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Chapter fifteen

Annabella

A nnabella

When the common area finally emptied, I made my way to my bedroom at the far end of the loft.

I’d claimed the corner room deliberately—two exterior walls with windows meant fewer shared walls for sounds to travel through, plus multiple escape routes if needed.

The blackout curtains remained drawn tight against the city’s glow, as they always did. Privacy. Control. Safety.

The reinforced steel door—my own addition, installed during my second week here—swung shut behind me with a reassuring thunk. Only then did my shoulders drop a fraction.

My queen-sized mattress sat directly on the floor, positioned so I could see both the door and windows without raising my head.

Weaponry was stashed strategically—knife under the pillow, loaded Glock in the hollowed-out book in the nightstand drawer, spelled dagger behind the bookshelf.

Dog-eared paperbacks lined my makeshift shelf—fantasy novels with worn spines and creased covers, stories where outcasts discovered their power and found their people.

A small collection of smooth river stones gleamed on the windowsill, one gathered from each city where I’d completed a mission.

Eighteen stones. Eighteen cities. Eighteen steps toward creating a world where Ellie could be safe.

The dreamcatcher hanging above my bed caught the dim light, its intricate pattern casting spiderweb shadows on the wall.

Zeke had woven it during those brutal weeks last winter when the nightmares had been so severe that I’d gone three days without sleeping.

The gesture had been unexpected, the quiet acceptance in his eyes when he’d handed it to me even more so.

In the corner hung a well-worn punching bag, covered in duct tape from the times my emotions had gotten the better of me.

And there, on the nightstand where it would be the last thing I saw before sleep and the first thing I saw upon waking—a small, framed photograph of Ellie, her face captured mid-laugh, dark curls wild around her shoulders, that gap-toothed smile that made my chest ache with equal parts love and fear.

Ellie. The only purely good thing in my fucked-up life. The reason for everything.

I touched the frame gently, tracing the outline of her chubby cheek with my fingertip. The familiar ritual—this silent promise that everything I did, every line I crossed, was for her—triggered what I’d been bracing for since we’d returned.

Pain exploded through my body like molten metal poured into my veins, buckling my knees and sending me crashing to the rug beside my bed.

It always happened after a mission, the adrenaline crash combined with injury creating the perfect storm of vulnerability.

My wolf had already come dangerously close to breaking free earlier tonight.

Now, she surged forward with renewed fury, determined to claim control.

“Not now,” I gasped, curling in on myself as if physical force could contain the creature clawing at my insides. My fingers dug into my ribs, nails drawing blood through my torn shirt. “Not. Fucking. Now.”

My bones creaked with the sickening pressure of impending transformation, joints popping and grinding as they fought to reshape themselves against my will.

Each vertebra in my spine threatened to realign, the sensation like knuckles being cracked one by one from tailbone to neck.

My teeth throbbed in their sockets, canines elongating with needle-sharp pain as they pushed past my gums. Colors around me intensified and sharpened until the muted bedroom palette became almost hallucinatory—the blue of my bedspread electric, the wood grain of the floor suddenly a complex topographical map.

The scent of my own blood overwhelmed everything, metallic and rich, calling to the beast I refused to become.

I dragged myself toward the bathroom on hands and knees, each movement a battle between body and will.

I barely made it inside before my legs gave out completely, my back slamming against the door as I collapsed.

Sweat poured down my face, my body’s desperate attempt to cool the furnace burning beneath my skin.

I’d rather die on this floor than surrender to that part of myself.

The wolf inside wasn’t just an animal. She was everything I hated—the instinct that demanded Pack, the heritage that connected me to Lucas and Tara and the Ashridge wolves, the nature that had made me an outcast my entire life.

Every time I let her win, every time I Shifted, I gave power to the half of me that belonged to a world that had only ever brought pain.

I slammed my head back against the door, using pain to focus.

My fingernails dug deeper into my palms until fresh blood welled, hot and slick between my fingers.

The metallic scent only agitated my wolf further, my vision sharpening until I could count individual dust motes spiraling through the air, could see the microscopic cracks spiderwebbing through the bathroom tiles.

“You don’t control me,” I snarled through teeth that felt like razors in my mouth, my voice distorted and guttural. “I control you. Always have. Always will.”

I focused on the breathing technique Simon had taught me…

Inhale for four counts, feeling air fill my lungs against the crushing pressure.

Hold for seven, imagining oxygen flooding my bloodstream with control.

Exhale for eight, pushing the wolf back with each measured breath.

Again and again, building a mental wall brick by brick between myself and that other part of me.

Gradually, agonizingly, the pressure began to recede. The fire in my bones cooled to a dull, throbbing ache. My vision faded from supernaturally sharp back to human normal. My canines retracted with a sensation like nails being pulled from flesh.

I straightened with effort, legs trembling as I pulled myself upright, using the sink for support.

The process left me drained, as it always did. But I’d won again. Like I always did. Like I had to.

I splashed cold water on my face. The simple task required concentration, my fine motor control still compromised from the strain of fighting the Shift. When I finally dragged myself back to my bedroom, I collapsed onto the mattress, fully clothed, not even bothering to remove my boots.

Exhaustion pulled at me like quicksand, but I fought sleep, too, for as long as I could.

Sleep meant dreams. Dreams meant memories.

And memories meant facing things I couldn’t control—like the family I’d left behind, the mother who was dying, and the sister whose whole life depended on me not failing.

Like the secret part of myself that whispered, in the darkest hours before dawn, that maybe it didn’t have to hurt this much. That maybe there was another way to be.

I pushed the thought away and stared at the ceiling, counting heartbeats until unconsciousness finally claimed me.