Chosen by the Alpha Who Destroyed My Pack

Chapter 17 – Lines Between Worlds

They moved the dog to a kennel in the back before Mira’s shaking hands could dial anything.

Riven carried him like he weighed nothing, muscles corded under his hoodie, while Sylvi strode ahead to unlock the run with the thickest bars.

“You’re not seriously putting him two doors down from Mrs. Halpern’s poodle,” Mira hissed, following. “What if he wakes up and decides to reenact a horror movie?”

“He won’t,” Sylvi said. “Not like that.”

“You keep saying very reassuring things,” Mira shot back, “and somehow I feel less reassured.”

Riven slid the dog onto the rubber mat, then stepped back fast, closing the gate with a solid clang. The animal twitched, whined once, then settled, chest heaving but eyes still closed.

The wrongness in his scent had thinned to a faint echo, like ash where a fire had burned.

“Will he… be okay?” Mira asked, voice lower now.

Sylvi exhaled. “Physically? Probably. Mentally?” She grimaced. “He was already half wild before someone layered this on top. When he wakes up, he’s going to be confused and scared. But the extra teeth in his head? Those were his.”

Mira stared at the dog, then at Sylvi. “Start talking. From the part where you are apparently a superhero wolf whisperer and not just my favorite overqualified vet.”

“Not a superhero,” Sylvi said. “And ‘wolf whisperer’ is deeply offensive.”

Riven snorted. “To wolves.”

Mira’s eyes narrowed. “You’re both making jokes, which means you’re terrified. So. Words, Arkett. Now.”

Sylvi scrubbed a hand over her face. Her arm still ached where she’d yanked the magic out; the new bond in her chest hummed like a badly tuned string, aware of her stress.

“Fine,” she said. “Cliff notes.”

She leaned against the cool concrete wall between kennels, suddenly exhausted.

“Remember how you always said I had freakishly good instincts with the ‘wolf cases’?” she asked.

Mira folded her arms. “Yeah. I assumed you had some kind of Dr. Dolittle brain and we’d monetize it eventually.”

“Well.” Sylvi huffed a humorless laugh. “Turns out it’s less ‘talk to the animals’ and more ‘try not to die while treating shapeshifters.’”

Silence.

Mira blinked. “You practice that line in a mirror?”

“I’m serious.”

Mira’s gaze flicked between Sylvi and Riven. “Shapeshifters.”

“Wolves,” Riven said, without inflection. “Packs. Territory. All the nature-doc buzzwords, but with tax issues and kitchen rotas.”

“And you’re… one.” Mira pointed at Sylvi.

“Yes,” Sylvi said.

“And you’re one.” A jab of finger at Riven.

“For my sins,” he said.

Mira let out a breathy laugh that sounded on the edge of hysterical. “Okay. Great. Fantastic. This is either a psychotic break, a prank, or an invitation to the best horror-con ever.”

“Mira,” Sylvi said softly.

Something in her voice cut through the spiraling.

Mira looked at her. Really looked. At the exhaustion, the strained lines around her eyes, the faint tremor in her fingers.

“Have I ever lied to you?” Sylvi asked.

“Yes,” Mira said automatically, then winced. “Okay, you’ve omitted. A lot. But you’ve never—” She broke off, swallowing. “You wouldn’t make this up.”

“No,” Sylvi said. “I wouldn’t.”

Mira exhaled slowly, cheeks puffing.

“Okay,” she said again. “Okay. Say I believe you. There are… wolves that turn into people. People that turn into wolves. What does that have to do with that—” she jerked her head toward the kennel “—trying to eat your face?”

Sylvi hesitated. Riven shifted his weight, glancing toward the back door like he expected trouble at any second.

“There’s someone out there,” Sylvi said. “A wolf. Maybe not entirely wolf anymore. He hates the way our bonds work. The… connections between wolves. Between mates. He’s learned how to break them. To twist them.”

“Those… ‘bonds’.” Mira’s brows knit. “Like—soulmate stuff.”

“More complicated,” Sylvi said. “But sure. On a bad day, yes.”

“And he’s what, weaponizing them?”

“Like landmines,” Riven said. “You can’t see them. You just… step, and boom, your entire sense of self rearranges or vanishes.”

Mira went a little green.

“And he’s testing,” Sylvi added. “On wolves near the edges. On anyone he can reach. Some of those wolves get… scrambled. Their minds, their instincts. They go after anything that smells like one of us. Or like…” She hesitated. “Like me.”

“Why you?” Mira demanded. “You’re a vet. A tiny, grumpy night goblin with stethoscopes. Not exactly the face of the wolf Illuminati.”

“Gee, thanks,” Sylvi said.

Riven’s mouth twitched. “She’s special,” he said. “Her magic messes with the same wiring he’s cutting. She can dampen rage. Pain. She can see where the bonds are broken and sometimes stitch around the damage. He doesn’t like that.”

“Understatement,” Sylvi muttered.

Mira stared at her. “So you’re like…the anti-him.”

“On a very limited, local scale,” Sylvi said. “He’s working across entire territories. I’m… one woman with a crappy coffee habit and a burnout problem.”

“And a pack,” Riven added, pointed.

Mira latched onto that. “This pack. The one with Mr. Brooding Mountain you went off with.”

“Corren,” Sylvi said. The bond pulsed at the name, like it recognized itself. “His. Mine. Complicated.”

Mira’s eyes sharpened. “Is that why you disappeared? Wolf emergency with your secret forest boyfriend?”

“Please stop calling him that,” Sylvi said weakly.

Riven coughed to hide a laugh.

Mira braced her hands on the counter, breathing hard.

“Okay,” she said. “New reality. There are wolves. You’re one of them. There’s a magical rage hacker out there who’s started poking at my side of town. And you’ve been… what, running triage between worlds without telling me.”

“Yes,” Sylvi said, deliberately. “Because I thought the less you knew, the safer you were. But he just reached for me in your exam room. That line’s gone.”

“Is this why the cop keeps bringing you ‘dogs’ from the reserve?” Mira asked suddenly. “Elias? He knows something, doesn’t he.”

“Not knows,” Riven said. “Suspects. Good instincts. Bad timing.”

As if summoned by his name, the bell at the front rang. Voices floated down the hall. A familiar male baritone joined them.

Mira’s eyes widened. “Speaking of.”

Riven swore under his breath. “We do not have time for a field trip into ‘human ally’ territory today.”

“Too late,” Sylvi said.

She straightened, every ache spiking in protest. The bond in her chest flared—concern that might be hers, might be Corren’s, bleeding through the thin line.

“Riven, stay with him,” she said, nodding at the kennel. “If he twitches wrong, growl louder.”

“On it,” Riven said.

“Mira,” Sylvi added, meeting her friend’s gaze. “You don’t have to dive into this. You can pretend you heard none of it. Lock that door. Call it a weird seizure.”

“Too late for that,” Mira said quietly. “You pulled magic out of a dog in my exam room, Arkett. I’m in whether I like it or not.”

Her smile was thin and fierce. “Besides. Someone’s going to have to stop you from dying stylishly.”

Emotion punched Sylvi in the throat. She swallowed it down, hard.

“Fine,” she said. “But if you get bitten, I’m not explaining werewolves to your parents.”

Mira snorted. “Please. They’d probably ask about tuition discounts.”

She pushed off the wall, straightened her scrub top, and headed for the hall.

Sylvi followed, bracing herself.

One world at a time, she thought.

And hoped, with a sudden, fierce ache, that the man miles away in the forest could feel, even faintly, that she was still standing.

The bond hummed once, warm as a hand at her back.

Then she stepped into the front of the clinic, where Elias Brant waited with a clipboard—and questions neither of them were ready to answer.