Sable
The howl rips from my throat before I can stop it. It’s a sound I’ve never made, a sound of agony and ecstasy all at once. The world fractures into a kaleidoscope of pain and light. My spine is a rod of white hot lightning. My muscles are tearing themselves apart to be rebuilt anew.
I’m on the ground, the damp earth cold against my cheek. But the cold is a distant sensation, drowned out by the fire in my veins.
“Sable.”
Kael’s voice. It’s a low rumble, a steady stone in the hurricane tearing me apart. His hand is on my back, a point of pressure that keeps me from flying into a million pieces.
“Breathe,” he says. “Don’t fight it. Let her out.”
Her? A part of my mind, the small, terrified human part, screams in protest. But another part, a larger, wilder part, hears his command and understands. It’s been sleeping for so long. Now it is awake.
I stop fighting. I surrender to the inferno.
It’s not the snap and crack of bone I’ve always heard described. It’s a flow. A surge. My form feels like it is melting, reforming, expanding. My senses explode outward. I can smell the ozone in the air from the coming storm. I can smell the rich scent of pine from the forest edge a hundred yards away. I can smell the coppery tang of shock from every single wolf watching me.
My vision clears. The world is sharper, drenched in a thousand shades of gray and blue I never knew existed. I’m looking at the world from a different angle. I am lower to the ground, but I feel taller than I have ever been in my life.
Slowly, I push myself up. My limbs feel strange, powerful. I look down, expecting to see my hands. Instead, I see two massive paws. They are covered in thick fur that shimmers under the moonlight, not brown or black, but the color of a newly forged silver coin. My claws are the color of polished obsidian.
I take a clumsy step, then another. The movement feels alien, then suddenly, perfectly natural. This body is mine. It has always been mine, just waiting.
Silence. The cheerful chatter of the pack is gone. The crackle of the cook fire seems distant. The only sound is the wind whispering through the trees, as if it too is holding its breath.
I lift my head. My new eyes scan the crowd of werewolves, frozen in place. Their faces are a mixture of confusion, fear, and utter disbelief. I see them not just with my eyes, but with a sense that tells me their heart rates, their scent, their raw emotions. Awe is the dominant flavor in the air.
My gaze finds Kael. He has not moved. He is still kneeling on the ground where I first fell. His face is unguarded, his usual calm control shattered. He is staring at me, his eyes wide with a look of pure reverence.
“Goddess,” a voice whispers from the crowd. It’s a young woman, her eyes like saucers. “I’ve never seen… the stories are real.”
Kael gets to his feet, his movements slow, deliberate. He doesn’t approach me like I’m a wild animal. He approaches me like he’s entering a sacred space.
“Sable?” he asks, his voice soft.
I can’t answer. My mouth is not shaped for human words. Instead, I take a step toward him and dip my head, a gesture of instinct I don’t understand but feels right.
He stops a few feet away, his eyes tracing the lines of my new form. From my size, to the powerful muscles in my shoulders, to my silver pelt.
“Magnificent,” he breathes. The word is not for the pack. It is just for me.
This power. It settles into my bones, a comfortable weight. It isn’t a beast I have to control. It isn’t a monster sharing my skin. It is me. The other, truer half of me.
The weak, wolfless girl who ran from Silvermoon died in a library in a human city. I am what’s left.
I lift my head to the full moon, the celestial body I once thought had forsaken me. A howl builds in my chest, a real one this time. It is not a sound of pain. It is not a cry of loneliness.
It is a song of power. A declaration of my own existence.
The sound echoes through the valley, silencing the night. It is the sound of a champion being born. And the stunned silence of the world is its applause.
