"I don't know." The admission frustrates me. "Something's changed. Inside. But I can't pinpoint what."
Finn's hand finds my face, turning me to meet his eyes. Through our connection I feel his concern mixing with something else. Something that looks almost like recognition.
"When was the first time you shifted?" asks Moira. The question seems random until I remember what Isla told me about newly turned shifters. The way transformation affects human biology in permanent ways.
"Yesterday." The timeline clicks into place. "You said the change takes time to stabilize. That newly turned shifters experience fluctuations as their body adjusts."
"Yes." But his expression suggests this might be something more than normal adjustment.
Declan steps closer, his alpha senses clearly picking up on the shift in pack dynamics. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." I'm not sure that's true, but I'm also not sure anything's wrong enough to classify as a problem. "I just feel different than I did an hour ago."
Moira makes a soft sound from where Rafe's finishing her bandage. Her dark eyes study me with the kind of knowing that makes the hair on my neck rise. "The ritual. Mikhail was staging a working at the convergence point. Multiple ley lines meet where tidal forces peak. That kind of magical confluence doesn't just dissipate when interrupted."
"Are you saying the ritual affected Lila?" Finn's voice drops into a register I recognize as dangerous.
"I'm saying the convergence point amplifies magical transformation." Moira glances at Finn. "So she shifted yesterday for the first time?"
"Yes."
Her expression tightens. "And she fought a battle on top of three intersecting ley lines during a time her shifter biology was still stabilizing from a transformation that happened less than a day ago."
The variables stack up in my head—whatever ley line convergence means, transforming for the first time yesterday, fighting an ancient phoenix today, all the magical forces Moira's describing that I'm still struggling to understand.
"What does that mean?" I need data. Concrete information. Not mystical implications.
"It means we should get you back to the cave." Finn's already moving, pulling me toward clear ground where we can shift without hitting standing stones. "Now. Before whatever's changing finishes changing."
The Brotherhood falls into escort formation without discussion. Declan takes point. Rafe helps Moira toward the vehicles they left on the cliff road, his shadows gentle around his injured mate. Kian and Grayson carry the remains of their fallentoward transport, their grief a weight that settles across all of us through pack bonds I'm only beginning to understand.
Finn and I shift together. Dragon forms rising into clearing skies, flying south toward his cave while storm clouds break apart behind us. Through our connection I feel his concern, his determination to get me somewhere safe before this unknown variable resolves into something we can identify.
And underneath everything else, buried so deep I almost miss it: hope.
Whatever's changing inside me, he thinks he knows what it might be.
That should worry me—the unknown variable, the uncontrolled experiment—but instead, as we fly through rain-washed air toward the cave, the settling sensation intensifies. My dragon form holds steady but something fundamental is shifting, realigning, becoming.
Finn banks closer. His wing brushes mine. The contact sends a jolt through me that has nothing to do with flight mechanics and everything to do with the bond blazing brighter between us.
The cave appears ahead, its dark mouth opening onto familiar territory—home, safety, somewhere I can figure out what's happening to my body before it finishes happening.
We land and I shift immediately. Finn's already moving toward the cache of clothing he keeps near the entrance, but before I can take the shirt he holds out, the settling sensation crests.
My knees buckle.
Finn catches me before I hit the ground, his arms steel bands around my ribs. "Lila."
"Cataloging symptoms." The words come out breathless. My scientist brain reaches for data even as my body refuses to cooperate. "Equilibrium disruption. Cellular-level reorganization. I think?—"
But I can't finish the thought. The settling intensifies, stealing my breath, my balance, my ability to form coherent hypotheses.
Finn's holding me tighter now, the recognition in his eyes telling me he understands what's happening.
I just don't know if that makes it better or worse.
CHAPTER 15
