Chapter 2 The Aftermath

Seraphine Vale

Pain is the first thing I feel.

Not the soul-flaying kind from last night, when it felt like every bone in my body was being rewritten with fire-but something duller now. Heavier. Like my body has been stitched back together wrong. Throbbing. Ache and weight and the distinct, ugly shame of having your limbs dragged through the woods by a myth you summoned but didn't understand.

Something buzzes in my ears. Not quite sound. Not quite silence. Just the echo of wrongness.

I blink. Sunlight sears through my lashes like punishment.

The trees above me are too green. Too serene. Their leaves shift gently in the wind like they're unaware of the violence they hosted. The forest floor is unnervingly still-like the world forgot I screamed here. Bled here.

Am I dead?

No. Apparently not. Which surprises me more than it should.

I try to sit up and immediately regret it. My spine is a jagged line of pain, like someone replaced each vertebra with glass shards. My limbs drag like dead weight. Something crusted and dark coats my palms. Blood? Dirt? Magic?

My jacket-my red jacket-is ripped at the shoulder. A clean tear, like claws sliced through it with purpose. With precision.

And then I see her.

Curled just a few feet away, her black fur catching the light like smoke laced with frost. She's massive. Still. Silent.

Jinx.

Not a fever dream. Not a hallucination. Real.

My wolf.

Separate. Whole. Alive.

I scramble backward on shaking arms, breath hitching in my throat. Every cell in me screams that I shouldn't be seeing this. It's wrong. Wolves don't separate from their humans. They shift with you. They are you.

But there she is.

Sleeping like a demon born of shadow and myth and winter.

"I'm insane," I whisper.

Her eyes snap open.

Silver. Luminous.

"Close," she says lazily in my head. "But not quite."

I yelp, nearly falling backward onto the dirt.

"Oh my God-"

"Not God. Wolf. Same thing on bad days."

She stretches with a long, luxurious groan, bones popping like twigs underfoot. Her tail flicks with amusement, like she's just finished the best nap of her life. Meanwhile, my body feels like it's been through a war I didn't win.

"You passed out," she says, smug. "Typical. Humans always go down like fainting goats when the fun starts."

"Fun?" My voice is hoarse, thin. "You exploded out of me."

She shrugs-if a wolf can shrug. "Dramatic entrances are kind of my thing."

I press the heels of my palms into my eyes, willing the world to reset. This is too much. I shouldn't have done the ritual. I should've listened to Aunt Ev. I should've stayed small. Stayed safe. But I didn't.

And now...

Aunt Ev.

Panic rises sharp and fast, a blade against my ribs.

She's going to kill me. No-worse. The Council might. If they find out what I've done-what I've become-what I am...

Hollow-Born.

The word scratches across my skin like a brand. Not just cursed. Forbidden.

"You should've stayed asleep," I mutter.

Jinx rises to her full height, taller than any natural wolf should be. Broad-shouldered. Predatory. Elegant in the way only nightmares are.

She cocks her head. "And let you rip yourself apart? I don't do slow death, Red."

That nickname again.

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

She grins-all teeth and cold light.

"You wore the red jacket. I needed something to call you besides 'oh-my-god-she's-finally-letting-me-out.'"

I glare, but it's half-hearted. My body aches. My soul does worse.

"You're real," I whisper.

"And you're late," she replies.

I freeze. "What?"

"You were supposed to shift at nineteen. That's the rule. That's when the veil thins. But you locked me out. I rotted in there. I screamed and you didn't listen."

My stomach twists. Shame pulses, low and heavy.

"I didn't know-"

"You knew enough to run last night."

"I'm sorry"

Silence drops between us, thick as ash.

I glance down at my hands. Pale. Blood-stained. Still human.

"Why aren't you... inside me?"

She looks away.

That terrifies me more than anything she's said so far.

Before I can ask again, a branch snaps in the distance.

We both freeze.

She growls low, the sound reverberating through the clearing. Her ears twitch, eyes narrowing.

"Someone's coming."

I whip toward the sound-heart hammering.

Wind shifts. Leaves rustle.

And then, in the distance, a howl.

Deep. Commanding. Laced with something old and cold and royal.

Jinx stiffens. Her fur bristles like frostbite. "That's not one of us."

I rise on unsteady legs. "You mean-?"

She steps closer. Protective. Deadly.

"It's him."

I don't ask who.

I already know.

The Ashbane Alpha.

They say he always feels a new wolf's first shift.

He felt the shift.

He felt my abomination shift

He's coming.