EMMA
The change doesn’t happen all at once.
It starts with a sound—low, strained, like something being dragged backward through a narrow space it no longer fits. The wolf shudders. Power ripples through him, folding inward instead of expanding. The heat in the room spikes, then fractures into sharp waves that prickle my skin.
I scramble back, palms scraping the concrete, heart in my throat.
Bones crack.
Not the brutal, explosive violence of before—but a controlled collapse. Muscle shrinks. Fur retracts like smoke pulled into a lung. The massive frame buckles, drops to one knee, then two. The air smells like iron and ozone and something painfully familiar—Gabriel’s cologne beneath the wildness.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
When I open them again, Gabriel Moreau is kneeling on the floor.
