The world has changed.
Or maybe the world is the same, and I have finally upgraded the sensor array to process it.
I stand in the ruins of the fishing shack, the air still vibrating from the shockwave of our mating. The darkness isn't dark anymore. It is a spectrum of greys and indigos, crisp and sharp as a schematic diagram. I can see the dust motes spinning in the air. I can see the grain of the wood on the shattered doorframe twenty feet away.
I breathe in.
The input is overwhelming, but my processor handles it with terrifying ease. I smell the fire burning the bayou—pine resin, creosote, fear. I smell the blood—iron-rich, salty, spilling into the mud. And underneath it all, I smell the Hunters. They smell like ammonia and cheap propellant.
"Detailed," I whisper. My voice sounds different. Deeper. Harmonized.
Jax stands beside me. He is naked, covered in sweat and the blood we shared, but he looks like a god of war carved fromobsidian. His eyes are burning gold, fixed on me with a mixture of reverence and shock.
"Miranda," he rumbles.
I look at my hands. The talons have retracted, leaving smooth, pale skin, but I can feel them waiting under the surface, like switchblades on a spring-loaded release. My muscles feel dense. Charged. The sprain in my ankle is gone—repaired, the ligaments knit back together stronger than the original factory specs.
"I’m operational," I say.
I look at him. "We have work to do."
I don't bother with clothes. The shirt is ruined, and modesty seems like an inefficient human construct right now. I grab the hunting knife from the floor—not because I need it, but because it balances my weight.
"Let’s finish the circuit," I say.
We burst from the shack.
I don't run; I blur.
The physics of my movement have been rewritten. Friction is negligible. Gravity is a suggestion. I cover the fifty yards between the shack and the tree line in a heartbeat, my bare feet skimming the mud.
We hit the battle line like a kinetic strike.
The bayou is a chaotic mess of fire and screaming. Alpha LeBlanc’s wolves are holding the line, but the Hunters have the high ground on the levee, raining fire down with high-caliber rifles.
A Hunter steps out from behind a cypress tree, leveling a shotgun at me.
To my old eyes, it would have been a blur. To my new eyes, it is slow motion.
I see his finger tighten on the trigger. I see the hammer fall.
Trajectory calculated.
I sidestep.
The blast of buckshot tears through the space I occupied a millisecond ago.
I close the distance.
I don't punch him. I swipe. My claws extend mid-swing, slashing through the tactical vest, through the shirt, through the ribcage.
It feels like tearing wet cardboard.
The Hunter drops without a sound, his chest cavity opened to the night air.
"Target neutralized," I murmur. The lack of remorse is startling. I feel nothing but the satisfaction of a problem solved.
To my left, a massive black shape tears through the brush. Jax.
