Chapter 13

Aeliana's POV

I ran until my lungs burned and my legs shook.

The forest was a blur of green and brown, branches whipping past my face as I crashed through underbrush without any sense of direction. I just needed to get away. Away from the training barn, away from Marcus's frightened eyes, away from the reflection that showed a stranger with silver eyes and claws.

Away from Caelan, who'd been moving toward me like he knew exactly what was happening to me when I didn't have a clue.

My enhanced hearing picked up sounds I'd never noticed before. Birds calling to each other miles away. Small animals scurrying through dead leaves. The distant sound of water running over rocks. Even my own heartbeat seemed impossibly loud, a drum that echoed in my chest.

This is what Marcus meant when he talked about my wolf waking up. This overwhelming flood of sensation, this feeling like my skin was too tight, like something was trying to claw its way out of my human shell.

I stumbled to a stop beside a massive pine tree, pressing my back against its rough bark while I tried to catch my breath. My hands... I looked down at my hands and felt my stomach lurch.

The claws were still there. "What's happening to me?" I whispered to the empty forest.

But even as I asked the question, part of me already knew. The part that had been stirring restlessly for days, that recognized Caelan's scent as home, that felt stronger and faster than any human had a right to be.

My wolf.

The thought should have terrified me. A week ago, werewolves were just stories in the romance novels I shelved at Mrs. Ross's bookstore. Fiction. Fantasy.

Now I was apparently becoming one.

I closed my eyes and tried to center myself, to find some kind of calm in the chaos of sensation flooding through me. But closing my eyes only made it worse. With my vision blocked, every other sense seemed to amplify.

I could smell everything. Pine needles and rich earth and something musky that might be deer. The lingering scent of other wolves who'd passed through this area, their individual signatures as distinct as fingerprints.

And underneath it all, calling to me like a siren song, Caelan's scent. Even from miles away, I could still detect traces of pine and leather and something uniquely him that made my chest ache with longing.

A longing.

"Mine," something whispered in the back of my mind. Not my voice, but not exactly foreign either. Our mate. Want to go back. Want to be close.

"What do you know about want?" I said aloud, and the sound of my own voice startled me. It was rougher than usual, with an edge that hadn't been there an hour ago.

"Know," the voice insisted. Always known.

My wolf. I was having a conversation with my wolf, and somehow that felt completely natural.

"I'm scared," I admitted.

Why scared? This is what we are. What we've always been.

"Because I don't remember how to be this. I don't remember anything."

Images flashed through my mind then, so quick and vivid they made me gasp. Running through moonlit forests on four legs. The feeling of wind in my fur. The pack hunt, working in perfect coordination with wolves I knew as well as family.

Memories. Real memories, not the careful reconstruction I'd been building for the past week.

See? my wolf said smugly. Remember now.

But the memories brought pain too. The knowledge of everything I'd lost, everything that had been stolen from me. A life, a family, a love so deep it had shaped who I was at the most fundamental level.

"It hurts," I whispered.

Hurts to remember. Hurts worse to forget.

She was right. Living in ignorance, even blissful ignorance, wasn't really living at all. It was just existing.

The pain in my body was getting worse. Not the emotional pain of recovered memories, but a physical ache that seemed to radiate from my bones. Like growing pains, but everywhere at once.

My wolf stirred restlessly. Need to shift. Stuck between. Not good.

"I don't know how."

Don't think. Just feel. Let go.

Easy for her to say. Letting go of conscious control felt like jumping off a cliff without knowing if there was water below.

But staying stuck between human and wolf was apparently worse than the unknown.

I slumped against the pine tree and tried to relax, to stop fighting the changes happening in my body. My vision sharpened further until I could see individual leaves on trees a hundred yards away. My hearing picked up sounds that had to be coming from the pack house, conversations and footsteps and the distant sound of engines.

Were they looking for me? Of course, they were looking for me. I'd run off into the forest in the middle of a partial shift, with claws and enhanced senses and no idea how to control any of it.

The thought of them finding me like this, of Caelan seeing me struggle with something that should be as natural as breathing, made fresh shame burn through my chest.

Not shame, my wolf corrected. Pride. Strong. Survived a curse that should have killed of my wolf. Still here. Still whole.

Her confidence was intoxicating. For the first time since waking up in Caelan's bed, I felt like maybe I wasn't broken. Maybe I was just... changing. Becoming what I was always meant to be.

The pain intensified, spreading from my bones to my muscles, making me curl forward with a soft whimper. But this time I didn't fight it. I let it wash over me, letting whatever was happening happen without resistance.

My bones began to shift and elongate. My spine curved, stretching in ways that should have been impossible. My face felt strange, like my skull was reshaping itself from the inside out.

But instead of being terrifying, it felt... right. Like coming home after a long, difficult journey.

Yes, my wolf purred as the transformation accelerated. This. This is us.

The world exploded into sensation as my shift completed.

Colors were different, less vivid but somehow more meaningful. Scents became a complex language that told me everything about the forest around me. Sounds layered themselves into a symphony of information.

I was on four legs now, and the sensation was so familiar it was like muscle memory kicking in. I looked down at my paws... white fur, just like the flash I'd glimpsed in my dreams. Pristine and luminous in the dappled forest light.

I was beautiful.

The thought came with such certainty that it startled me. In human form, I'd always felt ordinary. Pleasant enough, but nothing special. But like this... like this I felt magnificent. Powerful. Right.

"Our true form," my wolf agreed, and I realized the distinction between her voice and my thoughts was starting to blur. We weren't separate entities anymore. We were integrated, whole in a way I hadn't been since waking up with no memories.

A stick cracked somewhere behind me.

Every sense went on high alert instantly. My ears swiveled toward the sound, my nose twitched for scents, my muscles tensed for flight or fight.

Three distinct wolf scents. Pack wolves, familiar but not immediately threatening.

One of them was Caelan.

Mate, my wolf said with deep satisfaction. Come looking for us. Good.

But I wasn't sure I was ready to face him like this. The shift had left me feeling raw and vulnerable, like every emotion was amplified. And the way he'd been looking at me earlier, like he knew things about me that I was still figuring out...

Another stick cracked, closer this time.

I could run deeper into the forest. With four legs and enhanced senses, I could probably outpace them long enough to find somewhere private to shift back and collect myself.

Or I could stay and trust that the man who claimed to love me wouldn't hurt me when I was at my most vulnerable.

The decision was made for me when Caelan stepped into view.

He was in human form, moving carefully through the undergrowth with his hands visible and non-threatening. The moment he saw me, he stopped completely, his amber eyes widening with something that looked like wonder.

"Aeliana," he said softly. "You're beautiful, always has been."

The sincerity in his voice made something in my chest flutter. Not fear this time, but recognition. This was what he'd been waiting for, what he'd hoped to see again.

His mate in her true form.

"Go to him," my wolf urged. Safe. Ours.

But I held back, uncertain. What if I didn't know how to be around him like this? What if being in wolf form changed how I felt about everything?

Caelan seemed to understand my hesitation. He lowered himself to sit cross-legged in the forest floor, making himself smaller and less imposing.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said quietly. "I'll never hurt you.