Seventeenth Moonday - 2

But...

It didn't happen. The pain stayed. I felt the stirring inside, the angry howl of my wolf in my head as she woke within me, desperate and furious to feel the wind in her fur. But the shift never happened. I had a wolf, but neither of us could break free of my human form.

Why?! Why is this happening?

My nails strengthened, elongating into sharp, black points. The threat of a shift. But still nothing. I dragged frenzied claw marks through the old, weathered floorboards, my hands trembling from the pain.

"Please! Help!" I called out. I don't know to whom. Maybe I hoped for a guard patrolling the territory. Doctor Andromeda. Phillipe. Hell, even the Moon Goddess herself. I didn't care who helped me. I just needed the pain to end. I need to shift.

Arya... my wolf, I heard her growl her name in my mind. Her voice was strong but strained by the pain of a failed shift. She needed to be free. Needed to run wild under the full moon.

The door to my shack flew open, and a pair of familiar hands gripped my shoulders, hoisting me from the ground. I was dropped onto my bed unceremoniously. When I could finally breathe, I cracked open my eyes to find Doctor Andromeda's furious gaze burning down at me.

"Why didn't you take the medicine?! It would have stopped this pain!" she hissed, pulling a vial from her jacket pocket.

Before I could react, her solid hand gripped my jaw, forcing my mouth open. The viscous fluid slid down my tongue and throat, coating it in a heavy, metallic flavor that made me want to wretch. But she covered my mouth with her hand and pinched my nose shut until my reflexes forced a swallow. Only after my vision started to blur did she finally release me and shift away from my shuddering form.

The pain numbed instantly. But so did everything else. It was like swallowing a lead ball that weighed my body down and made it impossible to move. Arya whimpered and went silent, and a cold dread pricked at my mind.

Something is wrong. This isn’t… right. Where is my wolf?

"You are fragile, Aurelia. You've always been weak! That's why I brought that medicine for you ahead of time," she snapped, pacing around my shack. "I knew you'd end up suffering through your first shift. But I don't have time to deal with this right now. Lady Evangeline is on her first run, and I need to be on standby in case she needs anything, per Alpha Snow's orders. Or do you want me to explain to him that an omega servant disregarded my orders and ignored her medicine so she could have some attention on his daughter's special day?"

The words cut through the haze of my thoughts and the cold weight in my chest. The medicine numbed and dulled everything. Even my heartbeat felt distant. But those words still seared through me, bright, hot, and condemning.

"I... I'm sorry. I didn't—"

"Right. You didn’t. Ugh, it's fine. Just rest. And come to the infirmary tomorrow. I'll have another dose of medication for you to take. Try not to drop this set, Fumbles." Doctor Andromeda growled, storming out of my shack and leaving me behind in the dark.

My wolf was silent. Still. My insides quivered from relief of the pain, but also a strange, heavy fatigue that exhausted me beyond reason.

I caught a final sliver of the full moon bearing down on me through the window, a silent mockery of my suffering and answered prayers. As though the Moon Goddess laughed at my failed attempt to prove myself.

My failure to be the strong wolf I’d always dreamt I could be.