Vartos." Trinity jolted awake, her gold eyes shimmering in the darkness of the room as she spoke the words that had probed her mind.
As she calmed down, she realized that it wasn't her screams she was still hearing. Looking over the edge of her bed, she saw Timothy writhing on the ground, his body rippling with violent energy as he shifted. The strange words had crashed into his body with the force of a tidal wave, and now they were tearing him apart from the inside out. He screamed in agony, clutching his head as if he could hold his mind together. He dropped to his knees, utterly lost and in pain.
Trinity watched as Timothy's nails clawed at the floor. His bare chest was slick with sweat as beads of blood bloomed across his skin. His sleep shorts slipped down his legs as he thrashed in pain, and the once-white carpet turned a deep, sickening red. His skin rippled and danced with the energy of his impending shift.
"What did I do?" Her words left her lips like a quiet whisper as she clutched her heaving chest.
She watched, transfixed, as Timothy's body tore itself apart. His bones moved painfully underneath his skin, unnaturally trying to find a form they had never taken before. Blood kept seeping from his skin, painting the white carpet beneath him a deeper red with every second.
Jumping down from her bed, Trinity's hands shook as she hovered over Timothy, not knowing what to do or how to help him.
"Shshhh... I... uh! It's okay! Shhh, just... ju... just breathe." Her voice shook as she tried to offer Timothy comfort. The sound of his spine cracking was sickening as his body crumpled awkwardly, his spine trying to reform itself. Everything felt so slow.
Kael burst through Trinity's dorm room, knocking the door off its hinges in his haste. His hands had already shifted into claws, prepared to kill anybody who harmed the Beta's daughter.
His body froze as he noticed Trinity's shaking form next to Timothy. The boy was shifting.
"How?" The words left his lips as a whisper. What was going on? In all his years, he'd never seen so many defectives begin to show signs of shifting. It didn't make any sense. Whether a defective was naturally shifting or forced to shift, or even mentally weak, it wasn't something easily done. Defectives didn't just shift so frequently.
Zeroing in on the scene, Ian sent a mental link to the pack doctor. He couldn't help but give Timothy a look of sympathy. His body was shifting unnaturally, and it was ripping him apart.
"Leave him!" Mitchell pushed past her other two guards, coming to kneel beside Trinity. Lightly pushing her hands away from the boy. "You do not want to watch." Without the ability to heal, an improper shift was deadly. From what he had heard, she had seen more than enough. He was assigned to make sure that nothing else happened to her. She wasn't supposed to see anything that would harm her mental state.
"No!" She felt something rising in her, a push to make sure that Timothy was okay. She had done this to him. Her chest tightened as her breath came out in heavy pants. A throbbing pressure built behind her eyes, her skull aching with every rapid beat of her heart. The sound of Timothy's body breaking and reforming filled her ears, a horrifying symphony of snapping bones and tearing flesh. His screams were a constant, raw shriek of pain that tore at her mind.
She knelt, gripping either side of Timothy's face, forcing his luminescent brown eyes to meet her own. Latching onto that feeling deep within her, she spoke the words, the language she didn't even know. "Vartos." The words left her lips with overwhelming strength as her blue eyes turned back to gold.
His eyes pulled closed as his body obeyed the command. Sloppily, his bones found their path. His spine elongated, his legs buckled and broke as they formed into paws, and his spinal cord lengthened to give him a tail. Blonde fur sprouted over his body until the last vestiges of skin were covered with golden fur.
A gasp of confusion left the three guards as their bodies refused to obey them. Something in Trinity's words had forced them to shift. Each of them was suddenly taking on their wolf form. Their faces flushed with a deep crimson as they clenched their fists, their jaw muscles tight with strain as they tried to fight it. But they couldn't. Not for a single second. The shift consumed them, their minds racing in a panic. They had to get their clothes off, fast. Claws ripped through their jeans and shirts as their bones groaned and shifted. They exchanged looks of astonishment. How could she force their shift? How could mere words force their shift? None of it made any sense.
"Timmy?" Trinity reached out her hand to touch his golden fur. Timothy snarled, his snout pulling back as he growled and snapped, trying to bite her fingers. Her body was pulled backward by one of her guards, who softly bit onto the back of her pajamas, pulling her back. The other two stood in front of her, growling viciously at Timothy.
Timothy kept shaking his head, unable to focus, unable to think properly. His mind was a jumble of chaos. He didn't understand what was going on, but he was scared. He was frightened, and all he could do was act on instinct. His growls got deeper, the fur along his spine standing at attention as his paws backed away from the three wolves that were growling at him.
With the option of fight or flight ahead of him, he fled. Racing for the door, he ran out into the hallway, crashing into the wall and leaving a massive hole in the plaster. He ran for the window, crashing through the glass only to land on the grass softly. He growled as he ran forward, slashing at the wolf in front of him who carried a human on its back before racing into the forest.
"Move!" She didn't waste any time. Shoving past her guards, she ran into the hall, following Timothy's path. She didn't even pause at the window, just jumping down before taking off in the direction that Timothy had run. Her guards were hot on her trail.
At this moment, she really wished she knew how to do that fast-moving thing. More or less, she feels more like herself. Definitely faster, but nothing like before. She could tell it was still inside her; she just didn't know how to access it. Not yet!
Author's note:
I'm hoping to get 10 chapters out this week, we shall see.