Melrose POV:
"Please... Help... Me..."
"Were the last words I spoke before my voice faded into a dry gasp. Each labored breath felt faint and ragged, caught in my throat and leaving me struggling for air. My whole body was on fire, yet I didn't burn. I felt utterly powerless, as if my body were merely an object adrift in the chaos around me. The pain of this transformation— or whatever was happening to me—was agonizing, worse than the night I shifted for the first time. On top of the pain, I felt utterly alone; I didn’t have Athena's soothing voice in the back of my mind reassuring me that everything was going to be okay, nor Ezra to guide me through the pain, as he did that night. I only had the haunting embrace of my shadow; I felt its dark tendrils curling around me like a sinister
