The city of Overland North breathed outside her window—glass towers blinking like patient machines, sirens threading the dark, the harbor cranes drawing constellations in neon. Vanessa Crawford lay on top of her sheets and watched a tiny plane drag itself across the sky, counting the seconds it took to cross the window frame. She'd been counting things for three years: seconds, pills, footsteps from bed to bath, the number of lies she told people who asked how she was. The number was always the same.
"Fine," she'd say. "I'm fine."
Her body disagreed. It burned and chilled in turns, like a fever with commitment issues. Some days her wolf felt like a heartbeat under her skin. Some days it felt like a lock on her ribs.
A rap at the door. "Vanessa?" Her father's voice, smooth and controlled, like the rest of him.
"Come in," she said, pushing up on her elbows. The movement made the room swing.
Jonah Crawford stepped in wearing a charcoal suit that probably cost more than a car and an expression that tried to be casual and landed on worried. Two others followed: Dr. Hart, the pack physician, his stethoscope a permanent necklace; and behind him, a woman in a silver shawl whose eyes were the exact color of stormwater.
"Vanessa," her father said softly. "How are you feeling?"
"Like a microwaved corpse," she said. "But thanks for asking."
Dr. Hart attempted a smile. "We've made… some progress. This is Elder Mireya. She sits on the Council."
"Hi," Vanessa said, because manners were muscle memory.
Mireya's gaze drifted over the room, lingering on the stack of unread textbooks gathering dust on the desk, the half-packed suitcase in the corner she'd never been allowed to use, the mirror she'd turned to face the wall. The elder's eyes came back to Vanessa. "Your wolf is loud," Mireya said, as if commenting on the volume of a TV. "Impatient."
"Tell her to take a number," Vanessa muttered.
Her father cleared his throat. "Mireya has a theory about the… illness."
Dr. Hart nodded, flipping through a tablet that had every test in the world on it and zero answers. "We've ruled out infections, autoimmune, rare genetic conditions. Even the unusual shifter disorders. Your vitals are paradoxical—strong heart, poor stamina. Persistent inflammation without organ damage. Symptoms worsened at sixteen and plateaued. And then there's—"
"The timing," Mireya finished. "The wolf's first heat."
Vanessa's face went warm. The word had been taboo in this house for years, like saying it aloud would call it down on her. Heat. The season when the body demanded what the soul wanted, when wolves chose to hide or hunt or both. Some girls at school used to joke about it like it was a long weekend. For Vanessa, it had been the beginning of a long sentence.
"You think this is… hormonal?" Jonah asked carefully, as if hormones were a kind of bomb.
Mireya shook her head. "Not merely. This reads like bond-sickness."
Vanessa blinked. "That's a thing?"
"It is when the Fates are stubborn," Mireya said. "A rare condition—your wolf recognizes a mate from an early scent, a glimpse, even a dream. The body—yours, hers—waits. If the bond is delayed or rejected, some wolves… dim. The flame runs low."
"Dim," Vanessa repeated, tasting the word and hating it. "I'm not a lightbulb."
Mireya's mouth tilted. "You're a wildfire stuck in a jar."
Jonah shifted. "If this is… bond-sickness, what cures it?"
Mireya's stormwater eyes slid to Vanessa again. "There are only two things that work. Time. Or the mate."
"Time is what we've had," Jonah said tightly. "Three years of it."
"The mate," Dr. Hart echoed, hoping the repetition would make it ordinary.
Vanessa searched their faces, waiting for a punchline. "You're saying I need to… date someone? To feel better?"
Mireya's gaze softened. "I'm saying you need him. Your wolf will know. Touch, scent—when two wolves are meant, contact stabilizes everything. The bond balances the body. Sometimes just proximity helps. Strong bonds are fully forged with a bite, but—"
"No," Jonah said instantly. The word was a knife cutting the air. "Absolutely not. She's eighteen."
"Tomorrow," Vanessa corrected automatically, because the number mattered. Eighteen tomorrow. An adult, legally. In their world, the wolf recognized majority not by the calendar but by how awake it was inside you. Hers had been awake for years, banging on the walls.
Mireya inclined her head. "Binding bites aren't casual. And they're never done without consent."
"Consent," Jonah repeated, as if the concept was new and he'd like to file a complaint with its manager.
Dr. Hart cleared his throat. "We're not proposing anything immediate. But if the mate can be found—if he's willing—this could alleviate the symptoms. Even reverse them."
"Reverse." Vanessa tried the word on her tongue the way she used to try lipsticks in her mother's old vanity. It tasted like air after a long swim. "How do I find him? Is there a… dating app for destiny?"
Mireya smiled, for real this time. It made her look younger and dangerous. "There are signs. Dreams. Scent pulls. Your wolf will tilt its head when he's near. And sometimes the name just… arrives."
Vanessa's wolf, quiet as a held breath, pressed up under her skin. Not now, she told it, and it sank down again, muttering. Her head throbbed.
Jonah turned to Mireya. "And if the mate refuses? Or is… unsuitable?"
"Refusal complicates things," Mireya said, choosing soft words for hard truths. "Some bonds survive distance. Others don't. I can only tell you what I've seen: the wolves who fight the bond often do so because of pain. The healing is mutual."
"She's not a clinic," Jonah snapped. "She's my daughter."
"I am both," Vanessa said before she could stop herself. "And I'm not a jar or a clinic or a problem to be solved without me in the room, so maybe we talk to me?"
Three sets of eyes swung back to her. Jonah exhaled, tension leaking out of him in a practiced way. "Of course," he said. "Vanessa. What do you want?"
She stared at the ceiling, at the hairline crack above her bed that looked like a river on a map. What did she want? She wanted to drive a car with the windows down and sing off-key. She wanted to be late to class and spill coffee on her notes. She wanted to ruin a white T-shirt with ketchup. She wanted to be a person, not a painting. She wanted to never say "fine" again unless she meant it.
"I want to stop feeling like a ghost," she said. "If the cure is a person, I'll find him."
Jonah's jaw flexed. "We can bring eligible wolves to the house. Quietly. Discreetly."
"What am I, The Bachelor: Pack Edition?" She swung her legs off the bed, dizzy but stubborn. "I'm not… shopping for a handbag. If I'm going to know, it'll be because I know."
Mireya made a satisfied little hum. "The wolf likes the hunt."
"I like leaving this room," Vanessa shot back. "Which I'm going to do. Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Jonah frowned. "You're still… weak."
"I'm enrolled at Overland North University," she said, letting the surprise land because she'd worked for this. Late-night applications with nausea and brain fog, admissions calls taken under blankets. Her father had funded half the buildings on campus; admissions had smiled, but she'd still written the essays, raw and sharp. "I deferred last year. I start on Monday."
Dr. Hart blinked. "Classes? Walking across campus? That's… ambitious."
"Ambitious is my love language," Vanessa said. "And if my mate is out there, he's more likely to be on a campus with twenty thousand people than in our living room sniffing a cheese plate."
Mireya's eyes warmed. "I will send you a list of grounding techniques. Your wolf will be more insistent in crowds. Heats and ruts are common at our age, even without a bond stirring. You'll need to pace yourself. Eat. Shift in safe places when you have to."
Jonah's mouth tightened at shift. He'd tried to keep that part of her neatly folded, like a sweater in a drawer. Vanessa understood; he'd watched her mother shift into a snow-white wolf and never shift back—gone in a winter storm Vanessa had been too young to remember.
"Full moons?" Vanessa asked, testing. "Am I going to—"
"Not relevant," Mireya cut in, a cool dismissal. "You are not ruled by a rock in the sky. Your wolf is yours. Shift when you need to. Bite when it's right. No rituals you don't claim."
Vanessa's chest loosened. "Thank you."
The elder dipped her head. "You'll know, child. Wolves always do."
They left with Dr. Hart's tablet full of notes and Mireya's silver shawl whispering across the floor. Jonah stayed. He stood at the window, hands in his pockets, looking like a man who had negotiated entire cities and lost a single houseplant and couldn't forgive himself.
"You must hate me," he said without turning. "For the nurses. The rules. The guards outside your door."
"I don't hate you." Her voice surprised her with its softness. "I hate being broken. I hate that you think you can fix it by telling it to go away."
He looked at her then, the light from the window drawing out the new gray at his temples. "I can't lose you too."
"You won't," she said, and hoped her voice made it true. "But you have to let me try to live."
He nodded once, a surrender disguised as strategy. "Security will follow you. Discreetly."
"Fine."
"You will check in. Twice a day."
"Also fine."
"And if you feel… unsafe—"
"I'll tell you." She smiled crookedly. "I'm not trying to be a martyr. I'm trying to be a freshman."
A corner of his mouth lifted. "Your mother would have liked that."
"Would she?" Vanessa asked, hungry for scraps.
"She hated pity," he said. "And rules that didn't make sense."
"So do I," Vanessa said. "Shocking."
After he left, the room felt emptier than before, like people had carried the air out with them. Vanessa texted the only friend who hadn't ghosted in the ghost years.
VANESSA: On campus Monday. Don't faint.
SKYLAR: I already did, but EMTs revived me with oat milk and spite. Roommate? Me. Class schedule? Me as your alarm clock. Party prep? Also me. You, my love, just show up.
VANESSA: I'm… scared.
SKYLAR: Of what? Pop quizzes? Boys? The caf sushi?
VANESSA: Of not being enough. Of wanting too much.
A beat. The dots, pulsing.
SKYLAR: Want too much. Always. If anyone deserves to want the whole cake it's you. Also, secretly glad you're scared. Means you care. Monday. I'll be at the gate with a banner that says WELCOME BACK FROM THE DEAD.
VANESSA: Please don't.
SKYLAR: Then I'll keep it subtle: glitter confetti. Maybe a marching band.
VANESSA: I hate you.
SKYLAR: Love you more. Sleep. Big day tomorrow. And Ness? If we need to we can duck into a study room and you can shift it out. I'll stand guard. No shame here.
Vanessa stared at that last line until her eyes stung. No shame here. She typed thank you and put the phone face-down.
Night bled into the room, slow and heavy. The city went from neon to embers. Vanessa closed her eyes and, because there was nothing else left to try, asked her wolf for help.
Please, she thought. Just… help me find him.
Her wolf stirred. The heat that had been a steady burn for hours lifted like a hand off her throat. Relief made her jaw shake. She breathed, really breathed, for the first time in days. Then came the smell.
It wasn't in the room. It wasn't in the house. It was everywhere, like rain had fallen in her head. Cold air on hot pavement. Cedar cracked under a boot heel. Ink on paper. A clean, spare scent with a shard of iron at the core. It cut through her like an edge and soothed like a bandage.
Her wolf made a sound she had never heard before. Not a growl or a whine. A recognition.
A name rose, unbidden and absolute, like a buoy breaking the surface.
Ethan.
Her eyes flew open. The name hung in the air, a neon sign only she could see.
"Ethan," she said aloud, tasting it. No face attached. No memory. Just certainty and a body that suddenly didn't feel like an enemy.
She swung her legs over the bed. The floor was cold under her feet and glorious. She stood. She stayed standing. She took three steps, then five, to the bathroom. Her reflection blinked back at her: dark hair a wild halo, amber-brown eyes too bright, cheekbones a little sharper than she liked. Alive. Fully, hungrily alive.
"You're real," she told the mirror. "You stubborn idiot."
In the morning, the house smelled like espresso and money. Jonah had already left for whatever meeting demanded a Crawford at the table, but a note waited on a tray with porridge and sliced fruit.
Proud of you. Call me at noon. —Dad
Vanessa ate until her body felt warmer than the coffee. She showered until the steam peeled away the last of the night's chill. She dressed in a black denim skirt and a white tee that said OVERLAND NORTH in cracked navy print and an oversize flannel that used to be her mother's. She laced boots she'd bought online at two a.m. during a pain spiral. She felt like herself for the first time in a long time—unfinished, sharp, stupidly hopeful.
Downstairs, the front doors yawned open on a slice of morning. A black SUV idled in the drive. The driver—Dima, pack, built like a doorframe—nodded. "Miss Crawford."
"Please don't 'Miss Crawford' me," she said as she climbed in. "It makes me feel like an old couch."
"Vanessa," he corrected, getting comfortable with the syllables. "We have a route your father prefers."
"I prefer the one that doesn't make me nauseous."
"We'll try our best," he said dryly.
They pulled out into Overland North traffic. The city did what cities do—fought with itself and made it look like dance. Students dotted the sidewalks in packs: humans in hoodies, wolves with the easy prowl of people who knew their bones could rearrange like origami if they wanted. A pair of girls laughed hard enough to lean on each other. A boy sprinted across the street with a half-eaten bagel clutched like a medal. Everything moved. Vanessa's chest hurt with wanting.
"Window down?" Dima asked.
"Yes, please," she said, and the scent of the city flooded in—coffee, gasoline, lake water, fryer oil from a food truck, the collective heartbeat of thousands. Under it, a thread. Cedar. Rain. Ink. Her wolf snapped to attention like a soldier.
She grabbed the handle on the ceiling. "Wait. Slow."
Dima eased off the gas. "You okay?"
"I'm—" She laughed, breathless. "Define okay."
The SUV crept past the campus gates, wrought iron curved like claws. The stone archway read OVERLAND NORTH UNIVERSITY and underneath, smaller, Founded 1897. Banners hung, sapphire blue and proud. A brass band somewhere on the quad blared a song she didn't know. A hundred voices layered into a net.
And there—like a pulse in the air—him. Not visible. Not yet. But the scent intensified, braided with the sun on brick and cut grass. Her wolf pressed against her skin, ready to run.
"Do you need me to stop?" Dima asked.
"Keep going," she said, fingers digging into the seat. "If we stop now I might jump out and tackle a stranger."
"That would make security unhappy," Dima said, amused without showing it. "We'll do a sweep. I'll text Skylar."
They circled the main quad. Students streamed between buildings with armloads of notebooks and coffee. Vanessa scanned faces like a detective in a montage. Her chest pounded not with illness but with anticipation. Then—movement on a library's stone steps, a flicker of black hair, a profile cut in clean lines like the city it belonged to. A man—no, a boy still, in the way 21 can be both grown and not—stood with a book open in one hand, the other tucked into a jacket pocket. He was taller than the people around him without trying to be. Even at a distance, he radiated don't—don't talk to me, don't approach, don't expect.
Vanessa didn't see his eyes. She didn't need to. The scent coming off him punched through the car like the door wasn't there.
Her stomach dropped in an elevator fall. "Stop the car," she whispered.
Dima obeyed. "You see him?"
"I smell him," she said, staring, careful not to blink. As if blinking would break the spell. "I know him."
The boy closed the book and slid it into a backpack with the kind of neatness that spoke of control learned the hard way. He started down the steps and turned his face slightly, like the sun had shifted. For a split second she saw him: gray eyes the exact storm of Elder Mireya's but colder, a mouth too severe to be kind on default, a scar at the edge of his left eyebrow like someone had tried to erase him and failed.
Her wolf went still and then howled, soundless in her chest.
"Ethan," she said, and the name wasn't a guess. It was a key turning in a lock that had been jammed for years.
He paused mid-step, head tipping as if he'd heard something beneath the brass band, beneath the traffic, beneath the chatter of a thousand freshmen. His gaze cut across the quad. For a terrifying instant, it found the SUV. Found her. Those eyes skimmed over her and flinched. It wasn't a double take. It was recognition. And rejection.
He pivoted and walked the other way.
"Oh," Vanessa said softly, not to Dima or to the universe but to herself. "So that's how we're going to play it."
"Do you want me to follow?" Dima asked, already checking mirrors.
"No," she said, a thread of laughter in her voice that wasn't joy so much as something fiercer. "Not today. Let him think he can run."
She texted Skylar At gate. Don't you dare have a banner and when her friend replied with too late, she laughed for real this time.
The SUV rolled forward. The city breathed. The wolf inside her stretched like a cat in a sunbeam and settled, purring and furious.
Vanessa pressed her palm to the window as the library slid by and the boy she had been sick for turned into a shadow among many. He could walk away today. He could walk away tomorrow and the next day and a thousand after that. She'd been lying still for three years. She was done with still.
"Hi, Ethan," she said to the glass, to the air, to the ache-turned-heat in her bones. "I'm Vanessa. I don't give up."
Somewhere behind her ribs, the lock gave. Not all the way. Not yet. Enough to let in light.
"Welcome to college," Dima said dryly.
"Yeah," Vanessa said, eyes bright and mouth set. "Let's go to class."