Free Web NovelChapter 56: Mental Conditioning
The bathroom’s quieter once Valentine leaves. Not silent, because nothing in this place is ever truly silent. Water still laps softly against the edges of the huge stone bath. Pipes hum somewhere inside the walls. Voices drift faintly through distant corridors. The scent of woodsmoke hangs permanently in the air.
River continues working slow circles into the muscles at the base of my neck while I float bonelessly against the edge of the bath, convinced I might never stand again.
Every part of me aches. Not the satisfying ache people post about after yoga classes and expensive gym memberships. This is the ache of discovering muscles hidden in places I didn’t know muscles existed. My stomach hurts. My ribs hurt. My thighs have become weapons-grade misery.
Even my fingers somehow hurt. River listens patiently while I describe all my injuries in graphic detail, his mouth twitching every few seconds like he’s trying not to laugh.
"The physical part matters," he says eventually, his thumbs pressing into another knot buried deep beneath my shoulder blade. "The mental more so. Your wolf isn’t separate from your body. People like to talk about shifting like it’s magic, but it isn’t. It’s biological. Your muscles, bones, organs, heart. Everything changes."
"Fantastic. That sounds deeply traumatic."
"It can be."
I turn my head enough to look at him. "That’s not reassuring."
His smile softens. "I’m not trying to reassure you. I’m trying to prepare you."
The honesty doesn’t sting coming from River. Never does. His fingers continue working through the tension while I absorb that. He’s preparing, not hiding things from me because they’re scary. Preparing me because they’re real.
Eventually he withdraws his hands and stands, holding one hand out toward me. Water streams down his forearm from where he’d been leaning over the bath. I stare at it for a second before taking it. He wraps a towel around my shoulders, tugging it snug around me. I don’t mind, enjoy the careful attention.
By the time I’m dressed, hair damp and skin still warm from the bath, he’s leading me out through the back of the lodge and into the trees.
Mountain air hits my face. Clean enough that every breath feels sharper than the one before it.
We walk slowly along a narrow trail winding between towering pines. Moonlight filters through the branches overhead in scattered silver beams. Nearby water rushes over rocks, farther away wolves laugh and shout and exist in ways I’m still trying to understand.
My thoughts drift toward Ezra. They always do lately, since that argument in the woods. Since I watched his body break apart and rebuild itself into something magnificent and terrifying beneath the trees.
I’ve text him. All that achieved was an exchange of awkward practical conversation. Neither of us has touched the real thing sitting between us. The hurt and fear. The fact that we both lost something in that argument. He’s due here in a day. My stomach tightens the second I think about it, because I miss him. Which is infuriating when I’m still angry with him.
Apparently both emotions can coexist and make each other unbearable.
River eventually stops beneath an enormous pine whose roots rise from the earth as giant twisting fingers. He lowers himself onto the ground, settling his back against the trunk and pats the space opposite him. I sit cross-legged facing him, our knees touching. With one big breath in and out, my eyes find his.
He grins. "Nice to see you again."
"What does that mean?" I laugh.
"You’ve been thinking too loudly."
I roll my eyes. "That’s not a thing."
"It is for you."
Before I can argue, he reaches forward and brushes a strand of damp hair behind my ear. The gesture so casual and affectionate it catches me off guard. He takes my hand and places it flat against the centre of his chest. His heartbeat is slow and steady beneath my palm. Next he reaches across and settles his own hand over the centre of my chest. My pulse is racing compared to his.
"Well that’s embarrassing."
His smile widens. "Match me."
"I don’t think that’s even pos–."
"Frankie," his voice makes me stop joking. "Match my breathing."
I watch his chest rise.
Fall.
Rise again.
Controlled, easy breaths.
River touches his forehead gently against mine for a brief second before pulling back. "Close your eyes."
The woods rustle around us, wind moving through pine needles overhead. His heartbeat presses steadily against my palm. I let myself stop thinking about councils and training and shifting and bond sickness and destiny and all the terrifying things waiting for me.
I close my eyes and breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
River’s heartbeat stays steady against my palm, mine still races frantic and wild. Gradually, so gradually, it begins to slow. To match his rhythm. To find the same cadence.
Forest sounds sharpen, a soft susurrus that sounds almost like voices, constant and eternal. Night birds call to each other in languages I don’t understand but feel in my bones. Beneath it all, River’s breathing, anchoring me to this moment, to this place, to him.
"Good," he murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper. "Just like that. Stay with me."
I focus on the rise and fall of his chest. On the warmth of his hand over my heart, the way our breathing synchronises, breath for breath, heartbeat for heartbeat. This intimate stillness, this deliberate connection feels right. I’ve been searching for it without knowing.
There’s a brush deep inside. I feel it, but have no words to describe. A thread of silk touching another thread, delicate and tentative, testing to see if the connection will hold.
My breath hitches.
"Easy," River says softly. "Don’t pull away."
The thread brushes again, more deliberately this time. And I realise, it’s him. Not his body or his touch or his voice. His essence. His soul. Whatever makes River who he is beyond flesh and bone and blood. And it’s reaching for me.
Reaching for the part of me that exists beyond my body.
I don’t know how I know this. I just do.
Another thread joins the first. Then another. They weave around each other, tentative at first, then with growing confidence. roots finding each other underground. Vines intertwining. The sensation’s overwhelming, so intense it steals my breath. I feel him in a way I’ve never felt anyone before. Not just his presence, but his emotions, his thoughts, the depth of his care for me, his pack, this moment.
"That’s it," he whispers, and his voice sounds different now. Layered. Like I’m hearing it with more than just my ears. "You feel it? The connection."
I nod, unable to speak. Tears prick behind my closed eyelids. frёewebnoѵēl.com
"This is what we are," he continues, his thumb stroking gently over my sternum. "Beyond the physical. Beyond the claiming and the marking and the knotting. This is the bond. The real bond. Soul to soul."
The threads multiply, weaves together into something stronger. Something unbreakable. I can feel his heartbeat not just beneath my palm but inside my chest, beating in time with my own. Can feel his breath in my lungs, the forest through his senses, more alive than I’ve ever experienced it.
"River," I breathe, and even that single word feels inadequate.
"I know," he says. "I’m with you."
We stay like that for what feels like hours, but is probably only minutes. Breathing together.
Hearts beating together. Souls speaking in a language that has no words.
The forest holds us in its ancient embrace, witness to this moment of perfect connection.
