The moon was almost full.
Not quite the blood moon that haunted Kane's warnings, but near enough that the air felt thin, alive—charged with something raw and ancient.
I hadn't slept.
My body ached from training, but it wasn't just soreness. Something beneath my skin stirred restlessly, like a second heartbeat I couldn't control. I could feel it in my bones, in my breath. A pressure building under my skin.
Like I was about to come undone.
And maybe I was.
Kane stood across from me in the courtyard. It was dawn, though the sky was still dark enough to swallow the stars. He held no weapons. Just his presence. Just those calculating eyes that missed nothing.
"You feel it," he said.
I nodded. "It's like something inside me is... pacing."
He stepped closer. "That's your wolf. She's waking. And when the full moon rises tomorrow night, you'll either embrace the shift—or the shift will break you."
My throat went dry. "And if I can't control it?"
"You will," he said.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because I've seen what you are when you're not afraid of yourself."
That stopped me.
He was the only one who didn't flinch when I showed fire in my eyes. The only one who didn't speak to me like I was a time bomb waiting to go off.
But that's exactly what I felt like.
"I don't know who I am anymore," I admitted.
"You're both," Kane said. "The girl who watched her world fall apart. And the wolf who's going to rise from it."
Later that day, I went to the mountain spring beyond the Sanctuary walls—a place Kane said helped "clarify the noise."
The water was freezing, crystal clear. I sat on the rocks, staring at my reflection, trying to see her—the wolf everyone else seemed to believe in.
But all I saw was a girl with shadows under her eyes and scars she hadn't earned yet.
I didn't hear the footsteps behind me until it was too late.
"Hello, Elara."
The voice was soft. Familiar.
When I turned, I saw a woman.
She had the same eyes as my mother.
But my mother was dead.
"Who—" I began, breath caught in my chest.
"You don't recognize me?" the woman asked, stepping into the light. Her voice was distant, echoing like it didn't belong to the living.
And then I knew.
This wasn't real.
Or rather, it wasn't the normal kind of real.
"You're... her," I whispered. "You're from the veil."
She smiled gently. "Your blood remembers."
She reached out and touched my wrist—the mark there pulsed with heat.
"You're not shifting because of fear," she said. "You're resisting your own inheritance. Stop clinging to the girl you were."
Tears stung my eyes. "I'm not ready."
"No one ever is."
She stepped back, dissolving like mist in sunlight.
"Let go," her voice whispered in my ear. "Or it will burn you alive."
By nightfall, I could barely breathe.
I collapsed in the Sanctuary's inner hall, clutching the floor as heat coursed through my limbs.
My skin was on fire. My bones were cracking without breaking. My blood howled.
Kane burst in the moment I screamed.
"Elara!"
I could barely hear him over the rush of my own heartbeat. My vision blurred. My fingertips stretched—clawed. My back arched, spine realigning.
I was shifting.
And it was agony.
I thought becoming a wolf would feel freeing.
It didn't.
It felt like dying.
But beneath the pain, something deeper emerged. A sound—not a scream, but a roar. Not fear, but fury.
Kane was kneeling beside me, but I could barely understand his words.
"Don't fight it. Let her through."
The world went black.
Then it went white.
I opened my eyes.
But they weren't my eyes anymore.
The room looked smaller. Brighter. I could hear heartbeats—Kane's steady, calm, strong. I could smell the blood in the walls. The iron in the stone. The wind outside the high windows.
And when I looked down—
Paws.
Black, sleek, powerful.
My body was no longer my own.
I had shifted.
Kane let out a breath and lowered his head slightly, eyes locked on mine.
"You did it," he whispered. "You're—"
I growled.
Not out of anger.
Out of clarity.
I was the storm they warned about.
And now?
Now, I was awake.