Shivering in Frost

Chase

My feet carried me when my will no longer could.

They hit the ground hard enough that pain flared up my legs and vanished again, swallowed whole by something larger, louder, more urgent. I wasn’t running anymore— not really. I was being pulled. Dragged forward by a force I didn’t have words for, something deep in my chest tightening until it felt like my ribs might cave inward.

I felt it.

Not with my eyes.

Not with my ears.

Inside.

The moment life would change forever came like a violent snap in my chest, like something invisible had been yanked too far, too fast. My breath hitched so sharply it hurt, my vision stuttering as if the world itself skipped a beat.

Halei.

Her name burned through me, sudden and absolute, carrying terror with it so sharp I nearly stumbled. It wasn’t a thought. It wasn’t even a fear. It was knowledge.

Death.

The word slammed into me without permission, heavy and final. My stomach lurched, bile crawling up my throat as panic detonated beneath my skin. I wasn’t old enough for this. I wasn’t supposed to feel things like this yet. None of this was supposed to be possible.

But my body didn’t care about rules.

I shoved forward anyway, lungs screaming, air tearing its way into my chest like it was punishing me for every second I’d wasted. My throat burned raw, my side screaming where something pulled too tight, but I couldn’t slow. If I slowed, the feeling in my chest would catch up to me. If it caught me, I would fall apart.

“I’m coming,” I gasped, the words breaking as soon as they left my mouth. “I’m coming, I— I’m here.”

The forest blurred around me, branches slashing at my arms, leaves catching in my hair, roots rising beneath my feet like traps. Even the ground felt wrong. Too cold. Too still. Like it was waiting.

The pack land was silent.

Not peaceful.

Empty.

My chest tightened again— sharper this time— and I cried out despite myself, fingers clawing at my sternum as if I could tear the feeling out. It felt like someone else’s panic was living inside me, flooding my veins, hijacking my breath.

Halei was afraid.

No— worse.

She was in pain.

“Halei!” I screamed, my voice cracking open, splintering as it tore through the trees. “Harper!”

The names echoed back wrong, distorted, swallowed whole without mercy.

Someone answer. Anyone— please.

This is my fault.

The thought struck like a blow to the gut. I should have known. I did know— I’d felt the wrongness for weeks. Nights when Halei burned so hot the air around her shimmered. Nights when she shook and cried and begged me not to leave her alone. Nights when her heartbeat raced so fast I could feel it when I pressed my forehead to hers.

She wasn’t supposed to be changing yet. None of us were. But Father said it was sickness. The healers said it was weakness.

The drinks kept coming. Bitter. Sharp. Metallic. Always insisted upon. I remembered the way my nose had stung every time I carried her cup back to her. The way my stomach twisted without knowing why.

Wolfsbane.

The word rose in my mind like poison.

“I should’ve stopped it,” I choked, stumbling as my vision blurred. “I should’ve—”

A scream ripped through the forest.

High.

Wet.

Wrong.

It tore through my eardrums the second I broke through the treeline and into the clearing— and the bond in my chest screamed with it.

Time crippled beneath my fingertips. But time didn’t stop. It thinned. Stretched so tight it felt translucent, like one wrong breath would tear it open completely.

I crossed the threshold of the clearing and the first thing I noticed wasn’t blood.

It was the cold.

It crept up my legs from the ground, seeping through my boots, climbing my calves with a slow, deliberate hunger. Not the sharp bite of winter— no, this was worse. This was the kind of cold that burned, that hollowed you out from the inside and left you shaking, teeth aching, nerves screaming.

My breath hitched. A pale cloud spilled from my mouth.

I froze.

No.

That wasn’t possible.

It was July.

The height of summer pressed heavy against the forest beyond the clearing— humid, thick, alive. Cicadas should’ve been screaming. The air should’ve been clinging to my skin, sweat slicking my spine.

Instead, every breath fogged white in front of my face.

Again.

And again.

I swallowed hard, my throat tightening as panic crawled higher. My hands trembled, fingers numb and stinging at the same time, like I’d plunged them into ice and held them there too long.

Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

The air in the clearing crackled, sharp and brittle, like it might shatter if I moved too fast. My skin prickled, every hair standing on end as if the world itself was recoiling.

I took one step forward.

The cold deepened.

It slammed into my chest all at once— a sudden, violent drop that stole the breath from my lungs and sent a shock through my spine. My knees buckled, a strangled sound tearing from my throat as pain bloomed everywhere at once.

My wolf surged.

Not a full thing. Not a shift. Just a violent, panicked attempt.

Something inside me twisted hard, bones screaming, muscles locking as if they didn’t know what they were supposed to become. Heat flared beneath my skin— then vanished— replaced by that burning cold, sharper now, crueler. I gasped, clutching at my chest as frost bit into me from the inside.

No— no no no— I wasn’t old enough. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t sick…

This wasn’t how it was supposed to feel.

My vision swam, the world tilting as a sound tore its way out of me— not quite human, not quite animal. It died in my throat as quickly as it was born, smothered by pain.

The shift failed.

But my body didn’t know that yet. It kept trying. I doubled over, retching air, lungs spasming as another plume of white breath spilled into the clearing. My fingers twitched, nails digging into my palms hard enough to draw blood.

The ground beneath me was wrong too.

Cold.

It bled into death. The grass that was green fading to yellow and then to a grey decay.

I forced myself upright, every movement delayed, like my limbs were dragging through water. The clearing came into focus in pieces— fragments my mind refused to assemble all at once.

Dark shapes in the dead grass.

Something torn. Something broken.

I blinked hard, shaking my head as if that might fix it. “No,” I whispered, the word barely making it past my lips. “No— this isn’t—”

My gaze caught on fabric. Blue and familiar. Folded wrong. My heart stuttered. No… that didn’t make sense.

Harper wore blue today.

The thought surfaced unbidden, sharp and intrusive, and I hated it immediately. It felt like a betrayal— like my mind was clinging to something small and harmless so it wouldn’t have to look at the rest.

I took another step, the smell hit me then.

Iron.

So thick it coated the back of my tongue, crawled into my sinuses, lodged itself in my throat until I gagged. My stomach twisted violently, bile burning its way up as the cold in my chest pulsed again— harder.

Something in the grass moved.

I flinched, hope flaring so fast it hurt. “H— Harper?” My voice broke, thin and useless. “This isn’t funny. You— you can stop now.”

Silence answered me and the shape didn’t move again.

I forced my eyes downward slowly. My brain fought me every inch of the way, screaming denial, dragging up memories instead— Harper’s laugh, sharp and loud. The way she tugged Halei and me along when we hesitated. The way she always ran ahead, fearless, reckless, alive.

This wasn’t her.

It couldn’t be.

My breath fogged again, shaking now, each exhale rattling painfully in my chest.

I saw a hand, broken. Torn apart…

My vision blurred violently, tears stinging my eyes as something inside me finally, horribly understood.

No.

No—

I staggered back, a choked sob ripping free as my gaze lifted and the rest of it came into view— bone and blood and flesh arranged in ways my mind refused to name. Something that had once been my sister reduced to pieces that didn’t belong together anymore.

I don’t remember falling to my knees. I only remember the cold. It roared through me now, merciless, freezing my lungs as another failed surge of my wolf tore through my body. My spine arched, muscles seizing as pain ripped along my bones, white-hot and icy all at once.

I screamed.

The sound cracked, splintered, died.

Frost bloomed along my breath again, hanging in the air like a cruel mockery.

July.

It was July.

This wasn’t natural.

This wasn’t allowed.

The cold didn’t stop. It pulsed. Each ragged breath I dragged in came out white again, shaking, teeth chattering so hard my jaw ached. But beneath it— beneath the ice that burned through my lungs— there was something else.

Blistering heat.

Not mine.

It slammed into me through the bond like a second heartbeat, erratic and wild, scorching hot where my own body felt numb and brittle. The contrast made me gasp, pain ripping through my chest as if the two sensations were tearing me apart from opposite ends.

Halei.

She was burning.

Not feverish— infernal. The kind of heat that devours from the inside out, that turns fear into fuel and control into ash. I felt it the same way I felt the cold: intimate, invasive, undeniable.

When her terror surged, my breath stuttered. When her panic spiked, my knees hit the ground again.

It was wrong. This wasn’t how the bond was supposed to work— not like this. We were too young. Too unformed. The connection between us wasn’t meant to be this loud, this violent, this desperate.

She was unraveling.

And my body was paying for it.

A sound cut through the ringing in my ears— soft at first, almost lost beneath my own breathing. A broken, hitching noise that didn’t belong to the forest.

Crying.

My head snapped up, vision blurring as I searched the clearing again, heart hammering against my ribs. The sound came from the edge of the treeline, from somewhere just beyond the reach of the frost-thinned air.

“Mom…?” The word scraped out of me, small and fragile.

She stood there, collapsed in on herself. Her hands fisted in the front of her dress, shoulders shaking as sobs tore out of her in broken pieces. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears, eyes red and hollow— but she wasn’t looking at me.

She wasn’t even looking at Harper. Her gaze was locked on Halei, a dozen yards away.

Halei stood where the ground was darkest. Blood soaked into the grass beneath her bare feet, her toes slick and red as if she’d waded through something she couldn’t escape. A couple feet away dead lurkers littered the ground around her like a halo. They were torn with so much force, it was a step away from disintegration.

Her chest rose and fell too fast, breath coming in sharp, uneven pulls that steamed faintly in the unnatural cold.

Heat rolled off her in waves.

I could feel it.

Her hands trembled at her sides, fingers curled into claws she hadn’t fully retracted, knuckles smeared with crimson that had already begun to dry. She stared at them like they didn’t belong to her— like they were foreign things attached to her body without consent.

The bond screamed.

Pain.

Shock.

Horror so deep it hollowed her out.

My own chest seized in response, the cold spiking again, sharper now, more vicious. I hugged myself instinctively, arms wrapping tight around my torso as if I could hold my insides together.

“Lei…” I tried, my voice barely more than breath. “Hey— hey, look at me.”

She didn’t, her eyes were fixed on the ground in front of her.

On what used to be Harper.

The massacre revealed itself in pieces— not all at once. My mind refused to take it whole, insisted on breaking it down into fragments it thought I could survive.

A torn sleeve.

Too small.

A familiar bracelet snapped clean through, beads scattered and sticky with blood.

Bone.

No— not bone.

Her.

My breath hitched violently, another plume of frost spilling from my mouth as the truth clawed its way up my throat. I tasted iron and bile and something coppery and wrong, my stomach twisting hard enough that I thought I might retch again.

Halei hadn’t just lost control.

She’d fought.

Claw marks gouged deep into the earth around Harper’s remains, grooves torn into the dirt like Halei had tried to stop herself— like she’d dug in, tried to pull away, tried to run.

The knowledge crushed me.

She hadn’t wanted this.

A sob ripped out of my mother then, louder now, raw and desperate. “Oh— oh spirits—” she choked, stumbling forward a step before freezing again, terror flashing across her face as Halei’s heat flared.

“Halei,” Mom whispered, voice shaking so badly it almost broke apart entirely. “Sweetheart… baby… you need to—” She swallowed hard, eyes darting toward the trees, toward the path Father would take when he came. “Run.”

The word fell into the clearing like a fragile thing.

“Run,” she repeated, more urgently now, fear sharpening her tone. “You need to go. Now. Before he— before your father—”

Halei didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe.

She stood there, staring at what used to be our sister, eyes wide and empty and glowing faintly violet at the edges, reflecting something broken and feral and far too old for someone her age.

The heat pouring off her intensified.

The cold in my chest answered.

She whispered something then— so quiet I barely heard it over the pounding of my own heart. “I can’t.”

My mother sobbed. “Halei, please—”

“I can’t,” Halei said again, louder this time, her voice flat and hollow. “I did this.” She took a single step forward, barefoot sinking into blood-soaked earth.

The bond screamed.

And I knew— with a certainty that settled deep into my bones— that no matter what my mother begged, no matter what was coming for us through the trees…

Halei wasn’t going anywhere.

The air changed before he appeared.

It pressed down on the clearing like a weight, heavy and suffocating, bending the cold and heat alike beneath it. The frost in my breath thinned, warped, as if something larger was pushing back against it— asserting dominance over the space itself.

My chest tightened.

The bond flared violently.

Halei’s heat spiked in a sudden, panicked surge that nearly dropped me to my knees, and beneath it, something else rippled outward— recognition.

Fear.

Not the wild, feral fear that had been burning through her moments ago. This was older. Deeper.

I turned slowly.

He stepped out of the trees like the forest had parted for him. Our father didn’t rush. Didn’t need to. His presence alone commanded space, forced the world to bend around him. The ground seemed to harden beneath his boots, the air thickening with every step he took into the clearing.

Alpha.

The word echoed through my bones whether I wanted it to or not.

My wolf shrank back instantly, curling in on itself, a whimper tearing through my chest as instinct screamed submit. My knees buckled again, muscles locking as pressure slammed into me from all sides— invisible, crushing, absolute.

Move.

The command didn’t come from his mouth.

It came from everywhere.

It invaded my skull, wrapped around my spine, sank its claws into my heart and pulled. My body responded before I could think, legs trembling as they strained to obey, to step aside, to bare my throat and make this easier.

No.

The word tore through me, raw and defiant.

I stumbled forward instead, planting myself between him and Halei, arms spreading instinctively as if my body could shield her from what he was.

The cold flared.

It erupted out of me in a sharp, violent wave, frost blooming thick in the air between us, my breath fogging heavy and white as pain ripped through my chest. The ground beneath my feet creaked softly, the grass stiffening with rime.

Our father stopped.

Just for a moment.

His gaze snapped to me, sharp and assessing, nostrils flaring as he drew in a breath— and then another. His eyes narrowed. “What is that,” he said quietly.

Not a question.

I shook, teeth chattering violently now, cold burning through my veins like acid. My heart slammed against my ribs, every beat a struggle, but I didn’t move.

“Girl,” he said then, his voice cutting through the clearing like a blade. “Step away from him.”

She didn’t respond.

His gaze shifted— past me— and landed on Harper. Everything hardened. The air slammed down harder, the alpha pressure doubling, tripling, crushing the breath from my lungs. I gasped, vision swimming as my knees threatened to give out entirely.

Move!

The command roared louder this time, tearing through me, ripping at my instincts until my wolf screamed in agony. I felt something give inside my chest, a sharp crack of pain as I fought it with everything I had.

“Father—” I choked, the word barely escaping my throat. “Please.”

His eyes flicked back to me. Cold. Assessing. Then something else.

Recognition.

“You’re freezing,” he said, voice low, dangerous. “In summer.”

The words sent a shudder through me. I hadn’t realised how far the frost had spread— how the air around me steamed unnaturally, how my breath curled thick and white with every ragged inhale.

He took a single step closer.

The cold recoiled instinctively, pain flaring bright and vicious as my body strained to hold it back. My muscles screamed, bones aching like they were being pulled apart from the inside.

“Move,” he growled.

“No!” I shouted, the sound tearing free of me, cracked and desperate. “You’re not touching her.”

For a heartbeat— just one— I thought he might strike me instead.

Then Halei moved. “Chase,” she whispered.

I turned just in time to see her step around me, her movements slow, deliberate, eyes never leaving Harper’s body.

“It’s okay,” she said softly, like she was soothing me. “It’s okay.”

My chest seized. “Halei— don’t—”

A blur of motion. A hand— his hand— snapped around her throat with brutal precision, fingers locking tight as he dragged her backward in a single, violent pull. Halei gasped, a broken sound tearing from her as her feet left the ground, blood slick beneath her soles.

“No—!” I lunged forward, the cold exploding out of me in a blinding surge as pain ripped through my spine. My wolf screamed, something inside me shattering as I slammed into the edge of his dominance like a wall.

He didn’t budge.

I hit the ground hard, breath knocked from my lungs as frost burst from my mouth in a violent cloud.

Halei’s eyes met mine as she was hauled away. Wide. Glowing.

Apologetic.

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed, then she was gone.

The pressure vanished all at once.

The cold collapsed inward.

I lay there gasping, chest heaving, frost melting uselessly into the dirt as the sound of my mother’s sobs shattered the silence behind me.

The clearing felt empty.

Broken.

And I knew— with a certainty that hollowed me out completely— that whatever had just awakened inside me…

Nothing would ever be the same again.