INICIAR SESIÓNHe hesitates, professional discretion warring with the desire to assist someone he perceives as a flustered colleague in trouble. I maintain eye contact, my expression a careful blend of embarrassment and hope. Finally, he nods slightly. "One moment, please." He returns with a folded receipt, cris
Derek sits at a corner table, his back to the wall, his position offering him a view of the entrance—the instinctive seating choice of someone with secrets to protect. Olivia sits beside him rather than across, her chair angled toward his with an intimacy that confirms what I already know. Her hair
"Just focused," I finish for her, offering a reassuring smile that feels like stretching an unused muscle. "The Hargrove case requires particular attention." She nods, not entirely convinced but too professional to press further. When the door closes behind her, I allow my facade to drop, the smile
My fingers trail across the polished surface of my desk as I circle to my chair, feeling the cool wood ground me in the present moment. The computer wakes at my touch, the screen illuminating with a blue glow that paints my skin in artificial moonlight. I enter my password, then a secondary authenti
Derek's smile contained a predatory satisfaction I recognized all too well. "And Mara still has no idea?" "None." Olivia's laugh was soft, conspiratorial. "She's too busy with the Westmoreland case to notice what's happening right under her nose. By the time she realizes anything's wrong, the trans
The financial statements spread before me like a map of betrayal, each page a territory Derek has claimed in his campaign against me. The desk lamp casts harsh shadows across columns of numbers, illuminating discrepancies my human clients would miss but my wolf eyes detect with predatory precision.
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.
I close my eyes against the change, close my eyes against the light, against the light of the moon, the light that is more than I am, more than I can be, more than I can hold. I close my eyes and breathe, breathe like I am human, like I am, like I am still Mara, like I am still, like I am. My brea
I fill the space with my uncertainty, with my resolve. I fill it with the tension of solitude, of old words and old remedies. The small, leather bag stares back at me from the desk. It holds more assurance than I feel, more composure than I want, more than I can be. Wolfsbane, chains, the inevitabil
The final confirmation comes in the shape of a hidden file, a false-bottomed drawer, a false life. Derek’s private study is full of shadows, of secrets, of quiet deceit. The storm drums against the windows like a warning, like an omen, like the edges of what I know to be true. I begin my search with







