THE MAD ALPHA
Even though the layers scream and thrash against each other, I cling.
The tremor returns, stronger. This time it reverberates in patterns, rhythmic, like hands pushing, like magic striking the curse itself. I cannot name what it is. I only know it is external. Something outside, hitting from outside, shaking the space.
The wolf freezes mid-lunge, claws in the nothing, teeth bared. The Alpha stiffens, poised, muscles that are not muscles coiling. The mate fragments shiver in place, held taut. And then the tremor runs again, through the bindings, through every layer. A shudder that rattles me, rattles the wolf, rattles the Alpha, rattles the mate.