The Call

It is fifteen minutes before Nurse Emma appears with the medical kit, led by Isaac. Fifteen minutes. I count every one of them. Alicia’s wound already looks better, but not enough. Not fast enough. Isaac hands me the spare clothes and stays awkwardly at our side while Nurse Emma crouches beside Alicia. An omega has the balls to stay here with us, I mutter to Astraea, anger still simmering under my skin like something molten, but the alpha on patrol is nowhere to be seen. We do not know why he isn’t here, Astraea points out. What if he was attacked? No. The answer comes too quickly. Too certain. He would survive several of these. I know that as if I have seen it. Which is ridiculous. I have not seen it. I just know. Nurse Emma rummages in the kit and produces a small vial. I watch closely as she removes the dropper and carefully drips the solution over the open wound on Alicia’s wolf leg. Slowly, the flesh begins to mend. I breathe a little easier. Not much. Emma sets the bottle down, and I grab it immediately, eyes catching on the label. Gaia Pharmaceuticals. Landry’s mother’s company. At least one Landry could be useful tonight, I growl. “Whoa. What’s happened?” Landry’s voice strikes something in my chest before I even fully process the words. I whirl, already on my feet. Too fast. Too sharp. Too ready. His hair is tousled, his torn white polo hanging unevenly from one shoulder, navy joggers streaked with dirt, as though he has run straight out of violence and into this clearing without stopping. He looks like chaos. But his breathing is steady. Too steady. Too controlled. His gaze moves over Alicia. Isaac. Nurse Emma. The blood in the grass. Confusion flickers first. Then alarm. Not guilt. Somehow, that makes it worse. “What happened?” I repeat, my voice low and dangerous. I close the distance in a second and shove him hard in the chest with both hands. “How could you?” The words tear out of me before I can stop them. “You ignored their call.” He stares at me, startled now, hands lifting slightly. “Grey—” “You’re meant to protect us.” My voice breaks around the words, heat burning behind my eyes. “That is your job.” His expression shifts. His nostrils flare. His gaze sharpens in a way that makes me feel seen when I do not want to be seen at all. “You’re coming of age,” he says quietly. Something inside me snaps harder. Lyra, Astraea warns. Too late. The tears come anyway, hot and humiliating, and with them comes something older. Sharper. Something I have spent years pretending does not still live this close to the surface. Darkness. Panic. Shapes moving as one. Screaming. Blood. My parents— Gone before anyone strong enough came. Gone because the people who should have protected them did not. “You arrogant, irresponsible, selfish—typical alpha,” I choke out, the last words splintering in my throat. His face changes again. Not anger. Recognition, maybe. Or horror. I do not care. I want to hit him. I want to hit him again and again until some of this unbearable pressure leaves my chest. Why wasn’t he here? Did he really see omegas as expendable? Why were alphas always the same when it mattered? I lunge again, but this time he is ready. His hands catch my wrists before I can land the blow, fingers closing firmly around them. Not hurting. Holding. Which somehow makes me angrier. Not rough. But unyielding. Just like his stare. "You are reading this wrong," he says, voice low and controlled. There is strain underneath it now, something tight and carefully held, as though keeping his temper steady is costing him more than holding my wrists. I try to wrench free. He does not move. Does not loosen his grip. Does not look away. "Let go of me." His hands release me instantly. The sudden absence of contact is almost as jarring as the restraint itself. Lyra, Astraea urges carefully. Go back to the room. I ignore her, scrubbing at my face with the sleeve of Isaac’s oversized top as I glance down at Alicia. She has shifted back now, pale and trembling, but her leg looks better. Relief threads through me in spite of everything. "Grey." Landry’s voice comes from behind me. Harsher this time. I turn. His stare is fiercer than ever beneath those severe brows, eyes burning that unnatural green. Fury surges all over again. "Get inside." That. That subtle, invasive pressure beneath the words. It slides under my skin, unwelcome and wrong, and something in me recoils. At him. At the command. At the sheer audacity of an alpha who is not mine trying to move me with nothing but his voice. It should not work. Not on me. Not from him. And yet, beneath the anger, something else stirs. A pull. Quiet. Insidious. Instinctive. Not quite obedience. Worse. Recognition. Lyra, Astraea says again, softer now. Go. "Now," he says, quieter this time, but no less absolute. My body moves. I hate that it does. I turn and run towards the lake, emotions in shreds, something tight and unfamiliar twisting in my chest. That had been too close to something I have already lived through once. A bruise from the past that has never really faded, no matter how much I insist it has. I drag in a breath, but it does nothing to steady me. If anything, the feeling of coming apart only sharpens. I feel raw. Frayed. There is pressure building beneath my skin now too, the same restless tension that comes before a full moon, like something vast is gathering just under the surface. The onslaught of change is almost here. They could still be around, I tell Astraea as I yank off Isaac’s oversized top and joggers, letting them fall to the grass. If they come back— Then we run faster. I shift. And we do. The world narrows at once to movement and sensation. Muscle stretches. Air rushes cold and clean through our lungs. The damp ground thuds beneath our paws. Trees blur past in shadow. Water glints darkly to our side. For a while, it is enough. Running is always enough. Until it isn’t. Midnight comes. Astraea releases the shift, and I am suddenly on all fours in the grass, breath tearing from me as heat surges through every inch of my body. It feels like being remade from the inside out. Bone. Muscle. Sinew. Every fibre in me tightens and strengthens, something reinforcing itself beneath skin and blood. Overwhelming. Exhilarating. Too much and yet exactly right, as though my body has spent years waiting for permission to become more. I gasp, lowering myself towards the earth as the worst of it starts to pass. This is not how I imagined seeing in my coming of age. Not like this. Not angry and shaken and dragged backwards through old pain. And then— Something pulls. I jerk upright, hand flying to my chest. What— The thought does not finish. It is not pain. Not exactly. But it is close enough to steal the breath from my lungs. A tightening beneath my ribs. A slow, deep twist, as though something has taken hold of me from the inside and turned. I freeze, fingers pressing hard against my sternum. Beneath the pressure, something else wakes. A pull. Not a thought. Not a choice. A thread. It draws taut so suddenly I gasp, my whole body turning towards it before I understand I have moved. Across the grass, beyond the dark shimmer of the lake, the training hall waits in shadow. I stare at it. The pull answers. Deeper this time. Certain. “I want to go there,” I whisper. The words feel too small. Almost insulting. “No.” My voice shakes. “I need to go there.” Astraea is silent. Too silent. I push to my feet, the wind cutting across my bare skin and whipping my hair around my face. “Astraea...” I whisper. “Is this normal?” There is a pause. But not uncertainty. Recognition. Something in her has settled into place, heavy and calm, while I am still trying to understand why my heart feels as though it is being held in someone else’s hand. This is not something to fear, she says gently. That does not reassure me nearly as much as she seems to think it should. The thread tightens again. Invisible. Impossible. Absolute. I bend and drag Isaac’s borrowed clothes back on with hands that do not feel entirely like mine. My attention stays fixed on the training hall, every part of me leaning towards it before I have taken a single step. Astraea, I say, more sharply now. Go, she replies. Not urging. Not commanding. Allowing. I start across the grass. With every step, the feeling grows stronger. More defined. Less like a pull and more like recognition travelling through my blood. As though whatever waits ahead is not calling me somewhere new. As though it is calling me back. I slip through the patio doors at the edge of the main hall. My footsteps echo faintly between rows of empty tables and chairs, the silence almost unnatural after the chaos outside. The atrium is just as still. I pass through it without hesitation, guided now by something I do not understand and cannot seem to resist. Halfway down the corridor, it hits me. A scent. I stop dead. Not polish. Not old mats. Not damp stone. Something else. Warm. Rich. Unmistakably male. Cedarwood. Fresh cotton. Rain-warmed earth. It floods my senses so suddenly that my lungs drag it in before I can think, greedy for more. My pulse stumbles. Heat races low through my body, sharp and disorienting and nothing like fear. I know that scent. I have been near it before. Corridors. Classrooms. Passing moments I had barely allowed myself to notice. But never like this. Never as though my body has abruptly decided it could survive on nothing else. I swallow hard. It does nothing. The closer I get, the more intoxicating it becomes. The need to breathe it in again. Again. Again. My heart pounds harder now, no longer with dread but with something far more dangerous. Something vast. Something life-changing. One of the doors to the training hall is slightly ajar. Someone is inside. My breath catches as I slow just outside it. Lyra, Astraea says, and her voice is no longer wary. It is warm now, threaded with something so unmistakably bright that it makes my chest ache. Do you feel that? What is it? I ask, my own voice quieter now, almost frightened of the answer. There is a brief pause. His presence calls us, she says softly. Calls. The word settles into me, and something fragile begins to bloom in my chest, pushing through the confusion and unease. Hope. Real hope. The kind I have never let myself hold for long, because hope has always felt like the cruellest thing to trust. Is it... I begin, unable to finish, not daring to shape the thought in case speaking it shatters it. Only one could call to us this way, Astraea whispers. Her certainty is so soft. So absolute. My breath catches. I inhale again, and his scent pours into me. Cedarwood. Cotton. Rain-warmed earth. Him. The realisation lands all at once. For the orphan in me, the part that learned too young not to rely on anything that could be taken away, the thought arrives with almost unbearable force. I would never be alone again. Not merely tolerated. Not temporarily chosen. Not someone people could leave behind. Mine. And I was his. Not owned. Belonging. Someone the Goddess herself had meant to stay. I hesitate only a moment longer, pulse racing wildly now as the pull urges me forward with quiet certainty. Go, Astraea says, bright with wonder. Go. My hand shakes as I reach for the door. I push it open and step through. My gaze lifts at once, drawn to the faint light at the far side of the room— —and the tall figure standing in front of it.