After that night, Henrietta couldn't sleep, Gideon's words looping endlessly in her mind. She didn't understand everything yet, but she understood this much: for the first time since the bite, her wolf no longer felt like something she had to fight.
That realization should have brought relief. Instead, it settled in her chest like a weight.
The wolf was still there, but so was the awareness that this change hadn't come from discipline or suppression. She hadn't forced it into submission. She hadn't silenced it the way the Order had taught her to silence everything that threatened their sense of control.
She had met it.
And that unsettled her more than the nights she'd spent training for restraint.
Henrietta stared at the ceiling, the dark pressing close, replaying the way the restrai
