"Grimm, no."
Soren said it out loud and in his head at the same time because the shadow under his bed had already started to move.
Grimm stopped.
Her ears flicked once but she held the shadow right at the edge of the bed frame and waited.
Across the room Selah stayed on her side propped on one elbow and watched him with that flat face of hers.
Her free hand rested open on the sheets and the frost on her knuckles had thickened into a white rim along the blanket edge.
She had been awake the whole time.
She had heard every word he thought was private.
He held very still.
"Selah."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't lie to me. I hate it when people lie to me. It makes me cold."
The temperature in the room dropped four degrees in two seconds and Soren felt the inside of his nose sting.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I won't lie to you."
Selah watched him for three more breaths then sat up.
She was wearing the thin gray shirt he had given her last night because she had moved in with one duffel bag and nothing to sleep in.
The shirt hung loose at her shoulders but rode up high on her thighs and the fabric clung where it touched her skin.
Soren's eighteen-year-old body reacted before his brain could catch up.
Heat rushed straight down and he was already hard under the blanket just from the sight of her in his clothes.
His thirty-one-year-old mind wanted to scream.
This body was a stupid teenager and he had zero time for this right now with everything else trying to kill him.
"Stay over there," he said and shifted his hips away from her side of the room.
Selah swung her legs out of bed and stood.
She crossed the room in three steps.
Grimm rose from the floor without a sound and Soren clamped a hand on her head fast.
Don't.
Master she knows.
I said don't.
...Yes master.
Selah stopped one foot from the bed and looked down at him.
The shirt was too short everywhere that mattered and her pale blue eyes were no longer blank.
"Move over," she said.
"What."
"Move over Soren Kane. I am going to sit on this bed and you are going to tell me what your wolf actually did tonight before I freeze the doorknob shut and we sort it out the slow way."
He moved over but kept the blanket bunched tight across his lap.
She sat on the edge.
The mattress dipped under her weight and she leaned forward on one hand so her hair brushed his shoulder.
Her other hand landed right next to his hip.
Grimm made a low sound from the floor that Soren had never heard before and never wanted to hear again.
Soren's nose started bleeding again.
He could feel the warm trickle but right now the bigger problem was the way his body refused to calm down with her this close.
"Talk," she said.
"A second-year student is going to be found at the bottom of the east wing stairs in about an hour," Soren said. "He's not going to remember why he was up there. His notebook is missing. The notebook had my name in it."
Selah's expression stayed the same.
"Did your wolf push him?"
"She says she didn't."
"Do you believe her?"
He glanced at Grimm.
The wolf sat calm with her sealed face pointed straight at Selah and the shadow under the bed looked normal again.
"I want to," he said.
"That's not the same as yes."
"I know."
She held his eyes then leaned in another inch.
Her free hand came up and pressed the back of one finger under his nose.
It came away with a smear of red.
"You're bleeding."
"I noticed."
"Why?"
"Allergies?"
"Soren Kane!"
"It's not a thing I can explain in one conversation!"
She looked at the blood on her finger then at Grimm then back at him.
And because the universe clearly hated him today she lost her balance on the hand she had been leaning on.
The frost on her palm had turned the sheet slick and her hand slid forward six inches.
Selah pitched straight down onto his chest for the second time in two days.
Her cheek hit his collarbone.
One bare knee slid up between his legs and her thigh pressed warm against his hip.
Her hand landed right on top of the hard line under the blanket before either of them could stop it.
She froze.
For half a second neither of them moved.
Then Selah yanked her hand back and her face went bright red and she scrambled upright so fast she almost fell off the bed the other way.
"You... that's... what the hell is wrong with you right now?" she snapped, voice cracking.
She glared at her own hand and refused to meet his eyes.
Soren wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole.
"I told you to not come close!" he managed to say but his voice came out rough.
Selah's ears stayed pink.
She sat back on her heels at the very edge of the bed and crossed her arms tight over her chest.
"What I was trying to say is that I'm going to help you," she said after a long beat, still not looking at him.
"Help me what?"
"Help you not die! Whatever you've gotten yourself into it's bigger than you and I have skills you don't. I don't want to wake up in a week and find out you got eaten by your own pet because you were too proud to ask."
"Why?"
"Why what."
"Why help me?" Soren didn't remember Selah as a kind character type.
She looked at him for a long moment, cheeks still flushed.
"Because you knew about the column. You held that wolf back just now when you didn't have to, and because nobody who wanted to hurt people would have hesitated the way you just did."
She slid off the bed, walked back to her own, and got under the covers with her face to the wall.
"Go to sleep Soren Kane."
"Selah?"
"What?!"
"Thank you."
She didn't answer.
Soren lay back.
Grimm hopped up onto the bed, pressed her white body along his side, and put her chin under his jaw.
The shadow that had reached toward Selah pulled all the way back to nothing.
Master.
Yes Grimm.
I don't like sharing you.
I know.
I'm not going to share you.
Grimm.
I love you very much master. I'm telling you now because in a little while I'm not going to be able to use words. The cap is too close. After tonight I'm going to have to stop talking for a few days so I don't break you.
He went still.
What?
Sleep master. I'll watch the door.
The hallway alarm went off four minutes later.
Three short bursts then the long one.
The long one meant a student down and the medics were already heading to the east wing.
Soren closed his eyes and counted his breaths while Grimm's tail gave one slow thump against his leg.
In the dark, very far away, a woman with white hair and wolf ears uncurled from a shadow pool and smiled at the ceiling.
One down, thought Yara. And the ice girl is mine to handle next.