He smiles. Actually smiles. "There's that fire. Good. I was hoping you'd make this interesting." He drags me deeper into the forest, away from the lights of campus, away from anyone who might hear me scream. "You and your little friends have been hiding something. I know it. Your headmaster knows it. Everyone with half a brain knows it. But knowing and proving are two different things, aren't they?"
We're far enough into the trees now that the Academy lights are just a distant glow through the branches. He throws me tothe ground and I land hard on my hands and knees, gasping for air as my lungs burn and my vision swims.
"Here's what's going to happen," Chase says, pulling something from his jacket. A silver blade, small and wickedly sharp. "You're going to shift for me. Right here, right now. And I'm going to get my proof."
"No," I manage to choke out, scrambling backward until my back hits a tree.
"That wasn't a request." He closes the distance between us in two strides and grabs my arm, yanking me to my feet. "Shift. Or I make you shift."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
His fist connects with my face before I see it coming. Pain explodes across my cheekbone and I taste blood, my head snapping to the side from the force of the blow. The world tilts and I would have fallen if he wasn't gripping my arm hard enough to bruise.
"Don't lie to me," he snarls, shaking me like a ragdoll. "I've spent weeks watching you. Following you. Documenting everything. I know what you are. I just need you to prove it so the Council can take you where you belong."
He presses the blade against my forearm and drags it across my skin.
The burn is instant and agonizing. Not just the cut but something else, something wrong spreading from the wound like liquid fire through my veins. My wolf recoils from it instinctively, trying to shift so the poison will flush faster. I fight her back with everything I have because the moment I shift, it's over. The moment he sees my silver wolf, the Council will be here before nightfall and everything I've fought for will be gone.
The blade releases and I collapse, shaking and gasping. Chase crouches beside me, almost conversational. "Poison derived from wolfsbane and nightshade. Harmless to mostshifters." He watches my arm where the cut has turned an ugly black around the edges, the poison spreading beneath my skin. "But Silverpelts react... differently. Let's see how much you can take before your wolf decides self-preservation matters more than keeping secrets."
"Please," I whisper, hating how broken I sound but unable to stop the word from spilling out. "Don't do this."
"Oh, now you want to talk?" He grabs my hair and yanks my head back, forcing me to look at him. "Then talk. Tell me what you are. Tell me why the Council wants you so badly. Save us both some time."
I say nothing.
He sighs like I'm being terribly inconvenient and presses the blade against my stomach, cutting deeper this time. The silver burns through skin and muscle, poison spreading like wildfire through my veins. The world dissolves into nothing but pain and my wolf is screaming beneath my skin, demanding to be released, demanding to shift and fight and survive.
I can feel her clawing at the edges of my control and I'm losing the battle, losing my grip on the human form as the agony becomes too much to contain. Through the bonds I'm screaming for help, begging them to hear me, begging them to find me before it's too late. The connections blaze bright with terror and pain. I can feel their answering alarm but they're too far away. They won't make it in time. He's going to break me, see what I am, and then it's over.
He cuts me again, this time across my thigh. He drags the blade slowly and I'm sobbing now, curled on the forest floor with blood in my mouth and my body shaking so hard I can't control it. My wolf is right there, right at the surface, one more cut away from exploding out of me.
"Last chance," Chase says, and I can hear the satisfaction in his voice because he knows he's won. "Shift or I keep going until you can't stop it anymore."
My hands claw at the ground, nails scraping dirt and leaves as I fight to keep the wolf contained. But when the blade presses against my neck, leaving a shallow cut beneath it, the poison flooding my system becomes too much.
The edges of my vision blur. My fingers spasm and curl, nails lengthening into claws that dig furrows in the earth. I bite down on my tongue trying to stop it, tasting copper as blood fills my mouth. My spine arches painfully and I can feel my bones starting to shift beneath my skin, ribs threatening to crack and reform.
No. No. Not yet.
But my body doesn't listen anymore. The wolf claws her way to the surface and I'm powerless to stop her.
It starts with my bones. They crack and reshape, ribs expanding and spine elongating in a cascade of breaks that would be excruciating if the shift wasn't moving so fast. My jaw extends, teeth sharpening to fangs as my skull reforms. Fur erupts across my skin in a wave of silver that catches the moonlight, and my hands twist into paws with claws that dig into the earth.
The world sharpens around me. Scents explode in vivid detail - Chase's sweat and adrenaline, the copper tang of my own blood, the rich loam of the forest floor. Sounds amplify until I can hear his heartbeat and the rustle of leaves and the distant howl of another wolf responding to my distress.
I'm silver fur and four legs and heightened senses. Chase is standing over me with a camera in his hand and triumph written all over his face.
"There she is," he breathes, snapping photo after photo. "The silver wolf. Silverpelt. The Council is going to be pleased."
He pulls out a syringe next, something to sedate me probably, and moves closer confidently as though he's already won. I'm too weak to run, too drained from the torture and forced shift to do anything but watch as he kneels beside me.
A wolf explodes out of the darkness.
Pale grey fur streaked with old scars catches the moonlight as the massive form crashes into Chase with enough force to send them both rolling across the forest floor. Leaves and dirt spray everywhere. Chase barely has time to drop the syringe before his body convulses, bones cracking as his own shift takes over.
His brown wolf is larger when it emerges, heavier through the shoulders. But the grey wolf doesn't give him a chance to use that advantage. Through the haze of pain I recognize the pale eyes and scarred pelt. Knox.
