Chapter 19 The Frenzy
Sable’s POV
Campus buzzed with energy that night. Even before I reached the student union, I could feel the vibrations of the music under my feet, like a heartbeat pulsing up through the brick paths. The glass doors glowed with colored lights, and laughter spilled into the crisp autumn air. Inside, students swirled in a crush of movement—glittering dresses, button-down shirts, sticky-sweet drinks in plastic cups.
A fundraiser-turned-dance, Jenna had called it. “You need to loosen up,” she’d insisted, dragging me by the arm like an unstoppable force. “Come on, just one night of fun. Books will still be there tomorrow.”
I’d resisted, muttering about papers and early classes, but somehow she’d swept me along anyway. And now here I was, caught in a sea of glowing lights, pulsing bass, and the mingled scent of sugar, sweat, and perfume.
And Sam.
He wasn’t the loudest or the boldest—never had been. But he found me in the crowd like he always did, steady and quiet, grounding in the way a tree anchors soil. His shirt was plain, his smile easy, and when he asked if I wanted to get some air, I said yes too quickly.
The balcony above the quad was strung with fairy lights, a fragile canopy against the night. The air was crisp and smelled of rain-soaked leaves, a promise of winter creeping in. Down below, the quad hummed with faint music and clusters of students. Up here, it felt like another world entirely.
Sam leaned against the railing, hands tucked into his pockets, watching me in that way he did—like he saw past every wall I’d built and wasn’t afraid of what lived behind them.
“You’re different, you know that?” he said softly.
I raised an eyebrow, masking my unease with humor. “Different how?”
“Like you’re carrying a world no one else can see,” he said. “Heavy, but… yours.”
The words made my chest ache. My wolf shifted uneasily under my skin, pacing, a low growl curling at the edge of my consciousness.
“You make it sound like a bad thing,” I said, but my voice came out thinner than I wanted.
“It’s not.” He stepped closer, slow, deliberate. “It makes me want to know you more.”
My breath caught.
He was close now—close enough that I could see the flecks of green in his brown eyes, close enough to feel the warmth of him in the cool night air. His hand lifted, hesitated for a heartbeat, then brushed a strand of hair from my cheek.
Every nerve in my body lit up.
And then he leaned in.
My heart hammered. My wolf roared.
The scent of him filled my nose—human, warm, safe. But beneath it, faint and inescapable, came another scent. One my body knew too well, as natural as breathing.
Cedar smoke. Storm winds. Kier.
The bond surged like fire in my veins, yanking at me, snarling at the edge of my mind. My wolf thrashed, furious, wild. Not him. Not ours.
I stumbled back, nearly tripping over my own feet. My hands shook, claws threatening to break through my fingertips.
“Whoa—Sable?” Sam’s voice was startled, worried.
“I—I can’t,” I gasped, backing toward the door. “I’m sorry.”
And then I ran.
I bolted down the hall and out into the night, the thud of music fading behind me, my breath coming in ragged bursts. Students blurred past me in streaks of color and laughter as I crossed the quad. I didn’t stop until I reached the woods at the edge of campus, where the lights dimmed and shadows pressed close.
My chest heaved, my wolf snarling inside me, frantic and restless, wanting to be set free. I dropped to my knees in the damp earth, fingers clawing at the ground, fighting the shift clawing at my skin. My body trembled, caught between two worlds—the wolf demanding the mate bond, the woman demanding freedom.
Tears burned my eyes. “I choose me,” I whispered hoarsely. “I choose me.”
But the bond pulsed harder, answering back with a wordless certainty: Mate.
I pressed my fists into the dirt until my knuckles ached, until the frenzy ebbed just enough for me to breathe. The cold earth steadied me, anchored me. Slowly, my claws receded, my breathing evened out, but the ache remained.
By the time I returned to campus, the dance was ending. The student union spilled people into the night, their laughter trailing behind them like streamers. Couples held hands, shoes clicked on pavement, someone sang off-key. I kept my head down, slipping past them unseen.
Sam was nowhere in sight.
The climb up to my small room above the diner felt endless. I collapsed onto my bed fully dressed, my body heavy with exhaustion. The echo of his almost-kiss burned on my lips. Kier’s scent still ghosted through me like smoke after a fire. My heart ached for him—ached for what I’d left, for what I couldn’t escape.
Freedom wasn’t supposed to feel like this—like being torn in half.
I stared at the ceiling, the quiet hum of the city below me, and felt the bond pulse once more, a distant heartbeat inside my own.
And as sleep dragged me under, one truth haunted me:
No matter how far I ran, I couldn’t outrun the mate bond.