Page 14

14

CALLUM

T he tunnels are very still tonight. No rats. No wind. No ghosts pacing behind old brick. Just the buzz of tension sitting heavy in my chest like smoke with nowhere to go.

I get there first. It doesn’t take long for Edmund to arrive next, but I can feel she’s not with him.

We stand in silence for a few minutes. Then she arrives.

Kendall moves different tonight. Less raw, more guarded. Like she’s figured out how to keep her insides from spilling out but hasn’t found where to hide them yet. She’s in all black, hoodie pulled up, hair braided tight.

She looks like a storm pretending to be calm, but her bright blue, almost violet eyes give it away.

I look away before my eyes linger too long.

Edmund gives a short nod. “We’ll focus on back-tracking and scent suppression. PEACE has increased patrols north of the Southside exits. You need to be sharper.”

“I’m getting sharper,” Kendall mutters.

“Not sharp enough,” he says. “Yet.”

“If you know so much, why do I need his help as well?” she barks back.

Edmund steps forward, an intimidating move and it works.

“Because he knows more about PEACE and what his pack is looking for. I know how I can survive, not with you, just on my own. And I haven’t trained anyone ever. He has. He’s the next alpha in line and trains a lot of their ranks. You need that in order to think like them and stay a step ahead. Understood?”

Kendall doesn’t say anything, just moves her confrontational eyes to the ground and takes a step back in submission.

And then we get to work.

The drills start simple. Trail tracing. Misdirection. More scent masking. I correct her stance a few times, adjust her hands when she lays false tracks. It’s all muscle memory now, at least for me. For her, it’s still friction and fatigue.

She doesn’t complain. She never does.

She’s already soaked with sweat when we move into masking.

“Again,” I say, tossing the pouch of herbs her way. “Rub it along your pulse points. Neck, wrists, inner thighs. Anywhere that radiates heat.”

She catches it, scowling. “This stuff smells like a rotting garden.”

“Better a rotting garden than death,” I reply.

Her lips twitch, and she crouches to apply it.

Edmund paces while we work, listening. Watching. Always scanning the shadows like something’s going to crawl out of them.

I know the feeling.

“Your friend,” Edmund says, suddenly. “Elias. Where is he?”

“Pulled for a late patrol,” I say. “North rim. He’s playing our alibi.”

Edmund grunts, nods once. Then his head jerks slightly.

He hears something.

“I’ll be back,” he says. “Don’t stop.”

And then he’s gone, silent as the shadows he disappears into.

The tunnel settles again.

Kendall wipes her hands on her pants and stands. “So,” she says, blowing out a breath, “is this where you criticize my technique again?”

“Actually,” I say, “you didn’t suck this time.”

Her brow lifts. “High praise.”

I shrug. “Take what you can get.”

She walks a slow circle, stretching her arms. Then, after a moment: “You ever date a human?”

The question catches me off guard. “No.”

She nods, quiet. “I am.”

I don’t move. Don’t speak.

But something snarls low in my chest, dark and ugly . It’s not rational. Not even emotional. Just instinct, scraping against bone.

Mine, the beast says.

Shut up, I tell it.

“What’s his name?” I ask. Calm. Even. Like it isn’t jealousy burning inside my bones.

“A guy named Stefan. We’ve been dating for a couple of years or so.”

Figures.

She watches me, curious now. “That a problem?”

I shake my head. “Not my business.”

“Feels like it is, though.”

I don’t answer that because she’s not wrong.

And that’s the problem.

“Just be careful is all, especially around the full moon. If you can trust him to not turn you into PEACE, then you should be fine,” I force myself to say.

Kendall says nothing, but bites her lip. Can she trust him? I don’t ask though and thankfully she doesn't push it further.

Instead, she leans against the tunnel wall, the light catching the curve of her jaw.

“They hate me,” she says suddenly. Voice low. “Your pack. Your people. Even the ones who don’t know me. They hate what I am.”

I look at her. “Yeah.”

She flinches. Just a little.

“You wanna know why?” I ask.

She nods.

I step closer. Not too close. Just enough.

“Because you’re Bolvi. And Bolvi bloodlines don’t die easy, even though they were supposed to in the Fallow War. They don’t kneel. They don’t bind to pack structures like the rest of us. Your people were made to be wild. Pure instinct. No hierarchy. No alpha to follow. And for shifters? That’s terrifying.”

She swallows. “You think I’m dangerous.”

“I think they do ,” I correct.

“But not you.”

I don’t answer right away. “You scare me,” I say finally. “But not because of what you are. Because of what you might be.”

She tilts her head. “And what’s that?”

I look her dead in the eyes.

“Free.”

She blinks, thrown off. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got.”

She stares at me, like she’s trying to read a language written across my skin.

“Why are you helping me?” she asks, quieter now. “Why are you risking your life—your place—for someone like me? Dad says you’re supposed to be the next alpha. I know what that is, what it means. Why would you risk that?”

I want to lie. I should lie because the truth feels like a cliff I’m not ready to fall off.

Instead, I say, “Because the second I saw you, I knew you’d ruin me if I let you.”

Her breath catches.

For a second, we’re not hunter and hunted.

Not shifter and werewolf.

Just two people caught in the space between what’s allowed and what already is .

She shifts against the pillar like she’s about to say something else, like her mouth is working around a question she doesn’t know how to phrase. There’s a flicker of something in her eyes—fear, maybe, or need—but it dies before it fully forms.

That’s when Edmund reappears—silent as a shadow, slipping from the darkness like he never left.

“It was nothing,” he says before we can speak. “Just a rat too loud for its own good. We’re good.”

He pauses. Looks between the two of us. His gaze lingers. Eyebrow up, eyes sharp. Not accusatory—but close. Curious .

He senses it. The shift . The crackling tension in the air that wasn’t here when he left.

“So?” he asks slowly. “What have we got left to cover?”

Kendall straightens, rubbing her hands down her thighs like she’s grounding herself, and I scrub a hand over my face to clear the heat still coiled tight behind my ribs.

I clear my throat, and we both glance down at the ground like it might swallow the moment whole if we don’t look directly at it.

“Backtrack drills,” I say, voice rougher than I want it to be. “We haven’t run the loop yet.”

Edmund gives a small nod but doesn’t stop watching me.

I force myself to step back, putting physical space where emotional space has completely caved in.

“Let’s run it,” I say. “Twice. No shortcuts this time.”

Kendall meets my eyes for just a second before nodding.

Whatever almost happened between us? It’s buried—for now.

But the ground we’re standing on is far from stable.