough,” he says. “For now.”
My wolf stretches, recognizing another haunted animal across the space between us.
“Then welcome to yellow,” I say. “We’ll work our way toward green.”
- Writer
