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The only time I’d Shifted in front of anyone else had been two years ago, when I was ten.

Mom had been showing me how to control the change in the woods behind our cabin.

We thought we were alone, but Melissa’s mom had come by looking for herbs that grew near our stream.

She’d seen the silver-green glow that always surrounded me when I tried to Shift; the visible sign of my witch magic, whether I wanted it or not.

Mom had to beg the Alphas to let us stay. Had to swear I would never Shift in front of anyone else again, never use magic, never risk contaminating the Pack.

“I promised my mom—” I started.

“Aww, she promised her mommy,” Tara mocked, making baby noises.

Lucas circled me slowly. “Maybe she needs help getting started.” Without warning, he grabbed the collar of my shirt and yanked. The fabric tore with a loud rip, exposing my front and chest. I gasped, trying to cover myself.

“Stop!” I begged, but he grabbed the back of my shirt and tore it again.

“Shift, witch-bitch!” he shouted in my face. “Show us your wolf. If you’re really Pack, Shift!”

Someone in the crowd picked up the chant. “Shift! Shift! Shift!”

Others joined in, the words beating against me like stones. “SHIFT! SHIFT! SHIFT!”

I couldn’t stop the tears streaming down my face. I tried to cover myself with the torn pieces of my shirt, hunching over to hide.

“Look at her! She can’t do it!” Lucas shouted. “Proof she doesn’t belong here!”

The bell rang, its shrill sound cutting through the chaos.

Lucas grabbed my hair one last time, yanking my head back to whisper in my ear. “I don’t know why my parents let you live. But I’ll be Alpha one day, and if you’re still here then…well, you’d be doing yourself a favor by killing yourself before I have to do it for you.”

He released me with a shove and walked away, arm slung around Tara’s shoulder. The crowd parted for them like they were royalty.

I crawled along the ground, clutching at the torn bits of my shirt, shaking so hard my teeth chattered.

Students walked past me, kicking me or spitting on me. My arm throbbed with every heartbeat. My ribs ached. Every breath hurt. I forced myself to my knees.

I took a deep breath, trying to stop crying. I had to get up. Had to get to class. They fined parents when kids missed school, and we couldn’t afford it, but I couldn’t walk through the halls half-dressed either. I just couldn’t do it.

My backpack.

It was still here somewhere, probably trampled and dirty, but I always kept my gym clothes inside.

I spotted it a few feet away, mud-splattered and zipper broken.

Crawling over to it, I dug through it, praying to the Moon Goddess that my gym top hadn’t fallen out in the forest. I sobbed as my fingers touched fabric.

I pulled out my faded gray gym shirt. It was too big—a hand-me-down from Sofia that Aunt Jo had posted to us—but right now, it was perfect. I slipped my good arm through first, then carefully tried to maneuver the shirt over my head.

So far, so good. I could do this. I moved my broken arm, and white-hot pain exploded from my elbow to my shoulder. The world tilted sideways. Black spots danced across my vision, and for a second, everything went fuzzy and distant, like I was watching through someone else’s eyes.

Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Not here. Not now.

I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood, using the new pain to focus.

Swallowing back the bile that rose in my throat, I somehow managed to get my arm through the sleeve without moving the bones too much.

Tears streamed down my face, but I’d done it.

I sat there for a minute, breathing in short, shallow gasps, waiting for the dizziness to pass and the world to stop spinning.

Getting to class was torture. Every step sent pain shooting through my ribs, and my arm throbbed with each heartbeat. A few stragglers in the hall pointed and whispered. One boy made a howling sound as I passed. I kept my head down, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.

No one spoke as I slipped into my seat at the back of Ms. Pierce’s class, but I could feel all eyes on me. Ms. Pierce looked up from her desk, eyes moving to my arm that I held against my chest.

“Annabella McGrath,” she said, her voice super clear in the silent room. “I believe you have a presentation due today.”

“I—I need more time, please,” I whispered.

Ms. Pierce raised one eyebrow. “Do you think you’re better than the rest of your classmates, Annabella?”

“What?”

“Why should you get more time? No one else got extra time.”

“Lucas and Tara—” I started, then stopped when her face got hard.

“You aren’t accusing the Alpha’s son of something, are you Annabella?”

I shook my head, staring at my desk. “No, ma’am.”

“Did you think you wouldn’t have to present today? Perhaps you thought you could just…” she waved her hand in the air, “cast a spell to make me forget about your assignment?”

Kids snickered. I wanted to yell that that’s not how magic worked, that I didn’t even know any spells because no one would teach me.

“No, ma’am.”

“You need to learn that your arrogance in thinking you deserve special treatment will not be rewarded. You will receive a zero for this project.” She made a big show of marking her gradebook with a red circle.

“Perhaps next time you’ll take your responsibilities more seriously, rather than relying on your… unnatural abilities.”

She turned to the blackboard. “Today’s lesson, class, is on the Webster Incident of fifteen years ago and the Wolf Council’s righteous ban on witches that followed.”

I sank lower in my seat as she went on. My broken arm throbbed, my stomach hurt from hunger, and I had to listen as Ms. Pierce explained to everyone that witches were monsters to be feared and hated, knowing that Tara was probably in class posting the video of what just happened all over her socials.

Our small cabin sat at the edge of Pack territory, away from as many people as possible.

I don’t remember how I got home; just stumbling through the front door, so tired the world was spinning.

My arm and ribs hurt so bad I could only take tiny breaths.

I grabbed some scissors, made it to the bathroom, checked that all the curtains were closed tight, and gently cut off my gym top.

I stared at my arm, swollen and bent at a weird angle, and swallowed down the sick that threatened to come up again. I couldn’t hunt like this. I couldn’t do anything like this.

I needed to Shift to heal properly. I was allowed to Shift here, in the safety of our cabin, but it always made the hunger pains worse.

I’d have to do two Shifts, one to wolf, one back to human form, and there was no food.

Mom didn’t get paid for another two days, so unless I could catch something tomorrow we had to last until then.

I could do a partial Shift, though. Just heal my arm.

It was something that supposedly only Alphas could do—isolate the Shift to one body part.

Mom always got scared when I did it. “If they find out,” she’d told me, “they’ll say it’s witch magic.

They’ll say it’s proof you’re dangerous.

” Another secret to keep. Another way I didn’t fit in.

Hunger gnawed at my insides.

I closed my eyes, focusing just on my arm.

I visualized my wolf, but only in that one place.

Sweat pooled under my arms and trickled down my face as I concentrated harder than I ever had before.

At first, nothing happened. Then came the fire—white-hot pain shooting through me as bones realigned and muscle fibers reconnected.

I bit down on a washcloth to keep from screaming as fur sprouted from my skin and claws extended from my fingertips.

The silver-green glow reflected against the bathroom tiles, lighting up the small space like weird underwater light.

I kept the form for a moment, just long enough to feel the power running through my arm—like I was super strong and could do anything.

It felt amazing and scary at the same time.

Then I took a deep breath and focused again, trying to make my arm turn back to normal.

The pain felt different this time—like something was pulling underneath my skin as the fur disappeared and my claws shrank back into regular nails.

I watched it happen, feeling both grossed out and fascinated at the same time.

When it was finally over, I collapsed against the bathroom wall, gulping air.

My arm—perfectly healed. I flexed my fingers, rotated my wrist, waved my arm up and down. Not even a twinge of pain.

For a moment, something warm and fierce bloomed in my chest. Lucas may have broken my bones, but the asshole couldn’t break me. The witch half they all hated so much? It was the part that saved me. There was power in being both wolf and witch; I was sure of it, even if no one else could see it.

Then my stomach clenched so tight with hunger that I doubled over.

The partial Shift had burned through whatever energy I had left.

The edges of my vision grew dim, like someone was slowly turning down the lights, and the small moment of triumph evaporated.

I needed food, but there was nothing here.

I managed to shower and change into clean clothes, though every movement felt like wading through mud.

Then I sat at the kitchen table, trying to focus on homework, but the numbers and letters kept swimming before my eyes.

I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, the sound of a key turning in the lock jolted me awake.

Mom was home. I jumped up, ignoring my dizziness, and rushed to help her with her coat. Her eyes moved over me, her nose twitching slightly as she scented the air.

“Did you Shift today?” she asked immediately, her voice tight with fear. “Did anyone see you?”