Kaelen stood frozen, the air between him and Selene thick with crackling, unnatural power. Her eyes blazed silver—not the warm, living glow of a werewolf's shifted gaze, but something colder, sharper, ancient. It seeped into the room like ink spreading through water, chilling the very stones beneath his feet.
"What are you?" Kaelen asked again, his voice steady despite the warning hum rising from his own wolf. "That strength… it does not belong to our kind."
Selene laughed, a sound devoid of warmth. "Why ask questions you already fear the answers to, Kaelen? You felt it all along—the wrongness. The shadows that cling to me. The way my power never quite matches yours. But you chose to look away. You chose me because I was easy. Because I told you exactly what you wanted to hear." She took
