Chapter 2 The First Shift
Lily's POV
My feet pounded against the forest floor as I ran blindly through the night. Mom's desperate cries still echoed in my ears, drowning out even the sound of my own ragged breathing.
"Don't come back! I'll protect Silver!" The words chased me like ghosts through the darkness. I should have stayed. But Mom couldn't protect both me and Silver at the same time, and I couldn't bear to watch my little brother's terrified eyes as Dad smashed another bottle against the wall.
Pain shot through my chest, sharp and sudden. I stumbled, catching myself against a gnarled oak tree. Something was happening to me—something beyond the normal agony of betraying those you love by saving yourself.
My skin burned as if touched by fire. My bones ached deep within, a pressure building that threatened to tear me apart from inside. Was this what dying felt like? On my fifteenth birthday, of all nights?
I fell to my knees, fingers digging into the soft earth. Through tear-blurred eyes, I looked up at the full moon hanging heavy in the night sky, its silver light bathing the forest around me. It seemed impossibly bright, impossibly close—as if reaching down to touch me.
The pain intensified, spreading like wildfire through my limbs. A scream tore from my lips that transformed midway into something else—a sound I'd never made before. Something primal. Something wild. The sound hung in the air, not fully human, not fully animal.
My first shift came without warning—impossibly early, considering even most Alphas don't shift until sixteen or seventeen. No one had prepared me for this. No one had told me what to expect.
My body convulsed violently as bones cracked and reformed. I heard each snap and pop with terrifying clarity as my skeleton rearranged itself. My jaw extended with an agonizing stretch, teeth sharpening into fangs that cut my tongue when I tried to scream again. Fur burst through my skin like thousands of needles pushing outward, white as the moonlight itself. The ripping of my clothes was distant background noise compared to the sound of my transformation.
My senses exploded into new dimensions—scents I'd never noticed flooded my awareness. The musky odor of a fox that had passed by hours earlier. The sweet decay of fallen leaves. The sharp tang of my own fear-sweat. Sounds came to me from impossible distances—an owl's wings cutting through air half a mile away, a stream bubbling somewhere to the east, the subtle movement of mice beneath fallen logs.
When the transformation completed, I stood on four paws, trembling and disoriented. My human consciousness shared space with something ancient and instinctual—a presence I immediately recognized as my wolf. Not separate from me, but a deeper part of myself I'd never known existed.
She wanted to run, to feel the earth beneath our paws, to taste the night air. I gave in to her urging, launching us up the mountain path at a speed I'd never imagined possible. The forest blurred around us as we ran, muscle memory I didn't know I had guiding our movements.
The world looked different through wolf eyes. Colors faded but depths increased. Every shadow held stories, every scent painted pictures more vivid than sight. I could smell the deer that had passed hours ago, the owl watching from a high branch, the lingering scent markers of Blake's border patrols.
As we ran, human emotions and wolf instincts merged into something new. My grief found expression in a mournful howl that rose toward the moon, carrying with it all my pain, my confusion, my rage at the unfairness of it all.
"Why?" I demanded of the silent goddess above. "Why give me this power tonight, when I couldn't use it to save them? What good is being special if I can't protect the ones I love?"
My howl echoed across the valley, bouncing back to me unanswered. The wolf in me understood what the human could not—that some questions have no answers, that the moon gives and takes without explanation.
Dark clouds suddenly swept across the moon's face, as if the goddess herself was turning away from my accusations. The temperature dropped sharply, unnaturally. The first fat raindrop hit my muzzle with surprising force, followed quickly by another, then dozens more.
Within seconds, the sky opened up in a torrential downpour unlike any I'd witnessed before. My white fur became sodden, heavy, weighing me down. Lightning cracked overhead with deafening intensity, briefly illuminating the mountain path that was rapidly transforming into a muddy stream. Thunder followed immediately, vibrating through my chest.
I tried to find shelter, disoriented by the sudden storm, but the rain made the ground treacherous. My claws scrabbled for purchase on the slick earth. A sharp pain shot through my right front paw as I stepped on something sharp, the sensation reminiscent of the brutal strength in my father's grip whenever he'd grabbed my arm.
I lost my footing on the steep, slick ground. My body tumbled down the mountainside, bouncing painfully off rocks and tree roots. I couldn't stop myself, couldn't regain control. Panic surged through me as I fell.
The world spun in a blur of rain and darkness. I felt my wolf form slipping away as fear overtook me, leaving me human again—vulnerable, naked, and injured. The change back was almost as painful as the first transformation, my body protesting the second shift so soon after the first.
My descent ended with a sickening thud as I crashed against something hard and moss-covered. Pain exploded through my shoulder and head, momentarily whiting out my vision. When I could see again, I made out stone steps leading up to a doorway through the curtain of rain.
The old Moon Temple. I'd heard stories about it from Mom. How pack members once gathered here every full moon to honor the goddess and strengthen their bonds. How Alpha Blake had abandoned the traditions five years ago, declaring them obsolete superstitions that held the pack back from modernization.
Using my good arm, I dragged myself up the slippery stone steps, each movement sending fresh waves of pain through my battered body. I pushed against the heavy wooden door, its ancient hinges protesting with a mournful creak. It opened just enough for me to slip inside.
The interior was dark and musty, but blessedly dry. Moonlight filtered through a broken stained-glass window on the far wall, casting colored patterns of blue and silver across the stone floor.
The central altar, once used for offerings to the Moon Goddess, stood empty and covered in dust. Around the circular room, stone benches arranged in a crescent shape faced the altar, now cracked and overtaken by climbing vines that had found their way inside.
Above the altar hung a massive carving of the crescent moon, partially obscured by cobwebs but still magnificent. Beneath it stood the statue of the Goddess herself—tall and proud, with flowing stone hair and unseeing eyes that somehow seemed to follow me.
I was shivering violently, my naked body covered in cuts and bruises from the fall. Blood trickled from a gash on my forehead, mixing with rainwater to create pink rivulets down my face.
In a corner, I found some old ceremonial cloths, faded blue fabric embroidered with silver moons, dusty but dry. I wrapped them around myself, teeth chattering.
"Happy birthday to me," I whispered bitterly into the darkness. The temple seemed to absorb my words, the silence afterward more complete than before.
The storm raged outside with unnatural fury, rain hammering against the roof in sheets. Through gaps in the stone walls, wind howled like a wolf in pain. I huddled against the wall, as far from the drafts as possible, my thoughts returning to Silver and Mom. Had Dad hurt them further after I ran? Would I ever see them again? And what would happen when they discovered I was missing?
Eventually, exhaustion overtook me. My body, traumatized by the double shift and the fall, surrendered to sleep despite the pain. I fell into a fitful slumber beneath the watchful eyes of the Moon Goddess's statue, her stone face neither judging nor comforting as the storm continued its assault on the forgotten temple.
