Chapter One: Ethan's World

Ethan Cross stood in the courtroom like a god in tailored wool.

He wasn’t just winning.

He was orchestrating.

The jury hung on every word he spoke. The defendant—a CEO accused of poisoning a reservoir—sat behind him, polished and pale, rehearsed to look remorseful. His tie was loose. Eyes downcast. Hands trembling just enough to look human. All carefully crafted, as Ethan had coached him.

Across the aisle, the prosecutor sweated bullets. A man with evidence but no charm. No rhythm to his speech. No hooks. Just facts. And facts, Ethan knew, didn’t win trials. Charisma did.

Ethan’s voice was velvet over steel. “My client isn’t a criminal. He’s a man who made hard decisions in impossible circumstances. If there’s blame to be found, it belongs with the regulatory bodies that failed to act—not with the man who kept this city running through crisis.”

He paused. Let silence sharpen the air.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this trial isn’t about guilt. It’s about scapegoating.”

He let that hang.

And they nodded. Not just listening—believing.

Somewhere behind the gallery glass, the victims sat. A mother who lost her son to kidney failure. A man who drank tap water for months before the tumors bloomed in his gut. Ethan didn’t look at them. He never did. Their pain was a backdrop, a necessary echo. It didn’t matter how many stories they told or tears they shed—if the law could be bent, he’d bend it.

The gavel cracked. Not guilty.

The CEO broke into practiced tears. Hugged his wife. Looked upward as if thanking God instead of the man beside him.

Ethan didn’t celebrate. He just stood, buttoned his jacket, and walked out.

Outside, flashbulbs burst like gunfire. Ethan didn’t stop for questions. The moment the verdict was in, he was done. He never spoke to the paparazzi nor looked at the innocent victims left behind to pick up the pieces—after losing, after realizing justice had not been served.

His driver waited at the curb, a sleek black car purring like a satisfied beast. The city rose behind them, a skyline of glass and ambition. Ethan slid into the backseat, silence enveloping him like armor.

He didn't speak. He never did after a win. Because underneath the sharp suit and sharper mind, something else stirred.

The moon was rising.

His mansion sat on the highest hill in the city, overlooking the skyline like a predator watching prey. Walls of stone and steel. Windows like the eyes of a fortress. Inside—minimalism and cold elegance. A whiskey decanter untouched. A suit jacket draped over a chair. A laptop blinking with unopened emails from the guilty and the desperate.

He walked to the bathroom. The marble tiles were cold beneath his feet. Steam curled in the air as he turned on the shower. The water was scalding, almost punishing, peeling away the scent of courtroom theatrics, of perfume, of human closeness. He scrubbed until his skin burned. Not because he needed to be clean. Because he needed to feel raw again.

He stepped out dripping, letting the cold air bite into the heat. He didn’t eat. Hunger was a human need. Tonight, he needed something else.

He crossed into his bedroom, opened the hidden compartment behind the wardrobe. Inside—clothes made for ruin. A faded black hoodie. Grey sweatpants with frayed cuffs. A pair of cheap sneakers crusted in dried mud. They still smelled faintly of pine sap and blood.

He dressed slowly. Deliberately. Like a man preparing for a confession, he didn’t know how to make.

In the mirror, Ethan stared at himself. Tousled hair. Hard jaw. Eyes like gold coins at the bottom of a deep, dark well. And something behind them—feral, barely leashed.

He slipped out the service entrance. The elevator took him to the garage, bypassing the sleek sports cars. He took the older model Jeep—no license plates, no GPS, nothing to track.

But he didn’t head to the forest. Not yet. Tonight, there was an itch under his skin—something deeper than instinct. The kind of gnawing tension that no run could ease. Something was coming. He felt it like storm pressure in his bones.

He drove. Not fast—he liked to feel the city crawl beneath him. The rain started somewhere along 19th Street, dotting the windshield in soft percussion. Neon lights bled across the glass. Red. White. Green. All of it blurred like a memory he couldn’t shake.

He parked near the riverfront. Got out. Walked.

A girl selling roses in the rain offered him one. He declined. Her eyes lingered too long on him—like she sensed what he was beneath the skin. He disappeared down an alleyway, breath fogging in the cool air.

He came to a wall—a dead end—and leaned against it.

The world was quiet here. Just the drip of water from fire escapes. The hum of the city distant.

He closed his eyes.

And exhaled.

The wolf stirred.

He could feel the shift beginning—not just in body, but in his awareness. Scent sharpened. Sound stretched. He could hear the blood in a rat’s veins five meters away.

He growled softly to himself. Not yet. Not here.

He turned back toward his car, but something tugged at him—something old. Primal.

He didn’t know it then, but this would be the last night he ran alone.

The last night the moon belonged only to him.

It was nearly midnight when Ethan pulled into a shadowed alley behind Damien Voss’s townhouse. The district was silent—too wealthy for street traffic, too protected for petty crime. The perfect place to disappear for a while.

The air tasted of wet concrete and secrets. Ethan cracked his neck. His fingers twitched with anticipation.

This was his spot. He’d used it before. Voss wasn’t home—he’d skipped the post-trial celebrations, still trying to wash the guilt off his hands in silence. Ethan didn't care. He didn’t need an audience.

He opened the Jeep’s back compartment and stripped off the cheap hoodie, sweatpants, and shoes. Beneath them, his skin prickled in the cold. The transformation had to be clean. Controlled.

He rolled his shoulders, knelt on the damp asphalt, and closed his eyes.

The first snap of bone echoed in the alley.

It started in the spine—always the spine. Vertebrae stretched and cracked, contorting like a zipper of fire down his back. He hissed through clenched teeth. Then came the limbs—elongating, joints reversing. His skin rippled as fur surged forth, black and mottled like storm clouds.

His jaw split, reshaping into a muzzle, fangs descending like ivory daggers. Claws punched through his fingertips, splattering blood on the pavement. The pain was exquisite. Necessary. A promise that he was still in control.

Almost there.

And then—

Something slammed into him from the left, throwing him hard against the brick wall. Pain exploded in his ribs. He let out a guttural snarl, more animal than man.

He turned—fast—but not fast enough.

A flash of silver.

Agony. A blade cut into his side. Deep. The wound hissed with smoke.

Silver.

Panic surged. He lunged blindly, claws swiping. But the figure was fast. Too fast. A blur of dark fur and rage.

They crashed together again, claws raking fur, muscles straining. Ethan’s strength surged as the shift completed, bones locking into place. He pinned the attacker. For a moment.

Then—

A twist. A flip. The ground met his back.

She landed atop him, one knee crushing into his chest. Claws at his throat.

And he saw her.

Not a hunter.

A werewolf.