Chapter 19. The Fever in Her Blood

The wind whispered through the trees that night, a low mournful sound that matched the ache in Samantha’s chest. Two nights had passed since she fled the Shadowfang ruins, stumbling out of the dark cave with more questions than answers. She hadn’t been able to tell anyone what happened there, what the ancient spirits had said, or what she had felt. Who would believe her anyway? That she, Samantha, the outcast girl with no known bloodline, might be something… more?

She sat alone at her small camp, the cold earth beneath her no longer offering comfort. Her small fire was dying, flickering low as if echoing the exhaustion in her bones. She had just two strips of dried meat left and a cracked waterskin. She hadn’t eaten since dawn, and her lips were parched, her stomach a pit of hunger. But worse than all that was the gnawing uncertainty inside her.

She had nowhere to go. The pack she once tried to belong to had turned its back on her. And the spirit cave, though it offered a whisper of truth, had left her more lost than ever.

Her arms wrapped around her knees as she leaned into herself. “Where do I go now?” she murmured into the darkness. “Who am I supposed to be?”

Tears welled in her eyes, but they didn’t fall. Something inside her felt too dry, too hollow for crying. Her body was aching in a strange way not from fatigue, not from hunger, but something deeper. Her skin burned like it had been kissed by fire. Her breath came shorter with every passing moment. She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead.

It was burning.

“A fever?” she whispered. “Did I catch something in the cave?”

She tried to lie down, curling into the thin blanket she had laid across the stones. But the heat within her grew worse. Her muscles twitched without warning. Her chest pounded like something within was fighting to get out.

Her fingers clawed at the ground. “What is happening to me?”

At first, she thought it might just be exhaustion. Maybe the cold nights and poor meals had finally taken their toll. But this… this was something different.

The wind shifted.

Her hearing sharpened for a brief moment, picking up the sound of something rustling in the distant woods deer hooves? A rabbit? She wasn’t sure. But she had never been able to hear like that before. Her vision seemed clearer too. Even in the low light, she could see the outlines of leaves moving. The silver thread of moonlight that touched the tips of the trees above.

She gasped.

The moment passed quickly, and the pain in her body surged. She gritted her teeth and let out a growl. A growl. Not a cry. Not a whimper. A sound that was guttural, unrecognizable animal.

She rolled onto her knees, panting. Her fingernails scraped against the earth, and for a fleeting second, she thought they looked… longer.

No. Not possible.

She shook her head. “This isn’t real.”

But the burning didn’t stop. In fact, it worsened. Her veins felt like they were pumping fire, not blood. And something in her chest, something she couldn’t name, was pushing, stretching, straining to break free.

“This is not a sickness,” she whispered, terrified. “This is something else…”

Then the memory hit her.

The voice in the cave.

“You do have a wolf bloodline…”

The spirits hadn’t said more than that. They hadn’t told her who she came from. Or why it had been hidden from her. But they had made one thing clear: only someone with wolf blood could survive the inner part of the Shadowfang cave. And she had. She hadn’t gone mad. She hadn’t gone blind. She had made it through.

Could this pain, this burning in her blood, be… her wolf awakening?

Samantha stumbled to her feet, breath ragged. She tried to walk but her legs trembled beneath her. She leaned on a tree trunk, gripping it hard. The bark bit into her palm, grounding her to reality.

But even the forest felt… changed. The trees were whispering again. She could feel them now, not just hear. The ground hummed under her bare feet, the life of the earth speaking in a language she didn’t know, yet somehow understood.

Something inside her was unlocking.

“No,” she said again, shaking. “This isn’t real.”

But deep down, she knew it was.

This was what the spirits had meant. The answers lay inside her. The truth was not something that could simply be handed to her. It had to be awakened.

And it was beginning.

Another wave of heat rolled through her body, knocking her to her knees. This time, she didn’t fight it. She let the pain come. Let it wash over her. Her back arched as something primal tore through her. Her mouth opened in a silent scream—but no sound came.

And then, just as suddenly as it had come, the pain stopped.

Samantha collapsed to the ground, panting hard. The air was cool against her skin again. The fire in her blood seemed to settle, leaving her cold but strangely steady.

She didn’t know what had just happened. But one thing was clear—she wasn’t who she used to be.

She wasn’t just some orphan. She wasn’t just a girl with no past.

She was a wolf.

Maybe not fully shifted. Maybe not even close. But the bloodline was there. Stirring. Pushing. Waking.

And now that it has started… could it ever be stopped?

She stared up at the sky, her body still weak, but her heart… it thudded with new power. New purpose. The ancient spirits hadn’t answered her questions outright, but they had lit the flame. It was up to her now to fan it, to grow it.

To become whatever it was she was always meant to be.

And as the stars blinked down at her, silent witnesses to her rebirth, Samantha whispered to the night:

“I don’t know where I’m going. But I’m not running anymore.”

And somewhere deep within her soul, something answered back.

A howl.

Soft. Distant.

But hers.