Seventeen: Lucian

The snap of bone isn’t the worst part. It’s the way she keeps fighting after—muscle memory, pure and simple, every inch of her still straining for air even as I bear down and make it clear there’s none left for her.

My knee is wedged against her ribcage, just behind the foreleg. If I shift my weight a centimeter, she’ll break again, so I don’t. The other wolves ring us in a perfect kill circle, eyes bright in the dark, weapons loose at their sides but ready. Even the ones I trust most keep their hands in plain view. This is about law, but it’s also about theater.

She thrashes, a cyclone of claws and teeth and snapping fur. I keep my left hand clamped in the ruff at her neck, thumb jammed behind her ear to keep the jaws away. My right presses into her shoulder until I can feel the pulse hammering underneath, equal parts terror and refusal. She’s lighter than I expected. The thought almost makes me laugh.

Moonlight is the only witness—diluted through the pine branches, pooling over the wolf’s mangled coat and painting my own skin in a static electricity of blue-white. The steam from her breath rises in frantic plumes, each one smaller than the last, but her eyes—amber, wild, fixed on mine—never blink. It’s not hate I see there. Not yet. Just the blank, starved look of a thing that’s been cornered too long.

The pack watches in silence. Jace is nearest, jaw clenched, the silver baton held low at his thigh. Tessa stands by, face unreadable, hands empty but arms tensed for the lunge if I miss my cue. Beyond them, two more wolves, all but vibrating with anticipation or fear. Above, the forest canopy is a glass ceiling for the moon. The world holds its breath.

I lean closer, lips against her ear, and let the old words spill out. “Let go,” I say, not loud. “It’s over.”

For a second, she goes still. A single shudder rolls from nose to tail. I don’t know if she understands the words, but she knows the tone. She remembers. That’s the problem with turned wolves—they remember everything.

Then the real shift hits.

It starts at the spine, right beneath my grip. I feel it before I hear it, the vertebrae seizing and then cracking in a chain reaction down her back. She bucks, tries to rear up, but I anchor her head to the ground and brace for the rest. Her claws rip divots in the frozen earth, scrabbling for leverage. The toes flex, curl, and then the nails retract, human digits pushing out through black pads, skin pale and bloodless in the cold.

Her body convulses. The hindquarters collapse, bone compressing in a sickening cascade of pops. Fur sloughs off in patches, matting to the ground with blood and spit. The muzzle caves inward, teeth receding, jaw reshaping itself with a wet, tearing sound that would haunt anyone who hadn’t done this a hundred times before. Her tongue lolls, then jerks back as the mouth reverts to something that can form words instead of just hunger.

The howl she lets out is not a wolf’s. It splits the night anyway, a pure agony that hammers through the trees and bounces back with all the force of a rifle report. The wolves around us all flinch; even Tessa’s hands go up reflexively, as if she’s shielding her face from shrapnel. I grit my teeth and keep my hold steady, because this is the part where most lose consciousness, and if she doesn’t, she’ll try to kill herself or me before her brain figures out which side it’s on.

Her body shrinks, compresses, the pelvis realigning with a sick crack, knees bending forward until her whole frame folds in on itself. The fur is almost gone now, replaced by the raw, exposed skin of a human, pink and ugly in the cold. The blood on her face is mine; I recognize the cut above my knuckles from the night’s first grapple. The rest is hers, from the break, the shift, the refusal to yield.

I loosen my grip just enough to allow her neck to pivot, but not enough for her to bite. Her eyes open, wider than any human’s should be, the yellow gone now, replaced by something darker—almost brown, almost familiar.

The air is dead silent. Even the wind has stopped, as if the woods are embarrassed by what’s just happened.

She sags under me, every muscle quivering, breath coming in sobs. The others look away, pretending to care about the darkness beyond the circle, but they’re all staring with the corners of their eyes. Wren Cade, the bar girl, the stray, lies naked and shivering in the snow, and nobody knows what the fuck comes next.

I let my hand slip from her neck. Her skin is burning hot. It steams in the cold, an animal glow that smells of sweat, blood, and something sweeter—honeysuckle, maybe, or just the memory of it.

I don’t move. Neither does she.

It takes a long minute before anyone says a word. Even then, it’s barely more than a whisper.

“Alpha?” Tessa, voice tight.

I nod, not breaking eye contact with the woman beneath me.

The pack stays put, weapons slack, waiting for the order.

But for now, all I do is hold her there, letting the moon draw silver lines across her spine, the air full of steam and shame.

Let them watch. Let them remember what it looks like to survive.