Chapter 4: The Beast Within

The world still spun with golden light when she broke our kiss, but the howls outside were too near. The fires on the hills threw writhing shadows across the windows and I could feel the baby reacting to the surge of power, moving restlessly in my arms.

“We have to go,” Maxwell said hoarsely. “They’re going to be coming to get you with the bond awakening.”

"The bond...” I touched my lips, tingling still from his kiss. New memories were rushing back — stolen moments in the treehouse, whispered promises beneath moonlight, the gut-wrenching agony when he’d vanished. "You knew all along. Even when I married David..."

"I wanted to stop you." His jaw clenched. “But if Id interfered, it would have all come out early. You didn’t know what your power even was back then. That shock could have killed you.”

"So you watched." The words came out bitter. “While he was abusing me, while he — ”

“While he attempted to subvert what was meant to be ours. (Maxwell’s eyes flashed dangerously.) “He knew how we were to one another. That's why he chose you. Broken mate bond's is powerful magic, especially between Guardians.”

Mom came to the doorway, her face taut with worry. “They’ve broken through the outer wards. James is keeping them back, but—”

A crash toward the front of the house interrupted her. And David’s voice, distorted with fury and power, poured through the walls: “Come out, little mate! 'Let’s see if your new protector can handle a pack alpha!’

The baby kicked hard enough that I gasped. Maxwell’s hand moved to my stomach, that warm golden light pouring from his palm.

“The child knows the real connection,” he said quietly. “It’s battling against David’s power.”

"How touching." With a snarl, partially in wolf form, Sophie stepped through the kitchen door. “But that abomination is our pack’s now. The ritual requires it."

Maxwell galloped faster than I was able to follow, moving into position between us. But before he could make such a move, power rushed through me — primal, instinctive. Sophie was blasted backward, crashing into the wall hard enough to crack plaster.

“The baby,” I spat, my eyes flicking to gold, “is mine and mine alone.”

“Lena,” Maxwell called aloud, sounding worried. “Get you to the sanctuary we need.” The full moon rises and as the bond awakens—“

The pain coursing through my body was different this time. It felt as if every nerve were on fire. "What's happening to me?"

"Your first change." He caught me just as my legs buckled. “The pregnancy is speeding everything up. We need to—"

The wall of the kitchen exploded toward inside. David silhouetted in the wreckage, halfway between man and wolf. At least twenty pack members snarled and paced behind him.

“You thought you could get away with this? Did you really think I wouldn’t have a backup plan?” he chortled, the tone inhuman. “The ritual doesn’t require you to be alive, Lena. Only your blood and the child.”

“Over my dead body,” Maxwell growled, his own shape beginning to change.

"That's the idea." David’s smile revealed too many teeth. “Kill the Guardian, claim his mate, finish the ritual. The old ways fall tonight."

My bones shifting beneath my skin like an earthquake, and the blood that pumped between my temples was electric with ancient power. But this time I didn’t argue. This time I let the beast out of its cage.

“You wanna see a monster, David? My voice came out a growl as golden light flared around me. “Let me show you what a Weber can do.”

The change I experienced, however, was not the vicious, savage metamorphosis of the wolves. This was something more primal, older. Light streamed from my skin as my body reformed, grotesque features of both wolf and some other thing taking shape and causing the members of the pack to back away in fear.

When it finished, I stood on four legs, my coat glittering with golden symbols hovering within it, just like what I’d projected before. I was bigger than any wolf, my eyes aglow with ancient power. Maxwell hadn’t been idle himself – he sat beside me, midnight black fur laced with silver runes, his shape now an exact match for mine.

I felt his fierce joy through our newly awakened bond. Together, he mind-melded with me. As it always should have been.

David's pack attacked.

And in that mad flurry of tooth and claw, with magic lighting the night, at last I comprehend what I really was — something other than Guardian, something other than Weber. Born of love and betrayal, of ancient power and modern strength.

The monster inside me was not a curse to be feared. It was a birthright to be welcomed.

And when Maxwell and I fought back to back, our powers mixing, the bond that kept us as mates, I knew nothing would ever be the same again.

The world was changing. And so was I.