Chapter 5
1297 Words
By noon the rain had given up and left behind a low, heavy sky. The kind that pressed down on the town and on my skull at the same time.
I was halfway under Caleb’s SUV again, cursing at a stubborn bolt, when a sharp throb lanced through my temples. Not the dull, familiar ache of too much caffeine and not enough sleep. This was sharper, pulsing behind my eyes in a way that made the fluorescent lights look too bright.
I squeezed them shut. Opened them. The bolt was still there. So was the pain.
Great. Migraine. Perfect timing.
“You okay under there?” Caleb’s voice drifted from the other side of the hood. “You stopped swearing. It’s unnerving.”
“Taking a dramatic pause,” I said, though my voice sounded thin to my own ears. “Can’t rush quality insults.”
Another throb hit, harder. The edges of my vision fuzzed; my hearing sharpened in a way that was all wrong. I could hear a car three streets over hit a pothole. A dog barked, far away. Jake’s radio muttered in the office.
And under it all, a low, familiar growl I hadn’t truly heard awake in eight years.
Maia.
My hand slipped off the wrench. Metal clanged against metal, far too loud.
“Maia?” Caleb again. Closer this time. “Talk to me.”
I rolled out from under the SUV too fast. The world tilted. I grabbed the edge of the lift, knuckles whitening, and sucked in a breath that didn’t seem to find my lungs.
He stood a few feet away, hands half raised like he wanted to reach for me and was restraining himself. Smart Alpha.
“Headache,” I said. “Not contagious. Go be ominous somewhere else.”
His eyes narrowed. “Since when do headaches make your pupils blow like that?”
I didn’t have a mirror, but the concern in his voice told me enough. My heart stuttered, then raced. The wolf-scent on him flooded my senses, sharper, closer, like he’d moved even if he hadn’t.
Nyra pushed.
Let me—
“No,” I hissed, out loud.
Caleb’s brows snapped together. “No, what?”
“Nothing.” I forced myself upright. Bad idea. The shop spun, walls breathing in and out. My stomach flipped.
I made it three steps toward the bathroom before my knees tried to fold. Strong hands caught my elbows, steadying me without hauling me in.
“Easy,” he said. “Breathe.”
I wanted to knock his hands away on principle; instead, I focused on not faceplanting. His grip was firm but not trapping, a cage I could step out of if I chose. That shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did.
The pain spiked again, along with something else—heat, low in my spine, the prickling urge to move, to run, to do anything but stand still in skin that felt one size too small.
My nails dug into my palms. “I’m fine.”
“You are absolutely not fine.”
“Wow. Medical degree too? Multitalented.”
He huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh if it wasn’t so strained. “I know what it looks like when a wolf is fighting herself.”
“I’m not—” The word choked off as another wave hit, rolling from the base of my skull down my spine. My shoulders hunched against it, a low sound scraping out of my throat before I could choke it back.
Not human. Not entirely.
Nyra slammed into the inside of my ribs like she was hitting bars. Maia, she growled. Let. Me. Breathe.
I staggered back, wrenching out of Caleb’s hold. The brief loss of contact didn’t help; if anything, the air felt thinner without him there.
“I need a minute,” I said, heading for the bathroom again. “Alone.”
He didn’t argue, but I felt his eyes on me all the way to the door. Felt Jake’s, too, as he stuck his head out of the office.
“Maia? You good?” Jake frowned. “You look like you’re about to hurl or ascend to another plane. Hard to tell.”
“Just a migraine,” I said. “If I die, you can have my socket set.”
“Dibs on the lift,” Jake called after me.
The bathroom door clicked shut behind me. I braced my palms on the sink and stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror.
My pupils were blown wide, swallowing most of the hazel. A faint, unnatural gold ring bled at the edges, flickering with each heartbeat.
“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no. We’re not doing this.”
Nyra’s presence pressed up under my skin, a too-big animal in a too-small cage. She didn’t feel like the wild, out-of-control force from my nightmares; she felt… alert. Focused. Awake.
They’re here, she said. Her voice was low and rough and entirely too clear. Council. Wolves. Danger.
“I know,” I said, fingers digging into porcelain. “That’s why you are staying down.”
Silence. Then, quieter: You can’t keep me buried forever.
“I’ve done pretty damn well so far.”
At sixteen, I had begged her to come. At twenty-four, I had built a life on the assumption she never would again.
A soft knock landed on the bathroom door. “Maia?” Caleb’s voice, muffled. “Do you want me to get you anything? Water? Painkillers?”
“Do you have anything for ‘go away’?” I shot back, a shade too sharp.
A pause. “No. Sorry. Fresh out.”
Despite myself, my mouth twitched.
Water sputtered into the sink as I turned the tap and splashed my face. The shock helped a little, cooling the heat under my skin. The gold in my eyes faded to a faint shadow.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Be human.
When I finally opened the door, Caleb had retreated a few steps, leaning against the opposite wall with his arms folded. He straightened when he saw me, scanning my face the way a man in a war zone scans the horizon.
“You’re paler,” he said. “But your eyes look better.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. “I moisturize with existential dread.”
He didn’t smile. “Nyra’s loud.”
The name hit me like a slap. I froze. “What?”
“Your wolf,” he said calmly. “She’s close to the surface. I can feel it.”
My skin crawled. “Stay out of my head.”
“I’m not in your head,” he said. “I’m just not blind. Neither is the Council. They smelled something last night, but they didn’t know where to look. If your wolf keeps pushing this close—”
“I will handle it,” I snapped. “Not you. Not them. Me.”
His jaw worked once. “You can’t white-knuckle your way through this forever.”
“It’s worked for eight years.”
“And then I walked in,” he said quietly.
We stared at each other, the narrow hallway suddenly too small for both of us and everything unspoken between.
Jake’s voice floated in from the bay. “Maia! Phone! Someone asking about ‘the investigation’?”
The word lit up every nerve in my body.
Council.
Caleb’s eyes met mine, dark and steady. “You still think you can pretend you’re just a mechanic?”
My heart hammered.
“Yes,” I lied.
And for the first time, I wasn’t sure which part of me believed it less—my head, or the wolf pacing just under my skin.
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