Chapter 21. The First Shift

The night air crackled with wild energy.

Samantha knelt in the forest clearing, her breath ragged, her heart pounding like war drums. Her fingers had become claws, her senses sharpened, and every breath she took was laced with the pulse of the earth beneath her. The howl she had heard was real, not dreamt still echoed in her mind.

And then, it happened.

Her body seized with sudden heat, like a fire igniting deep in her chest. Her spine arched, her mouth opened in a silent cry, and the world spun around her. Her skin shimmered in the moonlight, splitting and shifting, her bones stretching, her limbs bending.

She didn’t scream.

She surrendered.

With a final jolt, the change overtook her and she was no longer a girl.

She was a wolf.

A breathtaking, silver-pelted creature, sleek and luminous beneath the full moon. Her fur shimmered like starlight, and her golden eyes glowed with newfound clarity. Every movement was poetry, her muscles fluid, her stance proud, her presence wild and radiant. The wind kissed her snout as she lifted her head to the sky and howled not in pain, not in confusion but in triumph.

The forest heard her.

Samantha ran.

Her paws skimmed the moss-covered earth, faster than she had ever moved before. Trees blurred past her like river currents, the wind streaming through her fur. She could hear every rustle, every crack of a twig, every heartbeat in the woods. Her body moved with power and elegance, as if this form had always been waiting just beneath the surface.

She leapt over rocks and roots, spiraled around tree trunks, and wove through shadows. She was the night untamed, unstoppable, unbound. A she-wolf, at last. Not an outsider. Not the orphan. Not a mistake.

She was whole.

But the full moon did not last forever.

Hours passed or maybe only minutes. Time twisted in this wild form. And as the moon sank lower in the sky, a weariness began to creep into her limbs. Her steps faltered. Her vision blurred. The magic that had surged through her like wildfire began to ebb, slipping through her grasp like sand.

She stumbled, and pain followed.

Her bones cracked again not with the elegance of transformation, but the agony of return. Her body shrank, her fur receded, her claws dulled into human nails. She collapsed in the dirt, naked, shivering, her body soaked in sweat and her breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

She lay still for a moment, staring up at the sky.

The stars watched her.

Her skin was scraped and raw from her run. Her stomach clenched in pain. Her throat burned. She had eaten almost nothing in days. The fever, the transformation, the sprint had taken everything from her.

She tried to rise but collapsed again. Her hands trembled beneath her. Her legs were too weak. The earth tilted.

But even in that brokenness, she smiled faintly.

I’m a wolf, she thought. Finally.

After all the years of feeling like a ghost in someone else’s world, she had touched the truth of who she was. They hadn’t wanted her. They hadn’t believed in her. But it was in her blood. It had always been there, sleeping, waiting for the moon.

She thought of Alex his fierce loyalty, the way she had protected her from the others when they’d laughed. She could have loved to witness her transformation.

She thought of Ronan, her brother, her shadow, her stubborn, reckless elder brother. He would be stunned, but proud.

Her mother the woman who had taken her in with trembling arms and a heart full of hope. She had always said Samantha was different. She was right.

And Derek.

Her chest ached at the thought of him. Brave, complicated Derek. He had looked at her like she mattered, even when she didn’t believe it herself.

But none of them could know. Not yet.

Not like this.

She didn’t even have the strength to speak.

Samantha pulled herself slowly toward the edge of the woods, toward the little shelter she’d built—just a pile of branches and stone, barely enough to shield her from rain. She could see it in the distance.

But her body gave out.

Her knees buckled. Her vision darkened. She reached for the moss, for something to hold on to.

And then she collapsed.

Her body hit the cold earth with a dull thud. Dirt pressed against her skin. Her lips parted, whispering nothing. Her eyes closed. The world vanished into darkness.

The morning light crept gently over the mountains, brushing the forest with gold. Somewhere beyond the trees, smoke curled from chimneys in the village of Hollowbrook, a quiet human settlement tucked between the cliffs and rivers.

It was a hunting morning.

The elders of the village had risen early, carrying spears and slings, knowing that the full moon always stirred the creatures of the wild. They moved in silence, seasoned by years in the woods.

Three of them Callen, Harst, and old Greer—had taken the high trail by the western ridge.

“Tracks,” Harst muttered, crouching low.

But Callen didn’t answer.

He had spotted something ahead.

A figure.

Naked.

Bruised.

Collapsed at the base of a tree, skin pale as bone, cuts tracing her arms and legs like forgotten scars, her hair tangled and soaked with sweat.

Samantha.

The men approached cautiously, uncertain if she was a spirit, a lost child, or something else entirely.

“By the gods…” Greer whispered. “She’s… human?”

Callen took a step forward. “She’s alive.”

“But look at the bruises,” Harst muttered. “She’s been through hell. What was she running from?”

“Or what was she running to,” Greer said darkly.

None of them spoke for a long moment.

The forest was silent again.

The full moon had passed… but something had changed in the woods.

And lying in the dirt, breath shallow, body broken, Samantha was proof of it.