Mag-log inHe 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.
My name commands attention, even whispered behind mirrored walls. Mara Wolfe. I sense the weight of their eyes on me, catch the reflection of their stunned admiration. Before my floor arrives, they already fear me. The girl with the coffee spills half of it on the way to her mouth, staining her bl
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.







