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He knew that I thought it was a curse—that it was a monster I couldn’t control.

He’d let me continue to believe that.

And I’d been stupid enough, and naïve enough, and desperate enough not to realize it wasn’t true until now.

My wolf’s head jerked toward the line of shadow fae in the trees.

Toward the solemn looks on their faces—toward the grave looks in their eyes as they surveyed the bodies around my wolf.

No, not my wolf.

The bodies aroundme.

There was no wicked creature within me.

There was no beast waiting to use my emotional moments to break free from the cage in my chest.

There was just me.

Diora.

A freed prisoner, a wolf…

And a monster.

A murderer.

The wall between my “wolf” and myself dissolved. I remained in the wolf’s shape, but the defenses I’d used to separate myself from her turned to dust.

And all I felt?

Fear.

Fear so thick it made my eyes water.

Namir stepped toward me, his hands out in front of him. His sword was on the dirt behind him, abandoned and forgotten. “Diora, Love,” he said, his voice low and gravelly, but soft too somehow.

I wanted to shift, to snarl at him that he didn’t love me. That he’d lost the right to call me that when he decided not to tell me what he’d clearly realized long before that day.

But his warriors were still in the trees, staring at me like… well, like I’d murdered a dozen dark fae.

And I had.

So, shoving away my fury, I gave in to my panic, and ran.

My paws carried me into the forest quickly—faster than I’d ever realized I could move. And as I ran, it occurred to me that they didn’t feel like paws.

They felt like feet.

Myfeet.

I had dissolved into the shadows, reforming into a wolf, but I was still me when I was in that form.

And the feeling that accompanied that knowledge gutted me.

Namir was behind me; I could hear him behind me. And based on the way I’d seen him move earlier, there was no question in my mind whether or not he could run faster than me.

He had lied to me.