For a moment, I thought maybe it was gone.
No sound. No scent. Just silence. Dense and waiting.
I crouched low behind the ridge, hand pressed to the mossy earth, every nerve in my body crackling. The fog clung to the underbrush, swirling gently like breath over still water. The only movement was the tremble in my limbs—and the knowing ache in my chest.
Then the hairs on my arms stood up.
Something was behind me.
I didn't hear it.
I felt it.
A shift in air pressure. A prickling at the base of my spine. A whisper of breath too close to be imagined.
A shadow moved across the forest floor in front of me—fluid, wrong. Like it wasn't moving through the world so much as bending it.
Then came the breath.
Wet. Hot. Close.
Right behind my neck.
I turned.
Too late.
It lunged.
Nyx didn't hesitate.
Mine.
And everything inside me snapped.
It wasn't a clean shift. Not the kind I trained for. Not the kind I could ease into, counting heartbeats and grounding breath.
This was wild.
Violent.
The shift erupted from within me.
Bones cracked. Skin split. My jaw dislocated mid-growl as my body tore itself into a new shape.
Claws pushed through fingertips. My spine arched, stretched, lengthened.
In one heartbeat I was Rhea.
In the next—I was the wolf.
Fur bristled across my back. My eyes saw red. My muscles coiled like steel cords. Rage poured through every nerve, sharp and scorching.
The creature was mid-leap, claws outstretched. It had been expecting a girl.
It got something else.
I slammed into it full-force, all teeth and fury. We crashed through the brush, tangled together, howling.
It shrieked. Not a scream—something worse. Like metal warping. Like glass under pressure. Like a thing that had never been hurt before suddenly bleeding.
Its flesh gave way under my bite, but not like skin. More like old leather soaked in something sour. I spat it out, gagging even as I lunged again.
It raked a claw down my side—too fast to block.
I snarled. The pain only made Nyx louder in my skull.
Harder, she barked. Rip it open. It's not real. It's not natural.
I darted right, then sprang left, jaws snapping toward its throat. But it was learning. It twisted under me, flipping into a low crouch.
I saw its eyes then—dozens of them, black and endless, spiraling down the side of its face like a whirlpool.
It smiled.
Again.
That same wrong stretch of lipless, knowing flesh.
Stop smiling, I thought savagely.
But then—it vanished.
Not ran.
Vanished.
One blink and it was simply… gone.
I froze, every hair along my spine standing on end. My paws sunk into wet earth as I twisted, sniffing, searching.
No scent.
No sound.
The forest had gone still again.
Nyx growled in my head.
It's toying with us. That thing doesn't hunt. It plays.
I stood there, panting, blood trickling from my ribs and shoulder. The shift itched. My skin tugged in all the wrong places. But I didn't change back.
Not while I was being watched.
Because I was being watched. I could feel it. The weight of unseen eyes. The quiet calculation behind them.
This wasn't over.
Not even close.
But it was hiding—for now.
Waiting.
Maybe regrouping.
Maybe planning.
I backed away from the boulder slowly, keeping my ears flat and my nose in the air. If I shifted back too early, I'd lose the advantage. If I waited too long, I'd bleed out.
But I wasn't leaving yet.
Not until I knew if Kol and the others were still alive.
I turned back toward the wreckage, padding low through the underbrush.
My paws left dark prints in the soft soil.
And the smell of my own blood led the way.