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Scout intercepted her with savage precision, his jaws closing around her arm with bone-crushing force. She screamed, the sound more reptile than human, and flung the massive dog aside with unnatural strength. Scout hit one of the standing stones with a yelp that made my heart clench.

"You will not have him!" Marcus thundered across the clearing, his throat partially shifted to human form while maintaining his powerful wolf body—a rare ability only the most dominant alphas could master. His massive black form became a blur of fur and crimson eyes as he bounded toward us. He slammed into the serpent woman with the force of a freight train, sending her flying back into her crimson-robed followers.

But the mist was the real threat. It had formed a swirling vortex now, pulling in energy from the fighting all around us, growing stronger with each clash of supernatural powers. I couldfeel it reaching for me, calling to something deep inside that responded despite my fear.

You are ours,it whispered directly into my mind, the voice like ice water down my spine.You have always been ours.

A massive crimson tendril shot toward us with the speed of a striking snake. Imo screamed a warning, Luke tried to shield me, but they were too slow. The mist wrapped around both of us, tearing me from Luke’s arms with brutal force. I yelped in pain and terror as it lifted my tiny wolf form into the air, the crimson tendrils burning through fur and skin with equal ease.

The pain was indescribable—like being injected with liquid nitrogen and fire simultaneously. I could feel it seeping into me, searching for something, trying to consume me from the inside out. My vision blurred, edges darkening as the mist squeezed tighter.

Below me, chaos erupted. Storm and Shadow launched themselves upward, trying desperately to reach me, their jaws snapping at the crimson tendrils that held me aloft. The Stone brothers howled in unified rage, their wolves clawing at the base of the vortex that had formed beneath me. Even the Blackwoods were in motion, their hands glowing with that strange silver light as they tried to disrupt the mist’s hold.

“The prophecy will be fulfilled!” the serpent woman exulted, her reptilian face twisted in a grotesque smile. “The twice-blessed child shall feed the Coven!”

The mist squeezed tighter, and I felt something inside me crack—not physically, but energetically, like a dam giving way under too much pressure. My consciousness started to fragment, memories flashing before my eyes in disjointed pieces: my mother’s face as she told me to run, the Stone brothers finding me in the woods, the feeling of belonging I’d found with them despite all the craziness.

I was dying. I could feel it—my life force being drained away, consumed by this ancient, hungry thing that had waited so long for this moment. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I couldn’t even die with a witty one-liner, stuck as I was in this useless tiny wolf form.

“Kai!” Luke’s desperate voice cut through the pain. “Fight it! You’re stronger than this thing!”

Stronger? I was a quarter-wolf stuck in puppy form, being consumed by ancient evil fog. I wasn’t stronger than anything.

But as the mist squeezed tighter, something else stirred inside me—something that had been dormant my entire life, something my mother had hidden even from me. It felt like fire and ice together, like lightning in my veins, like something ancient and powerful awakening from a long sleep.

Remember who you are,whispered a new voice—not the slithering presence of the fog, but something warmer, familiar. My mother’s voice.

Remember, Kai. You are more than what they see. More than what they fear. More than what they want.

You are both. And neither. You are your own.

The mist must have felt it too, because it suddenly tightened its grip with renewed urgency, trying to crush the life from me before whatever was awakening could fully emerge. Black spots danced in my vision as oxygen became scarce, my tiny wolf body convulsing in agony.

“NO!” Marcus’ roar contained such raw anguish that it seemed to shake the very ground. Below me, all three Stone brothers had shifted back to human form, their naked bodies covered in black ichor as they pressed their hands against the standing stones, channeling their alpha power into the ancient circle. “YOU WILL NOT TAKE HIM FROM US!”

The energy built inside me, a pressure behind my ribs that threatened to tear me apart from the inside. I could feel it burning through the mist’s hold, silver-white light beginning to seep from my fur like molten moonlight. The black fog screamed—a sound of rage and fear and hunger—as it tried to consume this new energy, but it was like trying to swallow the sun.

For one impossible moment, I was everywhere and nowhere—wolf and human and something else entirely, my consciousness stretched across forms and dimensions in a way that should have driven me mad but somehow felt right.

The crimson mist exploded outward as something within me finally broke free. The pressure released in a supernova of silver-blue light that cut through the darkness like a blade, sending waves of pure power rippling across the clearing. Standing stones cracked under the onslaught, ancient runes flaring to life, then shattering under the strain.

When reality snapped back into focus, I was standing on my own two feet—human feet, in a human body. My body. Except not entirely human, not anymore. Scales gleamed along my forearms, silver-white like my wolf’s fur. My vision was sharper, the world around me suddenly in hyper-focus. And the energy—the energy still surged through me, ready to be shaped, directed.

“Impossible,” breathed the crimson-robed woman, her hood falling back to reveal a face marked with serpentine scales. “The prophecy cannot be fulfilled. It cannot!”

The black fog’s form had been shredded by my transformation, its mist scattered and weakened. But it was already reforming, tendrils reaching for each other, pulling itself back together with desperate hunger.

“Kai,” Marcus called, his voice a mixture of awe and concern as he stared up at me—wait, up? I was floating several feet off the ground, silver-blue light surrounding me like a second skin. “Are you?—”

“I’m fine,” I answered, my voice rusty from disuse but stronger than I expected, resonating with power I didn’t recognize. “Better than fine. And I am so done with being everyone’s supernatural chew toy.”

The crimson mist surged toward me again, more cautious this time but still determined. I didn’t think—I just reacted. My hand shot out, palm facing the approaching darkness, and silver-blue fire erupted from my skin. It wasn’t normal fire—it was something older, something that burned with cold light rather than heat. Where it touched the mist, the crimson tendrils simply ceased to exist, erased from reality itself.

The fog screamed, the sound making the ground shake and the remaining standing stones crack further. It retreated, coiling around the central altar stone like a wounded animal.

This changes nothing,the voice hissed, but I could hear the lie in it.You are still marked. Still ours.

“I don’t think so,” I replied, descending slowly until my feet touched the ground. The silver-blue fire still danced along my arms, illuminating the scales that now covered my skin from fingertips to elbows. “I don’t belong to you. I don’t belong to them. I don’t belong to anyone but myself.”