Chapter 13
1379 Words
MAETHYS POV
I was left alone.
I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would.
Valik had gone with Zach to interrogate the prisoners. Heather had gone to submit samples for testing.
It had been scary, seeing how much she took. More blood than I thought anyone should reasonably need. Heather had been patient about it, explaining each test as she worked, telling me what she was looking for and why.
Basic levels. Organ function. Signs of infection. Healing response.
Words I understood individually, but not together.
I had never had anything tested before. Not my blood. Not my body. Not whether the things inside me worked the way they were supposed to.
I didn’t know why waiting for the results made me nervous.
Maybe because every answer I had been given since crossing into this pack had only made me feel less like myself.
What if there was something wrong with me I didn’t know about?
The clinic smelled like herbs and antiseptic, sharp enough that every breath reminded me where I was.
The narrow bed beneath me was cleaner than anything I had ever slept on and twice as uncomfortable. Maybe I should have been used to it, for how much I had been in this room.
A blanket lay over my lap, folded neatly enough that I knew Heather had done it.
I picked at the edge.
My hands still looked strange to me.
Human.
Fingers instead of paws. Nails instead of claws. Skin instead of fur.
I flexed them slowly.
Nothing happened.
No cracking bones. No tearing pain. No panic dragging me down into another shape.
Just hands.
Mine.
The rooms quiet made my mind wander. I still remembered shifting for the first time, not even understanding what I was.
Before this, my world had been small.
Just me and my grandmother.
Hidden. Controlled. Safe, in the only way we knew how to survive.
I had never needed anything more.
But now…
I could feel it.
How much larger everything was.
This room had been full of fear when I first opened my eyes. Fear of being found. Fear of what I had become. Fear of a body I did not know how to control.
And just outside it, there were people who cared if I lived.
Heather, who explained every needle before she used it.
Valik, who was trying to find out more about the people after me.
Others who might understand pieces of me I did not.
For the first time, I wasn’t alone.
A small knock sounded against the doorframe.
I looked up as Heather stepped inside balancing a tray against her hip. Her throat was already healing. The dark bruises already faint on her neck.
“Food,” she announced.
The word did something embarrassing to my entire body.
My stomach growled so loudly Heather paused, then smiled.
“Good,” she said. “That means you’re alive.”
I flushed. “Was that in question?”
“Recently? Yes.”
She set the tray across my lap before I could respond. Bread. Meat. Fruit. Something warm in a bowl that smelled like broth and onions. I stared at it for half a second, overwhelmed by the amount.
I couldn’t remember the last time I ate.
Heather sat in the chair beside the bed and watched me take the first bite.
I tried to eat politely.
Which lasted barely five seconds.
The broth was hot enough to sting my tongue, and I didn’t care. My body seemed to wake all at once, ravenous and demanding. I tore into the bread, dipped it into the bowl, took another bite before I’d even finished swallowing the first.
Heather made a small sound that might have been amusement.
I glanced at her, cheeks warm.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “You shifted for the first time, ran through half the territory, broke through glass, changed back, threw a grown man across a kitchen, and then passed out. If you weren’t hungry, I’d be more worried.”
I paused with bread halfway to my mouth.
When she said it like that, it sounded impossible.
“I still don’t know how I did that,” I said.
Heather’s expression softened, but her eyes stayed sharp in that healer way of hers, like she was listening to everything I didn’t say.
“The shifting or the throwing?”
I looked down at the tray. “Either.”
She leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. “The shifting is normal. Violent, especially the first time, but normal. Your body knew what to do even if your mind didn’t.”
I swallowed.
“And the other thing?”
Heather was quiet for a moment.
“That,” she said carefully, “is what I’m trying to understand.”
My appetite dipped.
I stared at the broth, suddenly too aware of the warmth in my hands, the pulse beneath my skin.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him.”
“I know.”
“I meant to stop him.”
“I know that too.”
My throat tightened. “He was going to kill you.”
Heather’s fingers brushed her bruised throat before she lowered her hand again. “Yes.”
The simple answer made the room feel smaller.
I set the bread down.
“I saw my grandmother,” I said before I could stop myself.
Heather didn’t move.
“Not really. Just… in my head. The way she looked before I ran. The way I left her there because she told me to.” My fingers tightened around the spoon. “And that man had you, and I thought—”
Not again.
The words stayed lodged behind my teeth.
Heather’s voice came gently. “You protected me.”
I looked at her then.
She held my gaze without flinching. Without looking afraid of me.
That almost hurt worse.
“I don’t know what came out of me,” I whispered.
“I don’t either,” she admitted. “Not yet.”
The honesty surprised me.
Most people tried to sound certain when they weren’t. My grandmother had done that all my life—turned every unknown into an order, every question into something I wasn’t allowed to ask.
Heather didn’t.
She just sat there and let the uncertainty exist.
“I heard some of what they were saying,” she said quietly after a moment. “Before Valik and Zach left.”
My stomach tightened.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” she added immediately. “But I want to know how you’re holding up.”
I picked up a slice of fruit because it gave my hands something to do.
“I don’t really know what’s happening,” I said. “I keep feeling like I missed something important.”
Heather nodded like that made sense. Like it wasn’t a failing.
Then, almost casually, she asked, “What do you think the mate bond is?”
The question caught me off guard.
I blinked at her. “I… don’t know.”
Valik’s explanation came back to me. Some of it just…. Felt right. “I guess… Something permanent? Something you don’t get a say in?”
Heather’s mouth tightened, but not at me.
“Sometimes it’s treated that way,” she said. “It shouldn’t be.”
I stopped chewing.
“It’s meant to be a connection,” she continued. “Support. Balance. Recognition. A bond isn’t supposed to be a cage.”
The word cage settled badly in my stomach.
I looked down at the tray. “Do people usually want it?”
“Some do,” she said. “Some don’t.”
I waited for more.
Heather’s voice softened. “Wanting it matters.”
A breath left me slowly.
I hadn’t realized I was holding it.
The clock on the wall ticked in the quiet.
My eyes drifted toward it before I could stop them.
Something about the sound made my skin prickle.
Heather noticed.
Her gaze followed mine to the clock, and something changed in her face. Not fear exactly, but focus. The kind she got when she found a detail she hadn’t meant to miss.
“How old are you, Maethys?”
- Writer
