CHAPTER 4

The command echoed in the air, low and final.

“Call her out. Now. Shift.”

My body locked, my heart hammering in my chest so hard I thought it would burst. My lips parted, but no sound came. The silence was broken only by the thunder in my blood.

Then it began.

The pain.

It was sharp at first, like knives sliding under my skin, peeling me open from the inside out. My spine arched back violently, a scream tearing from my throat before I could stop it. The floor beneath my knees blurred as my palms clawed at the ground.

Bones cracked. Snapped. Reformed. My fingers curled and split, reshaping into claws that scraped across the stone. My ribs caved inward then pushed out, my chest breaking and healing all at once.

It was worse than anything I had ever endured — worse than the fists, the slaps, the punishments. Worse than nights of being used and discarded. Every scar carved into me, every moment of hate I had swallowed, every cruel word — it all burned through me now, igniting into fire.

Tears streamed hot down my cheeks, dripping onto the floor, but still my body convulsed. Still the shift dragged me forward, piece by piece. My skin tore like paper, giving way to fur. My voice broke into a strangled howl as my jaw cracked and lengthened, reshaping into a snout lined with sharp new teeth.

I used the pain. I reached for it. The memories came unbidden: the omega’s nails in my skin, my Alpha’s voice barking hate, the pack’s laughter as they spat at me. I let them pour into me. I let them burn.

And beneath it all — fury. Rage I never knew I had.

The sound of my own bones shattering filled my ears, until suddenly the noise changed. It became… silence. A heavy, vast silence that filled my chest with something else.

Breath. Strength. Power.

I staggered, my legs stretching longer than they had ever been. Paws struck the floor where hands had once been. The world sharpened around me — scents flooding my nose, sounds stretching farther than walls.

The tears still slid down my face, but they no longer fell from human skin.

They slid down the muzzle of my wolf.

I stilled, chest heaving, the fire of the shift fading into something deeper. I turned, just enough to catch a glimpse of myself reflected faintly in the polished wood of the vanity.

Red.

A coat of deep, blazing red, darker at the back, streaked with black along my shoulders, my tail tipped in white. The color burned like fire against the cold stone room, like something too alive to be contained.

And my size — I was larger than the wolves I had seen in the pack. Broader, taller, muscles rolling under my fur with strength I never imagined.

For the first time in my life, I looked at myself — really looked — and the world shifted with me.

Silence held me. Awe rooted me. I had no words, no breath, only this:

I am not nothing.

I turned toward him — the man who had just done what my own Alpha never could. The man who told me he was not my Alpha. My eyes found his, and for a heartbeat something flickered there. Something almost soft. Recognition? Surprise? But it vanished so fast I thought I imagined it.

“Shift back,” he ordered.

I hesitated. My heart thudded against my ribs. Shift back? Could I even do that? What if it hurt again? What if I failed?

But defiance meant punishment. And I couldn’t bear any more pain tonight.

I lowered my head and reached inward, searching for the thread of myself. The pull came more easily this time, warm instead of burning. My body shuddered, fur retracting, bones reforming. The change rolled through me like a tide — still strange, still heavy, but bearable.

When it was done, I was kneeling on the stone floor. Human again.

I rose slowly, legs trembling, arms crossing instinctively over my chest. My eyes flicked to the polished wood of the vanity.

And stopped.

The girl staring back at me wasn’t the same girl who had crawled in here on her knees. Her skin was smooth where it had been bruised. The cuts on her arm were gone. Her face — her face had color again, life again. She was whole. Her wolf had healed her.

I almost smiled. Almost. But the moment cracked as his voice cut across the room:

“Get your things. We’re leaving now.”

I turned to him, eyes wide. “Leaving… with me?”

He didn’t blink. “Did you forget? You’re my slave now.”

The word landed like a stone in my stomach. Slave. Not saved. Owned. My breath caught. For a heartbeat, the healed skin felt heavier than before.

But I nodded quickly, swallowing whatever rose in my throat. “I’ll… I’ll get my clothes.”

I turned to go, bare feet whispering against the cold floor.

“Stop.”

I froze.

His coat came sailing through the air, heavy and dark, landing in my hands. “Put it on.”

I fumbled it open, wrapping it around myself. The fabric was warm, far too big, swallowing me whole. His scent rose up from it, sharp and powerful, filling my nose, sliding down my throat until my head spun. My knees almost buckled under the weight of it — not unpleasant, but overwhelming, like drowning in a storm.

I tightened the coat around me and stepped toward the door. My fingers touched the handle, but before I could turn it, I heard them — doors slamming shut down the corridor, one after another like a line of falling dominoes.

They’d been listening.

They’d heard everything. My shift. His claim.

The hall beyond was silent now, but heavy with unseen eyes.

I straightened the coat around me, clutching it tighter, and walked — one foot in front of the other — toward the kitchen and the tiny corner room where my things waited.

I knelt by the low cot, pulling out my torn clothes, the only possessions I had, and stuffed them into a plastic bag. My hands shook. My chest felt strange — lighter, heavier, both at once.

Somewhere behind me, the air shifted. The pack had heard. They knew. Everything was different now.

And yet, everything still felt like a cage.

I stuffed the last torn piece of cloth into the plastic bag, my fingers trembling. The coat hung heavy on my shoulders, still thick with his scent, making my head swim. I was tying the bag closed when a sound behind me made my stomach drop.

I turned.

The omega stood in the doorway, her eyes blazing like fire.

I flinched without thinking, stumbling backward until my hip hit the edge of the cot. My heart skittered like a trapped bird.

She walked toward me slowly, deliberately. The air between us felt like a wire strung too tight. She stopped so close I could feel the heat of her breath and lowered her face toward mine, inhaling deeply — sniffing the coat I wore like it was an insult.

Her lips curled back. Her voice was low but venomous.

“Listen carefully, you ugly, dirty bitch,” she hissed. “Don’t think just because you’re being taken away you’re safe from me. No. I will find you. And I will give you the most painful death you’ve ever heard of. So painful you’ll feel it even in your grave.”

Her words slid into me like shards of glass. My body trembled. My breath came in short, ragged pulls. I believed her. Every word.

She straightened, eyes still burning. “They’re waiting for you outside.”

And then she turned and left, the sound of her footsteps fading into the hall.

I stayed frozen, the plastic bag crumpled in my hands. Her words rang in my skull, over and over, like a curse.

A trembling sigh escaped me, my shoulders sagging under the coat. I forced myself to move. One step. Another. My legs felt like wood as I followed the corridor toward the main door.

Outside, the air was cold and sharp. A dark car sat waiting, its engine low and steady. Alpha Mace sat at the wheel, the older man beside him.

I looked around. A few pack members lingered at the edges of the yard, their faces unreadable. My Alpha was nowhere to be seen.

I gripped the bag tighter and stepped toward the car. My hands shook as I opened the door and slid inside, the coat still wrapped around me like a shield.

Just as I settled into the seat, I looked back at the house. The house that had been my home. My prison. My hell.

My eyes drifted upward — and froze.

He was there.

In the window above, my Alpha stood looking down at the car. At me. His eyes locked with mine, dark and unblinking. And in that gaze, I felt the same promise the omega had spoken. A silent vow of hate.

The engine rumbled. The car rolled forward.

I watched the house until it blurred, until the trees swallowed it whole. My hands stayed clenched in my lap, the coat heavy around me, the scent filling my lungs until it made me dizzy.

I didn’t know what waited ahead. But behind me, hell had eyes.

The road stretched ahead in silence, the hum of the engine the only sound. I sat in the back seat, the plastic bag clutched tightly against me, Mace’s coat still wrapped around my body like armor I didn’t deserve.

His scent clung to me, heavy and suffocating. Every breath I took filled my lungs with him, and my head swam until I thought I might pass out. My wolf stirred faintly beneath my skin, restless, but too new, too fragile to rise again.

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass of the window. Trees blurred past, shadows rushing into one another. I had left the pack house behind — the place that had been my home, my prison, my hell.

But its ghosts followed me.

The omega’s threat burned in my ears: I’ll find you. I’ll give you the most painful death you’ve ever heard of.

And above it, the silent promise in my Alpha’s eyes as he’d stared down from the window, his face like stone. They would not let me go. Not truly.

I swallowed hard, clutching the coat tighter. My body trembled though I wasn’t cold.

Beside Mace sat the older man, his profile stern, eyes fixed on the road ahead. Neither of them spoke out loud but I could tell they were talking through their mindlink.

Finally, my eyes slid to the back of Mace’s head. His shoulders were broad beneath his dark clothes, his posture calm, unshaken. As though claiming me had been nothing. As though tearing me out of one hell was only another task on his list.

And I wondered… What new hell was waiting for me now?