Isla’s POV~
I exhaled, a long, shaky breath that seemed to empty my lungs.
“Finally,” I whispered to the empty space.
The air out here was different.
It smelled of wet earth and pine needles and something wild that made the hair on my arms stand up.
I began to walk.
I didn’t have a plan.
I just needed to put distance between me and the room where they had cornered me.
I stepped over the invisible boundary and entered the tree line.
Immediately, my wolf stirred.
“What are we waiting for?” she asked.
Her voice wasn’t the mean girl from the bathroom mirror anymore.
She sounded eager.
“It’s time.
Shift.
Run.”
I hesitated.
My hand brushed the rough bark of an oak tree.
I was supposed to stay in the house.
That was the deal.
But my wolf was right.
We hadn’t had a proper run since the shift.
We hadn’t even been allowed to be us.
We had been a victim, a patient, a prisoner.
I took a deep breath.
I smelled a pine resin.
I heard the chirping of birds high in the canopy, a sound that used to make me jealous because they were free.
I closed my eyes and checked my body.
The pain was gone.
I touched my ribs, right where my father had kicked me.
He had broken my ribs while he threw me to a wall when he was hitting me.
I used to feel a dull ache there every time it rained.
But now… nothing.
“Alright,” I murmured.
“Just once.
Just one real run, and then we go back.
Deal?”
“Deal,” she purred.
I moved deeper into the woods, away from the path.
I found a small clearing where the moonlight broke through the canopy in silver shafts.
I dropped to my knees.
The ground was hard, covered in dried needles.
I didn’t fight it this time.
I just let go.
The shift started in my hips.
My spine lengthened, stretching out.
My skin rippled, turning into a thick, dense pelt.
It didn’t hurt.
It felt like stretching after a long sleep.
I dropped to all fours.
My hands thickened, fingers fusing into paws with black, leathery pads.
My nails extended into curved, white hooks.
I shook my head.
My ears migrated up the side of my skull, twitching, catching the sound of a beetle crawling ten feet away.
I was ready.
I pushed off the ground.
Oh my God.
I wasn’t running.
I was flying.
The wind hit my face, but it felt good.
It felt right.
The world was a blur of greens and browns and greys.
I could smell everything.
My paws hit the earth.
I was moving faster than I ever had as a human.
Faster than I thought possible.
“We are fast!” my wolf sang in my head.
“Look at us!”
We ran for what felt like miles.
My lungs burned, but it was a good burn.
I jumped over a fallen tree trunk without even thinking about it.
My body just knew what to do.
Eventually, the adrenaline faded.
I slowed to a trot, my tongue lolling out to taste the air.
I was panting, but I felt exhilarated.
I smelled water.
I followed the scent until the trees broke away, revealing a small, still lake.
The water was black, reflecting the moon like a dark mirror.
I stopped at the edge.
I was thirsty, but I was also curious.
I stepped closer to the water’s edge and looked down.
I froze.
The creature looking back at me wasn’t a monster.
It wasn’t the scrawny, bruised girl from the mirror in the bathroom.
It was a wolf.
But not just any wolf.
She was sleek.
Her fur was a shocking, pure white, glowing in the moonlight.
She was smaller than an Alpha, I could tell by the size compared to the trees, but she looked elegant.
Dangerous.
Fast.
Her eyes were a bright, piercing amber, rimmed with black.
beautiful.
I blinked, and the wolf in the reflection blinked.
“We are beautiful,” my wolf said, her voice filled with wonder.
She sounded proud.
I stared at the reflection.
I couldn’t believe it was me.
I had spent my whole life thinking I was ugly.
Broken.
Less than.
But looking at this creature, I saw strength.
I saw speed.
I saw a survivor.
A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.
It felt foreign, like I hadn’t used those muscles in years.
I nodded at the reflection.
“We are,” I whispered.
After sometime of staring at my reflection, I slowly shifted to my human skin.
Entirely naked, I sat still around the lake only to stiffen when I felt a movement behind me.
I turned only to see a large alpha wolf.
Staring down at me.
Its eyes were filled with a hungry gaze.
I waited for adrenaline to kick in.
For my wolf to go into flight or fight mode.
Before I could react, the wolf moved fast, pinning me against a tree.
Slade’s POV~
I was seven when I first killed something.
Brock was holding a brown, dirty rabbit.
It was trembling so hard I could feel the vibration in the air.
“We should keep it,” Brock said.
He was always the eldest, always trying to fix things.
He looked at the rabbit like it was a puzzle he could solve.
“We can build a hutch.”
Maddox leaned in, his eyes wide.
“It’s cute.
Look at its nose.”
Colt laughed and kicked a clod of dirt.
“It’s gonna die anyway.
Might as well let it go.
It’s boring.”
I didn’t say anything.
I just watched the fast pulse in the rabbit’s throat.
I reached out.
I didn’t ask.
I just grabbed it by the ears and the scruff of the neck.
Brock gasped.
“Slade, be careful.”
I wasn’t careful.
I twisted it.
The sound wasn’t loud, but it was sharp.
Like a dry branch breaking under a boot.
The rabbit went limp instantly.
One second it was fighting, the next the light went out of its eyes.
Something hot uncoiled in my chest.
It wasn’t guilt or sadness.
It was…
relief.
Like scratching an itch that had been there since I was born.
The silence in my head was beautiful.
“Slade!” Maddox screamed, backing away.
My mother started crying.
She always cried.
My father didn’t cry.
He took his belt off.
He beat me until my back was a map of red welts and I couldn’t stand up.
I remember lying in the mud, tasting blood and dirt, and all I could think about was the ‘snap’ sound.
I wanted to hear it again.
A week later, I found a cat.
It hissed at me.
I strangled it with my bare hands.
I liked the way the claws scratched my skin.
It made it real.
The week after that, a stray dog wandered too close to the pack’s territory.
It was big, mean, foaming at the mouth.
I cornered it in the alley behind the stables.
I didn’t use a weapon.
I used my teeth.
I tore its throat out.
The blood tasted warm in my mouth.
By the time I was ten, my father stopped punishing me.
He watched me clean blood off my hands in the rain barrel.
He saw the look in my eyes.
He realized that I wasn’t broken.
I was just…
different.
After all… every pack needs a monster.
They just prefer one that can be controlled.
He gave me an outlet.
Combat training.
Oh… how I thrived.
Other kids played tag.
I played war.
I learned how to break a nose with the heel of my hand.
I learned where to kick to rupture a kidney.
Then came the shift at sixteen.
That changed everything.
Before, the violence was a whisper in my head.
A thought in the back of my head.
Break it.
Kill it.
Tear it apart.
After the shift?
It became a scream.
My wolf wasn’t like the others.
Brock’s wolf was a King.
He was born to lead, to command, to sit on a throne.
Maddox’s was a General.
Cunning.
Patient.
He played the long game.
Colt’s was a Jester.
Wild, playful, aggressive, but he knew when to stop.
He had a brake pedal.
Me?
I didn’t have a brake pedal.
I didn’t even have a steering wheel.
My wolf was a rabid beast.
It didn’t want to lead.
It didn’t want to play.
It wanted to eat.
It wanted to destroy anything that moved.
The first time I fully shifted, I lost control.
It was a “friendly” training session.
Three of the pack’s best warriors.
They were older, stronger, supposed to be teaching me control.
They thought they could handle a sixteen-year-old pup.
They were wrong.
I tore one’s throat out before anyone could even react.
Blood sprayed hot against my face.
The second one, I disemboweled him.
I remember the shock on his face when my claws hooked under his ribs and pulled up.
I could still remember the way his intestines felt.
It was hot and slippery, sliding between my claws like wet snakes.
He screamed, a high, broken sound that didn’t last long because I ripped his jaw off next.
The third tried to run.
Coward.
I chased him two miles into the woods.
I didn’t shift back.
I ran on four legs, the wind cooling the blood on my fur.
I caught him in a ravine.
By the time I was done, they couldn’t identify the body without checking dental records.
I had torn half the meat off his bones.
Our father had to pay the families blood money.
A small fortune.
I stood there, naked and covered in gore, waiting for a beating.
Waiting for him to yell.
He didn’t.
He looked at me differently after that, not with disappointment though.
It was with satisfaction.
He walked over to me, ignoring the carnage.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from my face, cleaning me like I was a toddler who’d spilled juice.
“You’ll be our enforcer,” he said calmly.
“Our executioner.
Every king needs a headsman, Slade.
And you, my son, were born for the blade.”
He was right.
I was.
I snapped back to the present.
We were in the dungeon beneath Black Star’s pack estate.
The stone walls were slick with moisture.
It smells like piss, and blood.
I love it down here.
It’s honest.
There was nothing like false civility here.
No pretending to be gentlemen.
It was only a predator and a prey that had to be down here.
Power and weakness.
Life and the inevitable march to death.
A rogue was chained to the wall.
Silver-lined shackles bit into his wrists and ankles because he was stronger than he looked.
He’d been here for three days.
Maddox stood in front of him, his arms crossed.
He’d tried the ‘reasonable’ approach first.
‘Tell us who sent you, and we’ll make it quick.’ Bullshit.
We never make it quick.
Colt was leaning against the wall, picking his fingernails with a knife.
He’d tried charm, believe it or not.
He’d whispered pretty lies in the rogue’s ear, promising mercy if he talked.
Like this piece of shit would respond to his pretty boy routine.
He just spat in Colt’s face.
Colt had smiled and wiped it off, but I saw the rage in his eyes.
Then Father sent us.
Well.
Sent me.
My brothers just came along to make sure I didn’t have too much fun down here.