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The dream shifted. Cold air hit my face. Then, the scent of snow. I ran low to the ground, my muscles coiling, tasting pine and frost. My paws hit the white powder, and it rose around me in soft bursts. Above me the sky was wide and huge. I was a wolf. I was free. I ran with a pack. It was not my pack, somehow I knew this, yet they accepted me. I would always be welcome with the wolves. Some bodies were dark and others were pale, but we moved with a fluid oneness despite the differences between us.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw the wolves’ breath steaming, shoulders rolling powerfully beneath thick fur. Joy flowed through me like a river current at the rightness of it all. There was no pain, no doubt, no fear, only the motion of my legs as I churned through the clean snow, the cold kissing my muzzle and the wind streaming past my flattened ears. I ran harder, leaping over a drift and landing smoothly.

The snow blurred. The world shifted. The dream broke.

I woke up with a gasp. For a second, I didn’t know where I was. Then I felt the sheets beneath my hands and heard the hush of waves. The curtains hanging from the windows were stirring a little in the breeze. I felt dizzy from the nightmare—and the dream. One clung to my skin like a foul sweat. The other had left my heart so full of hope that waking was another kind of pain.

I sat up, putting a hand to my chest, trying to calm my racing heart. My gaze moved to the door, and I saw him. Lying at the threshold, body pressed up against the closed door, gray and silver with thick fur and a tail the size of my arm. Even asleep, the wolf looked as if it could tear the world apart if it chose. My throat tightened. The dream had been so real. My chest ached for my pack. And always, there had been one shape running just out of reach. Always keeping pace with me but off to one side.

I cleared my throat. “Kage.”

The wolf’s ears twitched.

“Kage,” I said more loudly.

The wolf’s head lifted. Large brown eyes, intelligent and aware, looked back at me. The wolf watched me for a heartbeat, then rose. In the space of a moment, he was no longer a wolf.

I’d seen it before. But each time it happened so quickly, it was almost impossible to describe. Bones shifted. Fur became skin. The huge frame both stretched and compacted. Then Kage Tanaka stood there, barefoot, his hair still ruffled from sleep, his chest bare. Not just his chest. I cleared my throat again meaningfully. His eyes widened, and he looked down, a sheepish expression on his face. I felt my own face heating up. Like we’d both been caught doing something—not indecent but intimate.

Kage grabbed a pair of trousers that lay folded beside him on the floor and started tugging them on. I looked away, my face still hot, staring out the window, waiting, looking at the clouds moving across the sky. But my pulse wouldn’t seem to settle. Not from fear but from this strange, stupid pull. Like my body wanted to lean toward him without my mind’s permission.

“Regan.”

I looked back. He had the trousers on, and his expression was composed, no hint of embarrassment now. I studied him briefly. He’d always been a commanding man. Now, even with his hair falling into his eyes, his jaw was set. I took in the lines of his strong body, the hard planes of his chest. His long legs tense with a wolfish readiness. His squared shoulders. Only his eyes were soft. They didn’t match the rest of him or what I’d seen him do.

I hated how the room suddenly felt smaller, even though he hadn’t taken a single step toward me. I reminded myself that I was angry. “How long have you been lying there?” I demanded, gesturing at the door.

“Since you started screaming in your sleep.”

I licked my lips. “I wasn’t screaming.”

“You were. I’m sorry, usually I stay on the other side.” His voice was steady, but I saw the tenseness in his jaw. Like he was holding back, restraining something.

“Why stay at all?”

“Because you’re still afraid. You’re back at Bloodwing, and you’re safe in my tower. Lysander and I have warded the room and the ways in and out, but you’re still afraid. And so, I stand there and make sure no one comes through that door.” He didn’t move closer, didn’t argue. But he also didn’t leave. His jaw was clenched tighter now, like the idea of leaving the room now physically hurt.

I thought of my last encounter with Lysander. I searched for some grace. “Look, it’s not that I’m not grateful. You and Lysander risked your lives for me.” The words felt like dust in my mouth. “You could have been killed. You didn’t have to come for me.”

He’d been looking down. Now his head lifted quickly. “Yes, we did have to.”

I shook my head. “You and Lysander both have a misguided sense of responsibility. I’m not even in your house. You don’t owe me anything. Certainly not dreams.” Suddenly, I felt angry again. “You invaded me.”

“I wouldn’t reject the gift of peace so quickly.” Kage’s gaze had sharpened, wolf-fast.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Lysander is the only reason you slept at all.”

I wanted to argue that there was another reason: The fluffin helped me, too. But maybe Kage was right. Maybe I really had been screaming. I suddenly wondered how long and how loud. Had he waited until there were students gathered out in the hall listening before he’d finally made the decision to come in?

I took a breath. “I thought Lysander said I was hard to reach.”

Kage smiled slightly. “I think you’re easier to get through to now. Part of the problem was proximity. And—”

“Viktor,” I supplied.

“Lysander is talented. But it goes beyond that.” His gaze went to my throat, and I flinched. He quickly looked away.