Elara’s POV
I didn’t sleep.
Not even a second. The air felt wrong, like something alive was crawling beneath it, whispering my name. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw flames and heard someone screaming my name in the dark.
The clock beside my bed read 4:47. Pointless.
We should run, Mel murmured inside me, her voice low and restless. Before you tear the room apart.
I sighed. “You’re not wrong.”
The night air hit me as soon as I stepped outside. It smelled like burnt iron and fear — home.
The shift came easily. Bones cracked, skin stretched, fur rippled out in waves of black and ember-red. Mel took over completely, and the world blurred into instinct. She ran, fast and wild ..slicing through the silence, her paws pounding against the scorched ground.
Faster, Mel urged. Run until no
