Chapter 7 Chapter 7

My hands began to tingle, then burn. I looked down and watched in fascination and terror as my fingers elongated, nails darkening and sharpening into claws. The sight should have been horrifying, but instead I felt a strange sense of rightness, like pieces of a puzzle finally clicking into place.

"That's it," Kyle murmured. "Let it happen. Don't fight it."

Easy for him to say. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to resist this transformation, to stay human, to stay safe. But my body had other plans. My jaw ached as my teeth shifted and sharpened. My hearing became impossibly acute; I could hear Kyle's heartbeat, steady and reassuring beside my own frantic rhythm.

The world exploded into scent. I could smell everything: the rich loam beneath my hands, the sap in the trees, the lingering smoke from the bonfire miles away. And Kyle, pine and earth and something uniquely him that made my emerging wolf whine with recognition.

"Almost there," he said softly. "You're doing great, Imogen."

I wanted to tell him to shut up, that I wasn't doing anything but surviving, but speech was beyond me now. My throat felt raw and changed. The final wave of transformation hit like a tsunami, reshaping everything that I was.

When it was over, I found myself on four legs, panting heavily. My vision had shifted, colours muted but movement sharper. The world looked different from this height, this perspective. I tried to stand and stumbled, my new body unfamiliar and strange.

I had a wolf. I actually had a wolf.

The realisation hit me with a joy so pure it nearly knocked me over again. I wasn't broken. I wasn't defective. I was exactly what I was supposed to be.

I looked up at Kyle, who was watching me with something that might have been pride on his face.

"Hello, beautiful," he said quietly.

I turned my head to the side, not sure what he just said.

A strange rumble vibrated through my chest. It took me a moment to realise I was growling. Not at Kyle, but at the implication of his words. Beautiful? Was he mocking me? My ears flattened against my head instinctively.

Kyle seemed to sense my confusion. He knelt down slowly, keeping his movements deliberate and non-threatening.

"Your wolf," he explained. "She's... stunning. Marble pattern red, black, grey and small patches with these incredible green eyes."

That’s when I heard two other voices, no, no, no, it was the other two Williams brothers.

My hackles raised immediately, every instinct I'd just discovered screaming at me to run. The sound of Asher and Caspian's voices carried through the trees, getting closer with each passing second.

I spun toward Kyle, a snarl building in my throat. He'd set me up. This whole thing, his concern, his gentle words, staying with me through the shift, it had all been a trap. A way to get me vulnerable so his brothers could witness my transformation, probably so they could all have a good laugh about it later.

Kyle's eyes widened as he read the accusation in my posture. "Imogen, no. I didn't..."

But I was already moving. My new body felt strange and uncoordinated, but desperation gave me speed. I bolted toward the tree line, stumbling over my own paws but driven by pure panic.

"Imogen, wait!" Kyle called after me, but I didn't stop.

The forest was a different world through my wolf's senses. Every smell was amplified, every sound crystal clear. I could hear Kyle crashing through the underbrush behind me, and worse—the voices of his brothers getting louder.

"...thought we heard something..."

"Kyle said he was tracking..."

I put on another burst of speed, my wolf instincts finally starting to coordinate with my conscious mind. Branches whipped past me as I wove between trees, following paths I'd never seen but somehow knew were there.

This was exactly what I'd feared. The humiliation, the invasion of privacy, the feeling of being cornered by the Williams triplets. Again. Just like when I was twelve, except now I was naked and transformed and more vulnerable than I'd ever been in my life.

My wolf wanted to turn and fight, to bare her teeth and defend her territory. But the human part of me, the part that remembered years of being an outsider, just wanted to disappear.

I needed to get back to my clothes, back to being human, back to having some semblance of control. But first, I needed to get away from all three Williams brothers before they could turn this night into another source of shame I'd carry for the rest of my life.

I crashed through a thicket, thorns catching in my fur, and finally stopped in a small ravine where I could catch my breath. My sides heaved as I panted, my wolf body still foreign but growing more familiar by the minute. The voices had faded behind me, but I knew it was only temporary. Kyle would track me; they all would.

I needed to shift back. Now. Before they found me like this.

But how? The transformation to wolf had been pure instinct and pain. Going back felt like trying to reverse a river's flow. I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to remember what it felt like to have human hands, human skin.

Nothing happened.

Panic clawed at me. What if I were stuck like this? What if I couldn't change back? The stories never mentioned that possibility, but then again, the stories had been wrong about a lot of things tonight.

I tried again, focusing on the feeling of my mother's pendant against my throat, but I couldn't feel it anymore. Had I lost it during the shift? The thought of losing the last piece of her I had left made something inside me howl with grief.

The sound that came from my throat was purely wolf, echoing off the ravine walls. Too loud. Too distinct. They'd hear it and come running.

I forced myself to be still, to listen. The forest had gone quiet around me, as if every creature was holding its breath. Even the insects had stopped their chirping. In that silence, I heard it the soft pad of footsteps, careful and measured.