Pain unlike anything Mara had ever known tore through her body.
It wasn't the sharp agony of blades or the slow cruelty of torture-this was deeper, older. Her bones burned as if molten fire had been poured into her marrow. She collapsed to her knees, screaming as something inside her shifted, forcing its way to the surface.
The room shook.
Stone cracked beneath her palms. Her shadow writhed against the walls, stretching, splitting, becoming wrong. The air thickened with heat and the metallic scent of blood. Mara gasped for breath as her heartbeat thundered, each pulse louder than the last, as though her body were no longer big enough to contain what she was becoming.
Lucien shouted her name-but his voice sounded distant, distorted.
Her spine arched violently. She felt it then-the tearing, the reshaping. Muscles knotted. Bones snapped and reformed with sickening precision. She cried out until her voice broke, until the sound turned feral. Claws tore through her fingertips, slick with blood. Her vision fractured, colors bleeding into crimson and gold.
Memories flooded her mind-her family screaming, her father falling, the Covenant's mark burned into the earth.
Rage ignited.
Not wild. Not blind.
Focused.
Power surged through her veins, answering the Blood Moon's call. She was no longer chained. She was no longer weak. The iron restraints shattered with a deafening crack, fragments embedding themselves into the walls like shrapnel.
The guards burst into the chamber-and froze.
What rose from the floor was not fully wolf, nor entirely something else. Eyes blazing with ancient fury, Mara stood trembling, blood dripping from her hands, breath steaming in the torchlight.
One guard whispered a prayer.
Another ran.
Lucien stared, awe and horror colliding in his expression. "Hybrid..." he breathed. "Impossible."
Mara turned toward him, her new senses screaming danger-and desire for violence. She fought it, fought herself, teeth grinding as the beast inside her snarled for blood.
Then the alarms changed pitch.
Heavy doors began to open.
And a voice echoed through the chamber, calm and pleased:
"Bring her to me. The Blood Moon has finally delivered."
Mara growled-low, deadly-as her control began to slip.
And this time... she wasn't sure who would survive.
