LOGINHe nods, a small acknowledgment. “It’s the first thing I noticed about you.” “That I’m weak?” “That you go out of your way to hide it,” he says. “But you’re not very good at hiding who you are. Not when you actually care.” The glass in my hand trembles. I set it down, hard enough that water slosh
He sits, not at the edge but comfortably back, as if this is just another war room and not the private sanctum of someone who might destroy or promote him with a single phrase. I gather my papers into a single stack, then join him, perching on the arm of the opposite chair because I can’t quite brin
I feel it, the sharp and certain thrill of the hunt completed, the enemy cornered, the blood in the air. “He’s dead,” I say, almost reverent. Lucas meets my gaze, and this time he holds it, neither of us looking away. “You did this,” he says quietly. “I was just the enabler.” For a second, I want
The wolf bristles at that, but I hide it behind a tight smile. “Impressive.” Lucas nods, modesty so practiced it almost seems genuine. “We cross-checked Derek’s travel with the wire transfers. Every spike matches a new LLC formation, every lull a consolidation in Zurich or the Caymans. He got greed
Rain laces the window in frantic diagonals, painting the city with streaks of white against the sodium glow of traffic and the neon shiver of signage. My office hums with the peculiar electricity that only comes after midnight: the click of the elevator echoing through the empty floors, the low moan
“What is it?” he asks, and I hear the hope, the craving for victory. It mirrors my own, amplified by the late hour and the proximity of another hungry soul. I pivot the laptop so he can see. “It’s the dummy shell. Not just the primary—Derek’s got a whole stack of LLCs feeding into the same offshore
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.
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







