Vanessa had always dreamed of leaving the Crawford mansion behind—not because it wasn't beautiful, but because it was a gilded cage. High ceilings and antique clocks couldn't hide the fact that her life for the last three years had been measured in medications, temperatures, and how many times she'd whispered her wolf quiet through the fever.
Now, as the car pulled up to Overland North University's campus, she felt the cage crack open.
Students streamed across the quad, clutching coffee cups, laughing too loudly, shouldering backpacks weighed down with books they'd skim at the last minute. The air smelled like paper, ink, fried food, caffeine—and underneath it all, the layered tang of wolves and humans mixed together in a delicate balance the university worked hard to maintain.
Her wolf pressed against her ribs, ears pricked, tail high. Here. This is life. This is hunt. This is ours.
Jonah hovered like a storm cloud at her shoulder as she stepped out. "Security will check in every two hours."
"Dad." She shouldered her backpack, ignoring how lightheaded the movement made her. "I'll look like a presidential candidate with a detail. No one else has guards following them into Psych 101."
"You're not everyone else."
"I know." She rolled her eyes and started walking. "That's the problem."
Dima flanked them until they reached the dormitory entrance. Vanessa gave him a look that said don't even think about stepping inside. Dima, wisely, stayed at the curb, but she saw the tiny earpiece glint at his temple. He'd know if she sneezed wrong.
Inside, chaos ruled. Boxes stacked in hallways. Parents arguing about bed placement. Music thumping through thin walls. Vanessa grinned despite herself. For the first time in years, her pulse raced from excitement, not sickness.
"Room 318!" A familiar voice squealed. Skylar came barreling down the hall in ripped jeans and an oversized hoodie, hair dyed cotton-candy pink this semester. She flung herself at Vanessa. "You lived! You're here! I thought the Council was gonna lock you in a tower like some tragic fairytale."
"Technically, they tried," Vanessa said, hugging her back. "But I bite."
Skylar beamed. "Damn right you do. Come on, I saved the top bunk for you, because I'm a generous queen."
Jonah raised one eyebrow. "She'll take the bottom."
"Dad." Vanessa groaned.
Skylar gave Jonah a little salute. "Don't worry, Mr. Crawford, I'll make sure she eats real food and doesn't get abducted by frat boys."
Jonah muttered something about shooting frat boys on sight before checking his watch. "Text me every hour."
"Every three," Vanessa bargained.
"Two." His stare brokered no deals.
"Fine." She sighed, shooing him out. "Go save the city or buy it or whatever you do when you're not smothering me."
When the door clicked shut, Skylar flopped on her bed. "Your dad's hot in a terrifying billionaire way. But if he glared at me like that more than twice, I'd probably cry."
"He glares at everyone," Vanessa said, dropping onto the bottom bunk. "It's his love language."
They unpacked in bursts—Skylar blasting music, Vanessa carefully arranging her books, sweater folded over her desk chair like a talisman. Every so often, Vanessa caught herself glancing at the door, half-expecting gray eyes to appear in the frame. Her wolf prowled restlessly.
Find him.
She didn't have to look far. By the second day, whispers spread across campus like wildfire.
Ethan Blackwood. Engineering major. Top of every class he touched. Cold as ice. Handsome in the way that hurt if you looked too long. Already a myth among freshmen who swore he never smiled, never dated, never let anyone sit too close in lecture halls.
Vanessa saw him before lunch in the library. He sat by the window, profile etched in light, pencil moving in neat lines across graph paper. She stopped breathing for a second.
Her wolf shoved hard against her skin. There. Now. Go.
She forced herself to move on. Not yet.
Later, she passed him on the quad. A human girl trailed after him, giggling, trying to match his stride. He didn't even glance at her. His gray eyes cut briefly across the grass—and locked on Vanessa.
The bond snapped taut again. Her stomach flipped. Her wolf howled, tail wagging like it had no pride.
Ethan's jaw ticked. Then he looked away and kept walking.
"Wow," Skylar muttered beside her. "If glares could kill, you'd be a chalk outline."
Vanessa smiled tightly. "If glares could kill, I'd already be ashes."
The days passed in this rhythm: lectures, introductions, the noise of campus life buzzing around her. And always, Ethan—at the edge of her vision, a constant shadow she wasn't allowed to touch. Every time their eyes met, it felt like the world paused. Every time he turned away, it started again too fast.
Her wolf grew restless. He feels it. He denies it. He hurts. Hunt.
By the end of the week, Vanessa was strung taut between wanting to scream and wanting to cry. She didn't do either. Instead, she stalked across the dorm hallway at midnight, unable to sleep, when she heard it.
A sound. Low. Broken. Not human.
Her wolf froze, ears pricked. Him.
She followed it down the hall, heart pounding, until she stopped outside a door left slightly ajar.
Inside, Ethan Blackwood thrashed in his bed, sweat slicking his shirt to his chest. His face twisted, breath ragged, fists clenched in sheets tangled around his legs.
And the sound—his wolf, keening, trapped in a nightmare.
Vanessa's wolf pressed forward in her skin. Mate. Help.
She hesitated only once before pushing the door wider.
Vanessa slipped inside before she could talk herself out of it. The door clicked softly behind her.
Ethan's room was stripped down to essentials: bed, desk, stacks of books in precise order. No posters, no clutter, no softness. It felt less like someone lived here and more like someone camped here until the next storm.
On the bed, Ethan jerked violently, a choked sound tearing from his throat. His wolf pushed at his skin, voice raw in the dark. Mate. Help. Save us.
Vanessa's breath hitched. Her wolf surged forward, clawing, Go. Touch. Calm him.
She hovered at the edge of the bed, fists clenched at her sides. She shouldn't. He didn't want her here. He had made that abundantly clear. But watching him suffer, sweat dripping from his brow, chest heaving like he couldn't draw enough air—it was unbearable.
"Ethan," she whispered.
His body went taut, every muscle seizing. His eyes snapped open—gray, wide, feral in the half-light. He shot upright, hand grabbing her wrist with brutal speed. His grip was iron, his pupils blown wide, wolf bleeding through.
For one breathless second, he stared at her like prey. Then recognition hit, and everything in him shuddered.
"Vanessa," he rasped, voice raw, like it had been dragged over gravel.
She didn't pull away. "You were dreaming."
His grip loosened slowly, reluctantly, like unclenching was harder than clinging. He released her and shoved both hands through his hair, elbows on his knees, body trembling.
"You shouldn't be here," he muttered.
"You were screaming," she said. Her voice was steadier than she felt.
"I wasn't—" He cut himself off, breath hitching, jaw grinding. He couldn't deny it; his throat was still raw from the sound.
Vanessa sat carefully on the edge of his bed, ignoring the way his body stiffened. "What was it?"
"Nothing."
Her wolf growled. Lies.
"Nightmare," she pressed softly.
"Not your business." His voice snapped, cold armor sliding back into place.
Her wolf snapped back. Ours. Always ours.
Vanessa leaned closer, lowering her tone. "It is my business. When you hurt, I feel it."
His head snapped up, eyes blazing. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't say that." His voice cracked, just a hair, and he masked it with a sneer. "You think this is fate. A bond. Some story about two halves of a whole." He laughed without humor. "It's biology tricking you. It's your sickness looking for a scapegoat."
"If it's a trick," she asked evenly, "then why does your wolf scream my name in your sleep?"
The silence that followed was a living thing. Ethan's jaw clenched, his breath ragged. His wolf surged at the bars of its cage, triumphant. She heard. She knows. No more lies.
Ethan closed his eyes, forcing the wolf down with brutal will. "Get out."
Vanessa's hand twitched toward him. She stopped herself, fingers curling into her palm. "You can lie to yourself," she whispered, "but not to me. Not to your wolf."
He flinched, the smallest movement, but it was there.
"Ethan." Her voice softened, gentle as a hand on a bruise. "Whatever they did to you—whatever you think bonds are—it doesn't have to be that way. It can be different. We can be different."
His wolf purred, desperate, pressing hard. Yes. Different. Safe. Home.
"No," Ethan bit out, louder, strangled. He shot to his feet, pacing to the far wall like distance could build a barricade. "You don't know me. You don't know what I've done. What I've seen." He turned, eyes cold again, even as sweat dripped from his temples. "You want to heal me? You'll bleed out trying."
Vanessa stood too, heart hammering. She didn't chase him, but she didn't back down. "Then I'll bleed. I've already spent three years dying without you. At least this way, I'm choosing."
His chest heaved, wolf snarling inside. She is ours. She fights for us. Let her in.
"Get out," he said again, but it broke differently this time. Not sharp. Not commanding. Pleading.
Her throat tightened. She nodded slowly. "Fine. I'll go."
Relief flickered across his face, followed by guilt so fast she almost missed it.
She paused at the door, hand on the knob. "But hear me, Ethan. You can shove me out of your room. Out of your life. A hundred times, if that's what it takes. But I won't stop. I don't give up on what's mine."
Her wolf growled in fierce agreement. Hunt. Win.
His knuckles whitened against his thigh. He didn't answer. He couldn't.
She slipped out, the door closing quietly behind her.
Inside, Ethan sank back onto his bed, head in his hands. His wolf pressed against him like a second heartbeat. She's right. She is ours.
"Shut up," he whispered. His chest shook. "She'll drown in me."
Or save you, the wolf said simply.
He lay back, staring at the ceiling, and for the first time in years, he didn't trust himself to sleep.
Down the hall, Vanessa leaned against her door, breathless, pulse still racing from the charge of their bond. Skylar blinked blearily from her bed, phone light glowing.
"Girl, where have you been? You look like you saw a ghost."
"Worse," Vanessa whispered, sliding down the wall to the floor. "I saw Ethan Blackwood."
Skylar whistled low. "And?"
Vanessa met her friend's eyes, her voice low but firm. "He's cracked. I just have to get through before he shatters."
Her wolf hummed approval, low and hungry. We will. We never give up.