LOGINThe first pale light of dawn seeps through the slats of my office blinds, painting thin lines across the carpet. I stand at the window, pulling back the edge of the blinds to watch the city wake beneath me. The streets are quiet, peaceful—unaware of the betrayal I've uncovered through the night. My
The evidence glows on my screen like a digital confession, but it's not enough. I need more—something concrete, something undeniable. My fingers move across the keyboard with deliberate precision, each keystroke a small act of vengeance. The wolf in me wants blood, wants to tear through the building
The light from my computer screen casts blue shadows across my office, the only illumination besides the small desk lamp I've angled away from the door. My body aches with the recent memory of transformation, muscles still remembering a different shape, but my mind is sharp, honed by suspicion and t
By the time I reach the final button, my breathing has steadied. My reflection in the cracked mirror shows a woman reassembling herself piece by careful piece. The scratches at my collarbone will be hidden by the high neckline. The shadows under my eyes can be concealed with makeup. The wildness in
The crisp trousers slide over my legs, covering the scratches and bruises that map last night's journey. The fabric whispers against my skin, a language of civilization, of humanness, of control. I smooth nonexistent wrinkles from the material, a ritual of normalcy that grounds me in this form, in t
Lucas in the park that night weeks ago, his silhouette backlit by streetlamps as I completed my transformation in the shadows, thinking myself unseen. His strange calm when he approached, as if finding a colleague hunched and feral among the trees was nothing extraordinary. Lila noticing my monthly
The wolf dominates with relentless force. The moon dictates. The moon owns. My body sings with strength. I don’t know how to be Mara in this primal melody. I don’t know how to be Mara at all. Power surges in unfamiliar rhythms. The forest yields to my strength. I don’t want to yield. It is wild. It
The sounds are a violent rush. The cracking of branches. The scurry of prey. The sounds of my life. The sound of my bones. They are more than I can take, more than I am, more than I want. The violent and primal edge of it, and the quickness of it, the quickness and the loudness and the brightness
The world is a distorted blur. A terrifying abstraction. I feel my body disintegrate with the speed of the transformation. With the urgent and uncompromising force of the change. The first tingling spreads, the initial cracks ripple, and the seams of my skin explode with light. I can’t contain this.
The air is thick with the anticipation of it, thick with the anticipation of the fear, of the wolf, of the unbearable pull, of the unbearable pull of it. My fingers shake against the thread of the solitude, of the solitude and the night, of the thread and the night. They shake like I am not ready, l







