Page 26 of The Alpha's Fallen Spell
Of course she did. In the two months she has been here, I’ve never known her to break her word. I’m the one who has been inconsistent: present then absent, attentive then distant.
“Are you ready?” I ask.
She nods, though I can see the apprehension in her eyes, in the tightness of her shoulders beneath the cloak.
“First, I need you to understand what shifting really is,” I begin, keeping my voice calm and steady. “It’s not a transformation into something else. It’s an expression of something that is already inside you. Your wolf isn’t separate from you; it is you.”
Fiona listens intently, her focus absolute. It’s one of the things I’ve noticed about her—when she commits to learning something, she gives it her total attention.
“When you shifted before, during your escape,” I continue, “the transformation was driven by fear, by survival instinct. That’s why it felt violent, uncontrolled. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
“How do I make it different?” she asks.
“You need to approach it not as something to fear or control, but as something to embrace.” I move closer, keeping my movements slow and deliberate. “Close your eyes. I want you to feel the wolf inside you.”
She hesitates, then lets her eyelids fall shut. In the moonlight, her face looks younger, more vulnerable.
“She’s there, isn’t she?” I say softly. “Not sleeping, but waiting. Listening.”
Fiona nods, her breath quickening slightly.
“Now, don’t force it. Don’t command it. Just let the boundaries between you soften. Let yourself remember what it felt like to run with four paws instead of two feet. To hear with ears that can catch the slightest sound, to smell with a nose that can track a memory.”
As I speak, I see the change beginning—not the violent, bone-cracking shift I witnessed before, but something gentler. A shimmer in the air around her, like heat rising from summer-warmed stone.
“That’s it,” I encourage her. “Let it happen naturally. Your body knows what to do.”
Her eyes flash open, storm gray giving way to amber gold. She gasps, a sound of surprise rather than pain. Her hands lift, fingers splayed as if reaching for something invisible.
“Don’t fight it,” I tell her. “Breathe through it. The first time is always the hardest, but it gets easier.”
The shift begins in earnest now—bones reshaping, muscles elongating. But unlike the last time, there’s a rhythm to it, a grace. Her face contorts briefly, but she doesn’t cry out. Instead, she exhales deeply, and the sound transforms mid-breath into a soft whine.
Where Fiona stood moments before, a wolf now crouches—smaller than her feral form in that forest, with fur the color of pale wheat and eyes that glow like burnished gold. She’s beautiful.
“There you are,” I say, my voice thick with an emotion I can’t name.
She rises cautiously, testing her balance. Her movements are hesitant, uncertain. This isn’t the savage beast that tore through men like paper; this is a new creature. A balanced one.
I approach slowly, my hand extended. “How do you feel?”
She bumps her nose against my palm—a gesture so trusting it makes my chest ache. Then she pulls back, looking at me with a tilt of her head that somehow manages to be a question even without words.
I know what she’s asking for. What she needs.
Stepping back, I focus entirely on my own transformation, which is far smoother and quicker than hers after decades of practice.
When it’s complete, I stand before her in my wolf form—larger, darker, but recognizable as the animal that stopped her in the forest that first night. Her ears perk forward, her posture changing from uncertainty to recognition.
And then, something else happens—something I should have anticipated but somehow didn’t.
The mate bond flares between us, bright and insistent. In human form, it’s easy to suppress, to ignore. But in our wolf forms, with all pretense and human complexity stripped away,it’s unavoidable. A glowing tether connects us, humming with recognition and rightness.
I see it the moment she feels it. Her eyes widen, and her body goes still. She looks at me, really looks, and I know she sees the truth I’ve been hiding.
Quickly, I shift back to human form. “That’s enough for tonight,” I say, my voice sounding rough. “You did well. Very well.”
She remains in wolf form, watching me with those golden eyes that seem to see too much. Then, slowly, she begins her own shift back. It takes her longer, and I see her struggle with it—her wolf reluctant to retreat now that it has finally been acknowledged.
