SCARLETT POV
The pain hits me at 3 AM like a truck slamming into my chest.
I wake up screaming, my whole body on fire. Every bone in my body feels like it's breaking into a million pieces. I roll off my bed and crash onto the floor, gasping for air.
"No, no, no," I whisper, clutching my stomach. "Not now. Please not now."
I've waited eighteen years for this—well, almost eighteen. My birthday is in one week. Every werewolf is supposed to shift when they turn thirteen. But not me. I'm the freak who never changed. The defective wolf girl who might actually be human.
At least, that's what Silas and Margot always told me. The people I'm supposed to call Mom and Dad, even though they've never felt like parents. They're cold. Distant. Like I'm some unwanted houseplant they have to water occasionally.
Another wave of pain rips through me and I scream again. This time, I hear footsteps pounding down the hallway.
My bedroom door crashes open. Silas and Margot stand there in their pajamas, and their faces go completely white. Like they've seen a ghost.
"It's happening," Margot whispers. Her voice sounds terrified. "After all this time, it's actually happening."
"Help me!" I cry out, reaching for them. "Something's wrong! It hurts so bad!"
But they don't move. They just stare at me like I'm a monster.
My skin starts rippling. I watch in horror as silver fur—SILVER fur—sprouts along my arms. My fingers stretch and curve into claws. My jaw cracks and elongates into a snout.
"Make it stop!" I beg, but my voice comes out as a growl.
The change takes over completely. My human thoughts scatter like leaves in the wind. Everything smells sharper—I can smell Margot's fear-sweat, Silas's panic, the leftover chicken from dinner three rooms away. I can hear their hearts hammering like drums.
I try to stand up but my legs are different now. Four legs instead of two. I stumble and crash into my desk. My lamp shatters. Books fly everywhere.
"Get the wolfsbane!" Silas shouts. "Now!"
I don't know what that means, but the wolf inside me does. Danger. Poison. Run.
But there's nowhere to run. I'm trapped in my tiny bedroom with two people who look at me like I'm a disease.
My wolf is huge—way bigger than any wolf I've ever seen in pictures. I catch my reflection in the mirror and freeze. Silver. My fur is pure silver, shimmering like moonlight on water. My eyes glow bright gold.
I'm beautiful. Powerful. For the first time in my pathetic life, I feel STRONG.
"Silver wolves are extinct," Silas whispers, backing toward the door. His face isn't just scared anymore. It's horrified. "This isn't possible."
Margot runs out and comes back thirty seconds later with a glass bottle. She grabs me by the scruff of my neck—which should be impossible because I'm massive now—but she's a werewolf too. Stronger than she looks.
She forces my jaws open and pours bitter liquid down my throat.
The poison burns through my veins like acid. My wolf howls in agony and rage. Why are they hurting me? I'm their daughter! I finally shifted! Shouldn't they be happy?
But as the wolfsbane takes effect, my body shrinks. The fur disappears. The claws retract. Within seconds, I'm human again, naked and shaking on my destroyed bedroom floor.
"What did you do?" I gasp, tears streaming down my face. "I finally shifted! After all these years, I finally—"
"You need to control yourself," Margot snaps, throwing a blanket over me. Her hands are shaking. "That was dangerous. Reckless."
"I didn't mean to! I couldn't stop it!"
"Well, you have to learn." She pulls another bottle from her bathrobe pocket. Pills this time. "Take these. They'll help suppress the shifts until you learn control."
I stare at the pills. Something feels wrong. Very wrong. "Suppress? But I just got my wolf! I've waited so long—"
"Take them, Scarlett." Silas's voice is hard. Final. "Unless you want to hurt someone next time."
Next time. Like my shift was an attack. Like I'm a monster who needs to be controlled.
My wolf whimpers inside my mind. She's still there, weak and scared from the wolfsbane, but present. For the first time in my life, I'm not alone in my own head.
They hurt us, she whispers. Why did they hurt us?
I don't have an answer.
I take the pills because I'm too tired and confused to fight. Within minutes, everything gets fuzzy. The wolf's voice fades. My eyelids get heavy.
"Sleep," Margot says, already leaving my room. "We'll clean this mess tomorrow."
"But Mom—" I start to say.
She doesn't turn around. "Just sleep, Scarlett."
They close the door, leaving me alone in my destroyed room. I curl up under the blanket, my body still aching from the shift. My wolf is barely a whisper now, drugged into silence.
I drift in and out of consciousness. At some point, I hear voices in the hallway. Margot's voice, low and urgent. She's on the phone.
I force my eyes open and strain to listen.
"...We have a problem," Margot says. Her voice sounds terrified. Guilty. Like she's confessing a crime. "She shifted tonight. A week early."
Silence while someone responds.
"Yes, I gave her the wolfsbane. And the suppressants. But you don't understand..." Margot's voice drops even lower. I have to hold my breath to hear. "She shifted SILVER."
More silence.
"I know what that means!" Margot hisses. "I know exactly what that means! That's why we need new instructions. The original plan won't work anymore. She's not just some random orphan wolf. If anyone finds out what she really is—"
My heart stops.
Orphan?
"Just tell them the Thorne heir is awake," Margot whispers. "And she's more powerful than any of us expected."
The phone clicks off.
I lie there in the darkness, my drugged mind trying to process what I just heard.
Orphan. Thorne heir. More powerful than expected.
Who am I?
And what are Silas and Margot hiding?