The pain hit me right as Coach raised the trophy.

One second I was clapping in the back of the Riverside Den's banquet hall, surrounded by howling pack kids and the smell of grilled steak. The next, something sharp tore through my chest like a claw.

I grabbed the edge of a table. A cup of punch tipped over and soaked my sleeve.

"Vera?" my roommate Tess shouted over the music. "You okay? You look like you saw a ghost."

"I'm fine." My voice came out thin. "I just need air."

I wasn't fine.

I knew that pain. It came from the bond. The thin, glowing thread that tied me to my two mates had pulled tight, then started to fray.

Kieran Ross. Captain of the Silver Ridge Wolves. The boy who scored the winning goal tonight.

Rhett Calloway. His co-captain and best friend. My second mate.

The Moon Goddess had given me two of them. Most days, I still didn't know if that was a gift or a joke.

I followed the pull. Past the dance floor. Past the trophy table. Down the back hall toward the locker rooms.

Every step made the ache worse.

The locker room door was half open. Laughter spilled out. Then a girl's soft giggle.

"Kieran, someone's going to see us."

"Let them," he said. "We just won state. I can do whatever I want."

I pushed the door open.

Kieran had Sienna Marlowe pressed against the lockers. The most popular she-wolf at Silver Ridge. Homecoming queen. Her fingers were in his hair. His mouth was on hers.

The bond ripped again.

I slammed my palm against the wall to stay upright. A sound left my throat, half gasp, half whimper.

Kieran pulled back. He turned his head, and his eyes landed on me. They didn't go wide. They didn't fill with guilt.

They rolled.

"Seriously, Vera?" He wiped his mouth with his thumb. "You followed me here?"

"You…" I pressed a fist into my chest. "You're kissing her. Kieran, I can feel it. It hurts."

Sienna smirked and smoothed her dress. "Oh. She's the mate. The quiet one from chem."

"Stay out of this," I snapped at her.

"Don't talk to her like that." Kieran stepped in front of Sienna, like she was the one who needed protection. "You want to know what your problem is? You think the bond makes you special."

"It makes me yours."

He laughed. Actually laughed.

"Don't use the bond to force me to take responsibility for you," he said. "I never asked for a mate. Especially not one I have to share with Rhett."

The words landed harder than the pain.

Behind me, the showers shut off. Footsteps. Rhett came around the row of lockers with a towel around his neck, his hair still wet, his jersey pulled half on.

"What's with all the yelling?" He stopped. His gaze moved from Kieran, to Sienna, to me. "Vera. What are you doing in here?"

"Rhett." I reached for him. My hand shook. "Rhett, the bond. Something's wrong. Please."

For a second, I thought he saw it. His jaw went tight. His nose flared, like he could smell the pain on me.

Then he looked past me. Out in the hall, three guys from the team were watching. Phones up. Grinning.

Rhett's face closed like a door.

"Not here," he muttered.

He grabbed my arm. Not gently.

"Rhett, wait…"

"You're white as a sheet and you're making a scene in front of the whole team." He dragged me toward the exit. My sneakers squeaked on the wet tile. "Do you have any idea what this looks like?"

"It looks like Kieran is cheating on me!"

"Keep your voice down."

"Why? So nobody finds out?" I twisted, trying to get free. "You're my mate too. You're supposed to be on my side!"

He stopped at the door. For a heartbeat he just stared at me. Water dripped from his hair onto my wrist.

"I am on your side," he said quietly. "That's why I'm getting you out before you embarrass yourself."

Then he pushed me through the door.

The hallway was empty and too bright. The music from the banquet thumped through the walls. Somewhere, people were cheering Kieran's name.

"Go home, Vera," Rhett said. "We'll talk tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" I almost laughed. It came out broken. "I'm hurting right now."

"Then go see the pack healer."

He let the door swing shut.

I stood there, staring at it. Waiting for it to open again. Waiting for one of them to remember who I was.

It didn't.

The pain in my chest turned hot, then cold. My knees went soft. I slid down the wall, my back scraping the painted cinderblock, until I was sitting on the floor.

I tried to call to them through the bond.

Kieran. Rhett. Please.

Silence.

No, not silence. Worse. On the other side of the thread, I felt Kieran's mood. Light. Pleased. Annoyed with me, and already forgetting.

And Rhett? Rhett felt relieved.

Relieved that I was gone.

My vision blurred at the edges. My fingers went numb. I tipped sideways until my cheek hit the cold floor.

Through the door, I heard Sienna laugh. I heard someone say, "Dude, is she just lying out there?"

And I heard Kieran answer.

"Leave her. She'll get up when she's done being dramatic."

Footsteps moved away. The door stayed closed.

Nobody came.

My heartbeat slowed. Thud. Pause. Thud. Longer pause.

Then, right before everything went black, something new flickered inside me. Not pain. Not the bond.

A third pull.

Faint and warm and completely unfamiliar, tugging at me from somewhere far beyond these walls.

Like someone, somewhere, had just felt me falling.

Warm hands slid under my shoulders.

"Hey. Hey, stay with me."

The voice was low and rough, like he'd been running. I forced my eyes open. A stranger knelt over me. Dark curls. A scar through one eyebrow. Gray eyes so close I could see gold flecks in them.

The third pull snapped tight.

"You," I whispered.

"Me." He let out a shaky laugh. "Asher Dunmore. Pine Hollow pack. I felt you go down from the parking lot. Thought my heart was going to quit."

"You're my…"

"Yeah. Apparently." He scooped me off the floor like I weighed nothing. "We'll do introductions later. Right now you're freezing."

I pressed my face into his jacket. It smelled like cedar and gasoline. Through the locker room door, Sienna was still laughing.

Asher's arms went rigid around me.

"Those two," he said. "They're yours too?"

"Kieran and Rhett."

"And they left you on the floor."

It wasn't a question. I didn't answer.

He carried me down the hall, past the banquet doors. Nobody stopped us. Nobody even turned around.

"Listen to me, Vera." He tipped his head so I had to meet his eyes. "I'm not them. I will never be them. You fall, I catch you. Every time. Got it?"

I wanted to laugh at how cheesy it sounded.

I started crying instead.

He didn't flinch. He just held on tighter.

---

For the next two weeks, Asher was everywhere.

He drove forty minutes from Pine Hollow to walk me to class. He sat on the hood of his truck at lunch with two burgers, one always for me. When Kieran passed us in the hall with Sienna on his arm, Asher laced his fingers through mine and squeezed.

"Breathe," he murmured. "He's not worth the oxygen."

By the second week, I was leaning on him without thinking about it. Literally. My head on his shoulder in the bleachers. My hand in his jacket pocket.

Tess noticed.

"Okay, who is he?" she demanded, dropping onto my bed Thursday night. "And why does he look at you like you're the last slice of pizza?"

"He's my third mate."

"Your *third*?" She stared at me. "Vera, the Goddess really hates you, huh."

"Maybe not." I smiled at my phone. Asher had just texted a picture of a dog in a hot dog costume. "Maybe she finally got one right."

Tess didn't smile back. She chewed her lip.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. My cousin goes to Pine Hollow. She said Asher's friends are…" She shrugged. "Kind of jerks."

"He's not his friends."

"Sure." She grabbed her pillow. "Just be careful."

---

I found out on Saturday.

Asher had fallen asleep on my couch during a movie. His phone buzzed on the coffee table. Then again. Then four more times in a row.

I only picked it up to silence it.

The group chat was called **Silver Ridge Charity Case**.

My thumb froze over the screen.

**Dex:** Day 14. Has she said it yet??

**Mason:** Bro you're so close. 200 bucks says by homecoming.

**Dex:** Post another one. The crying one was gold.

I scrolled up.

There I was. The night of the banquet. My face wet and blotchy, buried against his chest. My mascara smeared down to my chin. The photo was taken from above. From his angle.

Under it, Asher had typed: *Easiest money I'll ever make. She thinks I'm her knight lol.*

Forty-two laughing reactions.

The phone slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the floor.

Asher jolted awake. "Wha… Vera?" He saw the phone. Then my face. The sleepy look drained right out of him. "Okay. Okay, wait."

"You took a picture." My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. "I was dying in a hallway, and you took a *picture*."

"It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?" I kicked the phone toward him. "Explain the bet, Asher. Explain *two hundred bucks*."

He rubbed both hands over his face. "It started before I knew you. Dex dared me. Some girl with two mates who don't want her, go see if she's real. Then I felt the bond and…"

"And you kept going."

"I kept *showing up*. Doesn't that count?"

"You showed up for the money."

"That's not fair."

"Get out."

He stood slowly. At the door he turned, and for one second he looked almost sorry.

"It was a stupid joke," he said. "That's all."

The door clicked shut behind him.

I sat there and did the strangest thing.

I laughed. Loud and ugly, until my stomach hurt. Because of course. Of course the Goddess had given me three, and of course all three were the same.

Then the bond tore.

---

It didn't stop all night.

Every hour, it got worse. A burning wire pulled through my ribs. I curled up on my bedroom floor because the mattress felt too soft to fight against. Tess was at her parents' house. The dorm was silent.

At 2 a.m., I called Kieran.

He picked up on the sixth ring. Music thumped behind him.

"What."

"Kieran, the bond. It's bad. I think something's really wrong."

He sighed so loudly it crackled through the speaker. "Vera, it's two in the morning."

"I know. Please. I need you to come."

"You need to stop calling me every time you get sad." Someone giggled near him. Sienna. "Go to sleep."

He hung up.

At 2:40, I called Rhett.

"Vera?" His voice was groggy. "You okay?"

My eyes stung. He sounded like he actually cared. "No. It hurts so much. I can barely breathe."

A pause. Sheets rustling.

"Have you tried drinking water?"

I stared at the ceiling.

"Water," I repeated.

"And maybe a hot shower. That helps with muscle stuff." He yawned. "Text me in the morning if it's still bad, yeah?"

"Rhett, it's not muscle stuff. It's *us*."

"Morning, Vera. I've got practice at seven."

Click.

At 3:15, shaking so hard I could barely tap the screen, I called Asher.

He answered right away. Like he'd been waiting.

"Vera."

"The bond is ripping me apart." I pressed my forehead to the cold floor. "Do you feel it? Do you feel anything?"

Silence. Then voices behind him. Dex's voice. "Is that her? Put it on speaker!"

"Shut up," Asher hissed. Then, to me, softer: "Look, I'm sorry you're hurting. But you're blowing this way out of proportion. It was just a joke."

"Just a joke," I whispered.

"Yeah. Nobody meant anything by it."

I hung up first this time.

I lay there until the window went from black to gray. My phone stayed dark. No texts. No missed calls.

Three mates. Zero answers.

Right before sunrise, the pain did something new. It stopped burning. It went quiet.

I reached inside for my wolf, the way I'd done since I was twelve.

She didn't answer.

For the first time in my life, there was nothing there at all.

Coach didn't even look up from his clipboard.

"You're quitting? Mid-season?"

"I'm transferring." I slid my team manager badge across his desk. "Harlow High. Starting Monday."

"Harlow?" Now he looked up. "That's a *human* school, Vera."

"I know."

"Kieran and Rhett know about this?"

I almost smiled. "Does it matter?"

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then he pushed the badge into a drawer like it had never been mine.

That was it. Three years of taping ankles and tracking stats, gone in under a minute.

---

Harlow High smelled like floor wax and burnt coffee. No wolves. No scent of pine and fur in the hallways. Just humans with backpacks, yelling about a math quiz.

Nobody here knew what a bond was. Nobody here would laugh at me for having one.

I made it to the front office. I made it through the paperwork. I even made it halfway down the B-wing with my new schedule in my hand.

Then the bond woke up.

It didn't ache this time. It *twisted*. Like three hooks had been sunk into my ribs and someone was pulling them in different directions.

My schedule fluttered to the floor. I caught the edge of a water fountain and hung on.

*Not here. Please, not on the first day.*

"Whoa. Hey."

A pair of muddy cleats stopped in front of me. I followed them up. Track pants. A faded Harlow Hawks hoodie. A guy with sandy hair and a sunburned nose, holding a mesh bag of soccer balls over one shoulder.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Fine," I lied.

"You're kind of the color of printer paper."

"First day nerves."

He set the ball bag down. Slowly. Like he didn't want to spook me.

"I'm Nolan," he said. "Nolan Pruett. I'm supposed to be at practice, but honestly, Coach won't notice if I'm late. He never notices anything before ten."

Another wave hit. I bent forward, gripping the fountain so hard my knuckles cracked. A small sound slipped out of me.

Two girls walking past slowed down. One whispered, "Is she gonna puke?"

Nolan shifted so his back blocked their view.

"Keep walking," he told them. Pleasant. Firm. They kept walking.

I waited for the questions. *What's wrong with you? Are you sick? Should I call someone?* I had a whole list of lies ready.

He didn't ask any of them.

He just leaned against the lockers beside me and stayed.

"You don't have to stay," I gasped.

"I know."

"Practice."

"Practice will survive." He nudged my fallen schedule with his toe, then crouched to pick it up. He glanced at it. "Oh, nice. You've got Mr. Delgado for chem. He brings donuts on Fridays. Bad donuts, but still."

I laughed. It came out cracked and wrong, and it made my ribs scream, but I laughed anyway.

He grinned like he'd won something.

"There it is," he said.

The pain rolled again. My legs started to fold. I slid an inch down the fountain before I caught myself.

Nolan straightened up. He didn't grab me. He didn't haul me anywhere. He just held his arm out between us, elbow bent, waiting.

"Do you want to hold on?" he asked. "Totally up to you."

I stared at his arm.

Kieran had stepped in front of another girl to protect her from *me*. Rhett had dragged me by the wrist so I wouldn't embarrass him. Asher had held me close just long enough to snap a picture.

None of them had ever *asked*.

My throat went tight.

"Why are you being nice to me?" I whispered. "You don't even know me."

He shrugged. "You looked like you needed someone to stand here. So I'm standing here."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

I didn't take his arm.

I took his hand.

His fingers were warm and rough from cold mornings on the field. He blinked once, surprised, then folded his hand around mine and held on.

And the bond *screamed*.

Not inside me. Not this time.

It shot outward, down the thread, like a rubber band snapping back. For one second I felt all three of them at once.

Kieran, in a classroom miles away, slamming his palm flat on his desk.

Rhett, on a practice field, stumbling mid-sprint, a hand pressed to his sternum.

Asher, somewhere in Pine Hollow, sucking in a sharp gulp of air like he'd been punched.

Then it was gone. The hooks in my ribs loosened. The pain drained out of me so fast I felt dizzy with it.

"Hey." Nolan squeezed my hand. "You good? You just went really still."

"I think…" I straightened up. My legs held. "I think it's passing."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He didn't let go right away. He waited until I let go first.

"Cool," he said, and picked his ball bag back up like nothing strange had happened at all. "Room 214 for chem. Up the stairs, take a left. If you get lost, just follow the smell of burnt sulfur."

I stared at him. "You're really not going to ask?"

He paused. Thought about it.

"Nope," he said. "If you ever want to tell me, I'll listen. If you don't, that's fine too."

He walked off toward the gym doors. Halfway there, he turned around and walked backward.

"Welcome to Harlow, new girl!"

The doors swung shut behind him.

I stood there, flexing the hand he'd held. It still felt warm.

Then my phone buzzed in my back pocket.

I pulled it out.

**Kieran calling.**

My thumb hovered over the screen. In two years, Kieran had never called me first. Not once. Not on my birthday. Not the night I got the flu so bad the healer kept me for three days.

I watched it ring until it stopped.

The screen went dark for exactly two seconds.

**Rhett calling.**

I let that one ring out too.

Before I could even put the phone away, it lit up a third time.

**Asher calling.**

A bell rang somewhere above me. Lockers slammed. Kids poured into the hall around me, laughing, shoving, completely normal.

I turned the phone face down against my palm and let it buzz.

Once. Twice. Five times.

Then it went quiet.

I tucked it into my pocket and started up the stairs toward Room 214.

I was on the third step when it buzzed again. Short this time. A text.

I shouldn't have looked.

I looked.

It was from Kieran. Just four words.

**Who the hell touched you?**