Chapter 55: Circuits
"Come on, cousin, you can do this."
Valentine sounds disgustingly cheerful for somebody currently torturing me.
I glare at her from where I’m lying face down on a training mat, spread-eagled leaving a me shaped sweat patch. My entire body hurts. Literally every single muscle I possess has entered a formal complaint with management. Five days of lessons, lectures, history, politics, pack structure, wolf biology, combat drills, endurance training and discovering that apparently becoming a werewolf isn’t something you unlock through positive thinking and emotional breakthroughs.
Turns out shifting requires absurd amounts of physical conditioning because your body has to survive every bone, muscle and organ rearranging itself at high speed. According to Vaela, an untrained wolf attempting a first shift can tear muscles, rupture organs, break bones, damage their heart or simply die when their healing can’t catch up. As I’ve been ’suppressed’, my super speed healing isn’t fully activated yet.
Apparently my childhood was supposed to involve years of specialised conditioning. Instead I spent mine eating microwave waffles and avoiding eye contact.
"I’m dying."
Valentine squats beside me. "You’re not."
"I can see the light." I sigh.
She rolls her eyes. "You’ve been saying that for three hours."
"The light’s getting brighter." I roll over and throw my arms over my eyes.
The training compound sits behind the main house surrounded by pine forest and mountain air that, while glorious, feels offensive when your lungs are on fire.
Sweat drips from my forehead, down my temples and onto the mat. My arms shake every time I try to push myself upright. Abs I didn’t know were in there, have been replaced with molten glass. Even breathing’s difficult. Five days ago I thought of myself as the chubby girl who can kinda jog and deadlift when she needed to, not fit, but capable. Five days ago I was an idiot.
Across the training area, obstacle courses, climbing structures and weights occupy an outdoor gym designed by psychopaths. Wolves jog past carrying logs on their shoulders while chatting casually. One woman is dragging what looks like a small car tyre uphill. Another is punching a heavy bag hard enough to make the chains scream.
Meanwhile, I’ve spent twenty minutes trying to convince my body to stand upright.
"You’ve got five more circuits." Val rises beside me, hands on her hips.
"I’m reporting you to HR."
"File all reports straight up my ass, babe."
"Damn you." I groan.
Laughter erupts from the sidelines. Jax is sprawled across a wooden bench beneath the shade of a pine tree holding a hot dog the size of my forearm. He’s somehow managed to attend every training session without contributing anything except moral support and carbs.
"You’re doing amazing, pup." He shouts round a mouthful of food.
I whine in his direction. "I’m being bullied."
"No you’re not." He sings. "Val’s going easy."
"Look at me, Jax." I gesture to my sweaty form. "Look. At. Me."
He studies me thoughtfully. "A little deceased, but still totally fuckable."
River snorts beside him.
Unlike Jax, River actually looks concerned. They decided that they would stay in pairs. Vaela’s compromise involved keeping them nearby while my body adjusted to the bond. All five are taking turns staying here with me, rotating between the mountain compound and the daycare.
Surprisingly, it’s working. The nausea that nearly had me decorating every room with projectile vomit has faded to a dull, manageable ache. I still miss them constantly, but it no longer feels like I’m slowly poisoned from the inside.
"Get up, Frankie," Valentine points at the track. "Five laps."
I groan loud enough to startle birds from nearby trees. "This is discrimination against new wolves."
"Not a wolf yet, and you won’t be if you don’t give me five more laps."
With a noise that belongs in a haunted house, I drag myself upright. My legs wobble, every muscle protests, my shirt’s stuck damply to my back. New sweat trickles down my spine joining the puddle.
Deep beneath the exhaustion, however, there’s a change. Five days ago I felt disconnected from my own body, now I can almost feel a stirring beneath the surface. Not my wolf exactly, more like the shape of her, the outline of truth waiting patiently for me to catch up.
Valentine notices me standing there. For once she doesn’t joke, she simply smiles.
"You feel it, don’t you?"
I swallow. I do. The feelings been shown to me before, when River was fighting for our lives. Beneath the exhaustion and frustration and pain, that ancient part is finally waking up.
Jax raises his hot dog. "Run, pup. Become the terrifying murder wolf you’re destined to be."
I stare at him. "You enjoy teasing me with processed meat during my training montage?"
He takes another bite. "I believe in you."
Despite the pain, I find myself laughing as I start running.
---------------------------------------
The pack bathrooms are ridiculous.
Normal people have a sink and a toilet and a shower. Sometimes a bath. Pack compounds have wellness retreats disguised as bathrooms. The room’s huge, with walls made from dark timber and stone, soft lighting tucked into wooden beams overhead, and enormous sunken baths built directly into the floor beside floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the mountains.
Pine trees sway beyond the glass. Steam curls lazily through the air. The scent of eucalyptus soap hangs thick enough to taste. My muscles are currently dissolving into jelly inside water hot enough to boil vegetables, and for the first time all day, I don’t actively want to die.
Valentine lounges in the bath beside mine, a feral woodland princess.
She’s completely naked.
I’m completely naked.
Neither of us cares.
Before coming here, I would’ve awkwardly tried to hide behind bubbles while apologising for possessing a human body. Here nobody seems remotely interested. Wolves treat nudity the way normal people treat elbows. It’s just there. Functional. Unremarkable.
"I swear she’s doing it on purpose." Val throws her head back dramatically. "I’m serious, Frankie. Every time I start liking her, she says something so unbelievably stupid."
I laugh, sinking lower into the water. "The hot beta?"
"The hot beta," She confirms.
"The one from the Ridge Pack?"
"The very same," Val grabs a sponge and points it accusingly at me. "Last night she told me she believes birds are a government conspiracy."
I blink. "I mean, once I watched this really convinc–"
Val gasps. "You too?"
"I’m not saying I believe it."
Val splashes water at me.
I splash her back.
The resulting water fight lasts all of ten seconds before both of us start laughing too hard to continue.
A knock sounds against the bathroom door, followed by River’s voice.
"Frankie?"
Warmth unfurls in my chest at the sound of him.
The bond sickness might be easing, but my body still knows exactly where all five of them are at any given moment. In a few days Corrian and Ezra take over, Leo’s coming for a visit. They’ve organised a schedule that nobody will explain to me because they know I’ll make fun of them.
"You okay?" River’s voice carries through the steam drifting lazily across the bathroom.
Deep and familiar enough that it soothes and relaxes. The question isn’t shouted, he never shouts. It arrives through the partially open door, he already knows the answer is probably a no.
Before I can answer, Valentine lights up with impish delight.
"You can come in, bro," She hollers, before looking at me with an eyebrow raised. "Can’t he?"
Her grin is pure trouble. I turn my head and glare at her over the rim of the bath, which only makes her laugh harder.
"Growling isn’t an answer, cousin."
"It absolutely is." I grumble.
Outside the door, River waits with impossible patience while Valentine continues looking delighted by my suffering.
Eventually, I let out a dramatic sigh. "Come in."
The door opens a second later and River steps inside. What continues to surprise me is how easy it feels. A week ago the idea of being naked in a room with anyone would have had me climbing walls. Now it barely registers.
Maybe it’s because nobody here treats bodies as scandalous. Maybe it’s because everyone else is so aggressively comfortable in their own skin that eventually I stopped noticing. Or maybe it’s because River manages to make every situation feel safe.
His eyes find mine, and stay there. They don’t wander, or flick toward Valentine when she stretches. Don’t drift when she stands up in her bath, or when she sloshes water all over the floor climbing halfway out.
River simply gives her a polite nod. "Val."
"River."
His attention’s entirely on me, the focus of it settles over my skin like a warm blanket. He crosses the room and crouches beside my bath, resting his forearms on his knees. Damp strands cling to his forehead from the rain outside and he smells like cool air, and home.
"How’re the muscles?"
A groan escapes before I can stop it. "All formally resigned."
One corner of his mouth twitches. "That bad?"
"I sneezed earlier and saw God."
The laugh he lets out is quiet but genuine. Before I can continue complaining, his hand settles against the back of my neck. Heat passes from him, through muscles that have spent days being abused by Valentine and Vaela’s definition of training. His fingers slide carefully into my damp hair, working slowly across my scalp.
The sound that leaves me is embarrassingly enthusiastic. "Oh."
River’s mouth twitches again, he repositions himself behind my head as his thumbs find the base of my skull, then the knots buried deep along my shoulders.
Pressure builds.
Releases.
Builds again.
Every movement unlocks some new ache I didn’t know existed. The tension drains from my body in slow, blissful waves until I feel half-melted into the bathwater.
Across from us, Valentine watches for approximately ten seconds before snorting. "My cue to skedaddle."
Neither of us looks at her. River works patiently as Valentine climbs fully out of her bath. Water drips from her skin onto the stone floor as she reaches for a towel.
"My presence is no longer required."
I crack one eye open. "Sorry."
She grins. "Don’t you worry about it, girl."
Wrapped in nothing but a towel slung carelessly over one shoulder, she heads for the door. River never glances in her direction once. Not because he’s forcing himself not to. Simply because his attention never left me in the first place.
Val catches my eye just before she disappears into the hallway. The smirk she gives me promises she’ll be insufferable about this later.
Then she’s gone. The door clicks softly shut behind her.
Silence settles over the room apart from the crackle of the fire, the occasional drip of water, and the steady rhythm of River’s fingers moving through my hair. The ache in my shoulders eases, my eyes drift closed. For the first time all day, with steam wrapping around us and River’s quiet presence anchoring me to the moment, I stop thinking about training, councils, bonds, prophecies, and everything else waiting outside this room.
For a few precious minutes, I simply let myself exist.
