Fourteen years old, and I'd thought I was ready. Thought I understood what it meant to be Callahan blood, to carry the weight of Alpha legacy in my bones. Dad had tried to prepare me, had spoken in careful words about duty and control andthe sacred responsibility that came with our particular brand of monster.
But nothing could have prepared me for the reality of bones breaking apart and reforming themselves according to blueprints older than civilization.
I closed my eyes and let the memory surface, because some nights the only way to survive the present was to bleed all over the past.
Sienna Vale had been eleven then, new to the pack and desperate to prove herself worthy of acceptance. She'd followed me and Jonah into the forest that night, trailing behind us like a lost puppy while we'd explored the paths that would someday be our responsibility to protect.
We'd been stupid. Young and arrogant and drunk on freedom that came from being too far from adult supervision to be caught breaking rules. The Old Mill had beckoned like a monument to teenage rebellion, its broken windows and rusted machinery the perfect backdrop for the adventure that felt important when you were still young enough to believe importance was measured in bruises and bragging rights.
That's when the rival wolf had found us.
Even now, I couldn't identify which pack he'd belonged to. Border disputes were common enough, territorial pissing matches that the adults handled with carefully negotiated treaties and ritualized confrontations. But this hadn't been about territory. This had been about blood.
He'd been massive in wolf form, silver-gray fur and yellow eyes that held too much intelligence, too much malice. Sienna had screamed when he'd cornered her against the mill's crumbling foundation, and that sound had cut through me like broken glass.
I'd tried to fight him in human form first. Tried to use fists and fury. But humans, even young wolves who hadn't shifted yet, weren't built to fight creatures designed by evolution to hunt and kill.
He'd sent me flying with one casual swipe of massive paws, and I'd felt ribs crack against the mill's stone wall.
That's when the rage had taken over.
Not the clean anger of righteous protection, but the wild, primitive fury of a creature that had been backed into a corner and given no choice but to become what it was always meant to be. My bones had snapped like kindling, every joint in my body dislocating and reforming while agony ripped through my nervous system like lightning.
The shift itself had lasted maybe thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of feeling like I was being turned inside out by invisible hands that didn't care if I survived the process.
When it was over, I'd been something else entirely.
Wolf-mind was nothing like human consciousness. It was instinct and hunger. I'd known exactly what I was, exactly what I needed to do, and exactly how little human morality mattered when pack was threatened.
I'd torn the rival wolf's throat out with my teeth.
Not fought him. Not defeated him in some honorable contest of strength. I'd killed him with the savage efficiency of a predator that had been designed by nature to end life quickly and without mercy.
The taste of his blood had been copper and salt and victory, and I'd stood over his corpse feeling nothing but satisfaction that the threat was gone.
It was only when Dad's voice had cut through the red haze that I'd started to remember I'd once been human.
“Stand tall, Evan. You are Callahan blood.”
The words had been meant to anchor me, to remind me of duty and legacy and the weight of expectations I'd been born to carry. But all I'd heard was the sound of chains, the reminder that even my most primal moments belonged to the pack instead of myself.
I'd shifted back to human form covered in blood that wasn't mine, naked and shaking while the pack elders had called it a victory. My first kill, my first successful defense of pack territory, my first proof that I was worthy of the Callahan name.
For them, it had been a rite of passage. For me, it had been the night I'd learned exactly what kind of monster lived beneath my skin.
I opened my eyes and found myself back in my bedroom, sweat cooling on my skin and my heart hammering like it was trying to escape my ribcage. Two years, and I still woke up sometimes tasting copper and victory, still felt the ghost of claws and fangs that belonged to a creature I was terrified of becoming again.
Because that was the truth nobody talked about when they praised young wolves for successful first shifts. Yes, I'd saved Sienna. Yes, I'd proven myself capable of protecting pack territory. But I'd also learned that underneath the careful facade of civilization lived something that could kill without hesitation, something that took pleasure in blood and dominance.
My wolf was beautiful and terrible and absolutely fucking lethal, and every day I felt it prowling beneath my skin like a caged animal waiting for an excuse to break free.
The worst part was that I was good at it. Being wolf, being predator, being creature that could end lives with nothing but teeth and fury. Dad had been proud, the pack had been impressed, and I'd spent the next two years trying to pretendthat the ease with which I'd embraced violence didn't terrify me more than anything else in my life.
What would Nate think if he knew? If he understood that the boy who'd whispered his name so carefully yesterday was the same creature who'd once stood over a corpse feeling nothing but satisfaction?
The thought made my stomach twist with something that tasted like shame and felt like drowning.
I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on clothes that felt foreign after a night spent remembering what it was like to have fur and fangs. School would be a special kind of hell today, all bright hallways and human normalcy while I tried to pretend I wasn't fighting the urge to run into the forest and never come back.
