He was massive, easily twice the size of any natural wolf, with shoulders that stood higher than my chest even as I crouched among the trees. His fur was pure white, pristine as fresh snow, and it seemed to catch and hold the moonlight like silk.
But it was his eyes that truly made my dead heart skip.
Violet.
Deep, luminous violet that seemed to glow with an inner fire. They fixed on me with an intelligence that was definitely not just animal, definitely not just human, and definitely not friendly.
Fear crashed through me like ice water. Not the careful wariness I'd learned to carry since my transformation, but pure, primal terror. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to run, to hide, to get as far away from this creature as possible.
I had thought I understood monsters. I had thought I knew what to fear in the darkness.
I had been wrong.
