Sienna's POV
The pain woke me at two in the morning.
Not the usual pain I'd gotten used to over the past three weeks. This was different. This was like someone had reached inside my chest and was slowly squeezing my heart. Like my bones were trying to break their way out of my skin. Like my entire body was rejecting itself.
I lay in bed gasping, my sheets soaked with sweat, my hands gripping the mattress so hard my nails broke. The mate bond was screaming. It had always hurt, but this was worse. This felt like it was actually tearing me apart.
Downstairs, I could hear my parents' voices getting louder. They weren't trying to be quiet anymore. They didn't care if I heard them.
"We have to do something," my mom was saying. Her voice sounded like it was made of ice. "She's getting worse. I can feel it. There's something wrong with her blood. Something we should have dealt with years ago."
My dad's response came fast and cruel. "Get rid of her. I'm done with this. I'm done with her. Send her away tomorrow. Tell her she has until sunrise to pack her things and get out of this house."
The words landed like physical blows. Until sunrise. They weren't even giving me a week anymore. They wanted me gone before the sun came up.
Something inside me snapped.
Not a gentle snap. Not a quiet breaking. A violent, shattering snap like bones cracking under pressure, like something ancient and hungry finally breaking free from the chains that had been holding it down for twenty-three years.
The pain transformed into rage so intense that my vision went red. The rage transformed into power. Dark power. Ancient power. Power that made my entire body burn like I was made of lightning from the inside out.
I felt it spread through me like wildfire consuming everything in its path. Every cell in my body started to change. Every nerve ending screamed. The darkness that had been growing inside me for three weeks suddenly exploded outward and I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but feel the power consuming me.
I stumbled out of bed and my hands came up in front of my face. Dark veins were spreading across my skin like cracks in porcelain. Not blue veins like normal people had. Black veins. Dark veins that looked like they were made of shadows and poison and everything that was supposed to be dead inside me.
My eyes felt different. When I caught my reflection in the mirror, I barely recognized myself. My eyes were glowing. Actually glowing. Like they had fire burning inside them. Like they belonged to something that wasn't human anymore.
I could feel everything.
Every living thing in the house suddenly existed for me like a heartbeat in my own chest. I could sense the servants sleeping in the east wing. I could feel my parents downstairs, their heartbeats pounding like meals I'd been starving for my entire life. I could feel their life force calling to me, begging me to touch them, to take from them, to consume them.
My hands shook violently. My breath came in gasps. I could feel the hunger inside me getting stronger with every second, demanding that I go downstairs right now and touch them and drain them and take everything they had.
Everything they'd denied me.
Everything they'd called weak and cursed and shameful.
The dark voice inside my head was screaming yes, yes, YES. It was screaming for me to go downstairs and make them pay for every time they'd looked at me with disgust. For every time they'd talked about getting rid of me like I was trash. For every moment of my life when they'd made it clear that I was a mistake they'd never wanted to make.
I could do it. I could actually do it now.
I moved toward my door and my entire body felt wrong. Too powerful. Too dangerous. Like I was wearing skin that didn't fit anymore. Like the thing inside me was too big and too hungry and too angry to stay contained.
My parents' voices were still coming from downstairs. Still arguing about what to do with me. Still talking about my cursed blood like I wasn't listening. Like they didn't know what I'd become.
I opened my door and stepped into the hallway. The darkness that surrounded me felt alive. The shadows seemed to move with me like they were part of me. The hunger was so intense now that I could barely think about anything else. Touch them, the dark voice said. Take from them. Make them hurt like they've hurt you.
I made it three steps down the hallway before my legs gave out.
I collapsed against the wall, my entire body shaking. The power inside me was too much. It was consuming me faster than I could control it. I could feel it spreading through every part of my body, corrupting everything, changing everything, making me into something that wasn't Sienna Graves anymore.
Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones. This wasn't natural werewolf power. This wasn't anything that Kael or any of the other Alphas had. This was something else entirely. Something darker. Something older. Something that had been sleeping in my blood for generations and had finally found the moment when my pain was intense enough to force it awake.
The dark veins spread further up my arms. They were across my shoulders now, spreading down my chest, covering my body like a disease. My eyes felt hot. My vision was blurring. Every heartbeat inside the house sounded like a bell calling to me, telling me to come take what was mine.
I heard my mom gasp from downstairs.
"Do you feel that?" she said. Her voice was terrified now. The coldness was gone, replaced by pure fear. "Do you feel what's happening upstairs?"
My dad didn't answer. I could sense him, though. Could feel him moving toward the stairs. Could feel him coming up to check on me, coming to see what was happening in his house.
I couldn't let him see me like this.
I couldn't let him see what I was becoming.
I forced myself to stand up, forced myself to move, forced myself to stumble toward the stairs even though every part of me was screaming to stay here and wait for him and touch him and drain him.
My hands were glowing now. Actually glowing with dark power that looked like liquid shadow moving across my skin. I couldn't feel my face anymore. Couldn't feel my body. Could only feel the hunger and the rage and the ancient power that was finally, finally awake.
I heard my dad's footsteps on the stairs. Heard him coming toward me. Heard him stopping cold when he saw me.
"What are you?" he whispered.
The dark voice inside me had one answer.
Everything.