Chapter 23 The Wolf Dreams (Rowan POV)
I didn’t mean to fall asleep. One minute I was sitting on the cot, back against the wall, knees pulled up, staring at the faint glow of the silver marks on my forearms. The next, darkness. Not the empty black of a blackout. Something richer. Warmer. Alive.
Trees rushed past me, pine and cedar, sharp green scent filling my lungs. My paws, paws, hit the forest floor in perfect rhythm. Four legs, not two. Power coiled in every muscle, effortless. Ahead of me ran another wolf, larger, male, coat the same deep black as mine, eyes catching moonlight like polished obsidian. He glanced over his shoulder once. Not checking if I followed. Knowing I would.
We moved together. No words. Just a current between us, thought, feeling, intent, flowing back and forth like shared breath. Hunger sang in my blood. Prey ahead: deer, young buck, heart hammering loud enough to taste. We split without signal, he angled left, I right, flanking, silent, inevitable.
The buck broke cover. We closed. I leaped first. Fangs found throat. Hot blood, copper-sweet. The other wolf joined, teeth in the flank, bringing it down together. Warmth flooded me. Not just from the kill. From him. From us. Pack. Not the cold hierarchy I’d watched from the edges at Thornhaven. Something deeper. Chosen. Whole.
I woke gasping.
The cell snapped back into focus, concrete, steel bars, single bulb buzzing overhead. My hands were clenched so hard my nails had left half-moons in my palms. I tasted blood; I’d bitten the inside of my cheek. The silver marks burned brighter, pulsing in time with my heart.
I pressed both hands to my chest. “Just a dream,” I whispered. “Just a dream.”
But it didn’t feel like one.
It felt like memory.
I slid off the cot, paced the narrow space, three steps, turn, three steps. My body ached in strange places: deep in the sockets of my shoulders, along my spine, in the hinge of my jaw. Like my bones remembered being something else and wanted to go back.
Headmaster Vance’s breathing exercise floated up through the fog.
In, four.
Hold, four.
Out, six.
I tried it standing. In. Hold. Out.
The ache eased a fraction. Not gone. Just… quieter.
I sank to the floor, cross-legged. Closed my eyes again. Not to sleep. To feel.
The wolf was right there, curled tight behind my sternum, patient, waiting. I reached for it mentally, tentative, like touching a strange animal through bars.
Show me.
Heat bloomed under my ribs. My spine lengthened, impossible, but I felt it, vertebrae stacking taller, broader. My shoulders rounded forward, then back, testing new angles. My fingers twitched; nails thickened, darkened, curved. Pain flared, sharp, bright, but not unbearable. Like stretching a muscle that had been cramped for years.
I gasped. Opened my eyes.
My hands were still human. But the nails were longer. Darker. Sharper.
I flexed them. They caught the light.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay. We’re doing this.”
I closed my eyes again. Vance’s voice in my head: Anchor yourself to the count. The wolf isn’t your enemy. It’s part of you.
In, four.
Hold, four.
Out, six.
I let the shift creep forward, slow, controlled. My teeth ached as canines lengthened. My hearing sharpened; I could pick out Jackson’s breathing outside the door, the drip of a faucet two corridors away, the soft rustle of papers in the security office. My skin prickled, fur wanting to break through, held back by will alone.
Pain spiked along my spine. I hissed.
In, four.
Hold, four.
Out, six.
The pain dulled. Became pressure. Possibility.
I felt the shape of what I could become, sleek, powerful, black-furred, eyes glowing silver in the dark. The same shape that had run beside me in the dream.
I opened my eyes. Sweat slicked my forehead. My hands shook.
I was still human.
But less so.
The wolf rumbled, low, approving.
I stood. Walked to the bars. Wrapped my fingers around the steel. The metal groaned under my grip, not bending yet, but close. I let go fast.
“If I shift here,” I whispered to the empty cell, “without a pack… I might not come back.”
The stories were old. Failed Turnings. Wolves who couldn’t anchor to a pack bond. They went feral, lost the human part forever. Killed until someone put them down.
I pressed my forehead to the cold bars.
“I don’t want to lose myself,” I said aloud. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
The wolf answered, not words, just feeling. Warmth. Loyalty. We won’t.
I wanted to believe it.
I paced again, faster this time. The ache in my bones was stronger now, insistent. Like my body knew the full moon was hours away and was impatient.
I stopped in the middle of the cell. Dropped to my knees.
In, four.
Hold, four.
Out, six.
Again.
Each cycle pushed the shift a little closer. Each cycle pulled it back.
I was dancing on the edge, human and wolf, Rowan and something older, wilder.
The dream-wolf’s face flashed behind my eyes, dark fur, familiar eyes.
Who are you? I thought.
No answer.
Just certainty.
I knew him.
I’d always known him.
I curled on the floor, arms wrapped around myself.