Mac nodded once. “You learn control early. Little things first. Partial shifts. Holding the line between forms. Families make sure of it.”
Reynolds listened with the same focused attention he brought to everything else. “What about the first time?” he asked.
Melvin let out a small breath, remembering. “I was thirteen. Backyard behind my uncle’s place upstate. They had space for it. My father stayed close enough to step in if he had to.” He shook his head. “I thought I was ready. Turns out nobody’s really ready the first time.”
Reynolds smiled faintly. “What happened?”
“Nothing dramatic,” Melvin said. “Lost control for about thirty seconds. Felt like longer.” He shrugged. “After that it got easier.”
Mac leaned back a little farther. “Mine was earlier. Nine.”
Reynolds looked surprised.
Mac gave a faint half-smile. “Family figured it would come early.”
“What was it like?”
Mac considered. “Early morning. Winter up in the hills. Frost still on the ground. My grandfather wanted me to feel it under my feet. Said it helped you understand where you stood.”
Melvin glanced toward him. He had never heard that story before, but it sounded right.
Mac went on, steady as ever. “I remember trying to think my way through it.” A slight shake of his head. “Didn’t work. Took me a while to understand the wolf didn’t need explaining.”
Reynolds nodded, then looked down at the table. “Feels different for me.”
“It would,” Melvin said.
Reynolds’s voice dropped a little. “I keep thinking about the day it happened. Feels like everything split in two right there.”
Mac watched him. “That part fades. What stays is what you build after.”
Reynolds nodded, absorbing it. “Council told me bites used to be more common.”
Mac gave a small nod. “They were.”
Melvin added, “Too many went wrong.”
Reynolds looked between them. “Still feels strange being the only one I know who didn’t start this way.”
Mac shook his head. “You won’t be.”
He nodded slightly toward the rest of the facility. “Half the people training here came in the same way. You just haven’t met them yet.”
Melvin nodded. “Talk to them when you get the chance. You’ll learn more from that than any briefing.”
Reynolds sat with it a moment. “Didn’t realize there were that many.”
Mac rested his forearms on the table. “There are a little over eight billion people in the world. That number includes all of us. Humans just assume it only means them.”
Reynolds frowned. “All of us?”
Melvin nodded. “Shifters. Vampires. Witches. Druids. Fae lines. Born and made alike. Merfolk too.”
He paused. “Some things that don’t come from here at all.”
Reynolds blinked. “What do you mean, not from here?”
Mac answered, quiet and blunt. “Other realms.”
