Training has always been the place where I test the edges of myself.
Not the council chamber. Not the bed. The training field.
That is where truth shows up without ceremony.
The morning air was cold, sharp enough to sting my lungs as I stepped onto the packed earth behind the compound. The mountains stood quiet around Montenegro, white caps cutting into the sky like silent witnesses. Derek watched from the edge of the field, arms folded. Jax stood closer, already restless, already aware that something inside me had shifted since the night before.
They both felt it.
Neither of them understood it.
Neither did I.
“Shift,” Jax said simply.
No softness. No indulgence. He never trains me gently.
I nodded and let the change take me.
The shift rolled through my bones smoothly at first, f
