Page 159 of House of Crimson Cloak and Silver Teeth

The hunters make camp at night and I’m forced to lie at their feet like a common dog. They don’t even bother tying me up. The servitor band makes physical restraints unnecessary.

I lie in the dirt beside their fire, close enough to feel its warmth but not close enough to be comfortable. They talk and laugh above me, eating their cooked meals while I watch, my stomach growling.

Sometimes Quinnlan will absently reach down and scratch behind my ears like I’m a pet.

“It’s disgusting, Quinn. That’s a fucking elf,” Stark mutters, staring at me with disgust.

Fuck him.

Quinnlan waves him off. “But I’ve always wanted a puppy.”

Fuck them both.

The band’s compulsion keeps me from running no matter how much I want to. I test it constantly. When I try to move away, invisible chains jerk me back. I try to howl my rage but my throat produces only whimpers. The collar anticipates every act of rebellion before I can even attempt it.

“You know what’s funny?” Quinnlan says on the second afternoon, watching me struggle over a fallen log. “If you’d just accepted your wolf lineage and learned to shift properly, you might have escaped us. Real wolves are harder to track.”

If only I had embraced what I was. Instead I spent seventeen years running from the Sylverin clan. Now I’m trapped in a twisted mockery of it.

A rabbit bolts across our path. My head snaps toward the movement. Every muscle in me goes taut.

Prey. Hunt. Kill. Eat.

The instincts scream at me to catch and tear into warm flesh.

The rabbit’s scent is rich and alive and utterly tempting. I see the white flash of its tail. Saliva floods my mouth. The urge is overwhelming as my haunches gather beneath me. I’m instinctively preparing for the chase.

The collar jerks me backward so hard I nearly fall. My hunting instinct cuts off, replaced by confusion and frustration.

Stark aims an arrow that takes the prey clean through the skull.

Perfect shot. This shithead is a show-off.

He walks over to retrieve it, holding it up by the ears to examine his kill. “This one’s yours for dinner,” he taunts with a cruel smile.

They feed me once a day with raw meat from whatever the archer kills. Tonight it’s rabbit, skinned and thrown at my feet still warm. The carcass lands in front of me with a wet slap. It’s fresh enough that blood still seeps from the wounds. I recoil from it, stomach churning at the sight of bloody flesh.

But I’m starving.

The curse drained massive amounts of energy from my body. Reshaping bone and muscle and tissue requires fuel, and I have nothing left.

I force myself to lean down, to take the meat between my teeth. The first bite makes me gag. The second is easier and by the third, instincts take over and I’m tearing into the meat like a true beast.

Suddenly the meat isn’t disgusting.

It’s food for survival.

My teeth rip through flesh with ease.

“Look at him go,” Stark says with amusement. I hear his harsh bark of laughter and Quinnlan’s quieter chuckle as blood coats my muzzle.

They’re watching me debase myself, reduced to an animal feeding in the dirt. The sound of their amusement should shame me into stopping.

But it doesn’t. I keep eating.

The meat is gone in minutes and I lick blood from my paws afterward without even thinking about it.

This is what I am now. A fucking wolf.