“Raphael?”Her voice, confused.Still bound.Still trusting.
“Don’t.”The word came out guttural, barely human.“Don’t look at me.”
But of course she looked.She twisted against her bonds, trying to see what was happening behind her, and I saw the exact moment her eyes found me.
The shift was halfway complete.My spine curved at an angle that shouldn’t be possible.Fur rippled across my arms, receding and returning as I fought for control.My hands had become something between human fingers and wolf claws.And my eyes, I knew my eyes were glowing amber in the darkness.
This is it.This is the moment.She’ll run.She’ll scream.She’ll finally see the monster I’ve always known I am.
I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
The transformation ripped through me, bones cracking and reforming, muscle and sinew reshaping into something other.I had shifted thousands of times in my life, but never like this.Never involuntarily.Never in front of a human who didn’t know.
When it was done, I stood before her on four legs.Massive.Black fur with silver threading through the ruff.A wolf the size of a small horse, nothing like the natural animals that roamed these mountains.
She had stopped struggling against the belt.
I waited for the scream.The terror.The rejection that would confirm everything I had ever believed about myself.
She stared at me.Her eyes wide, yes.Her breath coming fast.But not running.Not screaming.Just looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“The sculpture.”Her voice was barely a whisper.“Your mother was making you a wolf.”
I couldn’t respond.Couldn’t shift back while the emotion was this raw; the beast was too close to breaking free.
She pulled against her bonds again, and with a jolt, I remembered she was still tied.Still helpless.And I had just become something that could kill her with one swipe of a paw.
I shifted back.
The transformation was faster this time, fueled by sheer will.I needed my hands.Needed my voice.Needed to explain before she decided I was exactly the monster I looked like.
I stumbled to my feet, naked and shaking, and crossed the distance between us.My fingers fumbled with the belt buckle, the leather loops I had wound so carefully minutes ago.She was patient, still, watching me with those eyes that saw too much.
The belt fell away.She turned to face me.
Neither of us spoke.The forest held its breath around us.
“Show me again.”
Three words.Quiet, steady, certain.
“What?”
“The wolf.Show me again.”
I stared at her.The woman who had every right to run, to scream, to look at me with the fear I had seen in the eyes of everyone who had ever glimpsed what I really was.And she was asking me to do it again.
“You’re not afraid?”
“I’m terrified.”A small, broken laugh.“But not of you.I’m terrified of how much I want to understand.”
The shift came easier this time, smoothing through my body like water over stone.I let her watch.Let her see every moment of the transformation, the human becoming something else.Something wild.
When I stood before her in wolf form again, she approached slowly.Her hand extended, trembling slightly, reaching toward my muzzle.
The wolf held perfectly still.More still than he had ever been in his life.Because if she touched us, if she accepted us, everything would change.
Her fingers brushed the fur between my eyes.Her touch was warm, gentle, curious.
