I clenched my jaw so hard I thought my teeth would break. This pain was beyond anything human. It was primal, terrifying, and utterly consuming.
Then, a wave of cold dread washed over me, even through the burning heat.
This wasn't sickness. This felt… familiar. It felt like the stories whispered in the pack nursery, the terrible tales of the first shift. But that was impossible.
I am twenty-seven years old.
I didn't shift when I was eighteen, or nineteen, or twenty. I was the failure. The broken one. The one who had no wolf. That had been my deep shame, the reason I always felt incomplete next to Astor. I had mourned the lack of a wolf for years, and eventually, I made peace with being only human—or at least, only half-werewolf.
No. No, no. This is impossible.
My hands—I looked at my
