The howl didn’t start in my throat. It started in the marrow, a deep, grinding pressure that felt less like a sound and more like an eviction.

  Pain.

  It wasn't the dull ache of a sprained ankle or the sharp sting of a paper cut. This was structural reconfiguration. It was my ribs cracking like dry twigs, expanding to house lungs that could outrun a train. It was my jaw unhinging, pushing forward, teeth lengthening into serrated daggers designed to shear through Kevlar.

  I didn't scream. I roared.

  The sound slammed against the heavy silence of the containment warehouse, vibrating against the lead-lined walls. It tasted like copper and hate.

  The glass partition in front of me—the one separating me from Danny—vibrated. A spiderweb crack appeared in the center.

  Break it, the wolf commanded. Break everything.

  I grew. My muscles surged with impossible mass, thickening and hardening like steel cables. My bare feet elongated, toes tipping with black obsidian claws. Soft, coarse fur erupted from my skin, burying the human softness in a coat of silver and white.

  I heard the seams of my favorite jacket pop—a tragic sound, even in the middle of a rage-blackout. That jacket cost me three paychecks. The sleeves tore up the forearms, but the tough material held on, stretching taut over my expanded, furry frame. My purple leather pants strained against my thickening thighs, tearing at the knees and the hips, but they didn't fall. They clung to me, a tattered second skin over the beast I was becoming.

  I wasn't just a wolf. I was something else. Standing on two legs, I was a hybrid of human rage and lupine power. A furry, humanoid nightmare.

  My vision shifted, bleeding out the amber safety lights and replacing them with a high-contrast monochrome of heat and movement.

  I saw the soldiers pouring out of the side doors. Their heartbeats were frantic drum solos. They smelled of copper fear and gun oil.

  I saw the scientists in their white coats, scrambling behind the heavy containment units. They smelled like antiseptic and regret.

  But mostly, I saw him.

  Danny.

  He was backing away into the shadows of the docking bay.

  Traitor, the wolf snarled. Liar. Prey.

  I didn't think. I launched.

  I hit the reinforced glass with my shoulder. Lean bio-engineered muscle moving at sixty miles per hour.

  CRASH.

  The glass exploded. Shards rained down like diamonds, bouncing harmlessly off my fur and the tattered remains of my leather jacket. I landed on the concrete floor, my massive clawed feet digging furrows into the polish.

  “Containment Team!” a voice shouted over the PA system. “Target is active! Initiate non-lethal protocol! Do not damage the asset!”

  Asset.

  That word again.

  A soldier stepped into my path, raising a heavy stun rifle. He looked like a toy soldier. Breakable.

  He fired. A blue bolt of electricity arced toward me.

  I didn't dodge. I swiped.

  My hand—now a paw with opposable thumbs and razor claws—met the rifle barrel. Metal screeched and sheared. The gun was torn from his hands, spinning away into the darkness. I backhanded him—a casual, dismissive swat. He flew twenty feet, crumpling against a shipping crate with a wet thud.

  One.

  More of them swarmed. They fired nets. They fired tranquilizer darts that bounced off my hide or got tangled in the leather of my jacket.

  I was a wrecking ball with teeth. I moved through them, ignoring the stun batons bouncing off my ribs. They went down like bowling pins. I didn't kill them—the human part of me, buried deep under the fur, held the lethal instinct back by a thread—but I broke them. I crushed armor. I tossed bodies.

  I cleared the path.

  I turned my wolf-like head toward the docking bay.

  Danny was gone.

  No. Not gone.

  Waiting.

  I sniffed the air. Beneath the stench of ozone and fear, I caught it.

  Mint. Iron. Cold.

  I bounded toward the docking bay, my oversized feet silent on the concrete. The rage was a fire in my belly, hot and consuming. I wanted to look him in the eye. I wanted him to see what he had woken up.

  I skidded around a stack of crates.

  And stopped.

  The docking bay wasn't empty.

  Standing in the center of the bay, bathed in the harsh white light of the overhead utility floods, was a figure clad in darkness.

  It wasn't a mech. It was an exoskeleton.

  Danny stood there, encased in a sleek, matte-black combat suit that locked onto his limbs like a second skeleton. Hydraulics hissed softly with his slightest movement. Jutting from the back of the suit were two massive, black razor wings, sharp enough to slice through bone. His face was completely hidden behind a black, featureless helmet with two narrow eyes glowing crimson.

  He looked like a gargoyle dipped in matte-black radar paint. Sleek, sharp, and expensive.

  The suit took a step forward. The servos whined.

  “Stand down, Nikki,” a synthesized voice boomed from the helmet. It was distorted, stripped of all humanity, but I knew the cadence.

  I snarled. The sound rumbled in my chest, a low frequency warning.

  You think a suit will stop me?

  I crouched, my leg muscles coiling beneath the ripped purple leather.

  “Don’t make me do this,” the synthesized voice warned.

  I lunged.

  I aimed for the helmet. If I could rip it off, I could see his eyes. I could shake the betrayal out of him.

  I moved fast—faster than any human could track.

  But the exoskeleton was faster.

  Danny raised a metal arm. He didn't block; he parried. He caught my momentum, diverting it. His metal hand clamped around my furry throat.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  The grip was absolute. Hydraulic steel against fur and muscle.

  He slammed me into the floor.

  CRACK.

  Concrete spiderwebbed under my back. The wind was knocked out of me.

  I thrashed, raking my claws against the arm holding me down. Sparks flew, bright and hot. I tore deep grooves into the black armor, exposing silver circuitry beneath, but the grip didn't loosen.

  He leaned over me, the red eyes glowing inches from my snout.

  “You drop your left shoulder when you're angry, Nikki,” the computerized voice droned. “You always have.”

  My stomach turned over. Not from the blow, but from the memory of him spotting me on the bench press. Helping me with my form so he could break my ribs later.

  He hadn't just been watching me in the gym because he liked me. He hadn't been admiring my form.

  He had been building a database.

  Calculated, the wolf roared. Cold.

  I snapped my jaws at the faceplate, my teeth screeching against the reinforced composite.

  Danny didn't flinch. He used the suit’s hydraulic weight to pin me, his knee driving into my chest.

  “Stop fighting,” he ordered.

  Never.

  He brought a Gundam suit to a fistfight? Coward.

  I gathered my strength. I dug my hind claws into the floor, finding purchase in the cracks. I twisted, using the leverage of my spine to buck him off.

  It worked.

  The exoskeleton staggered back, its gyros whining as it fought for balance.

  I scrambled up, my torn jacket flapping around my torso. I didn't wait. I circled him, looking for a weak point.

  The joints. The neck cabling. The wings.

  He spun, whipping one of the black razor wings at me. It sliced the air with a terrifying whoosh.

  I ducked, rolling under the strike. I came up behind him.

  I leaped onto his back, digging my claws into the gaps in the armor plating. I bit down on a bundle of hydraulic cables near the shoulder.

  Black fluid sprayed out, tasting of oil and chemicals.

  The suit lurched.

  Danny spun, throwing his weight backward to crush me against a pillar.

  I pushed off, backflipping away just before he slammed into the concrete. The impact shook the warehouse, dust raining down from the rafters.

  He turned to face me. The suit was leaking fluid, one arm hanging slightly lower than the other.

  But he wasn't slowing down.

  He extended a wrist blade—a long, electrified spike that crackled with blue energy.

  “Please,” the synthesized voice said again, though the distortion cracked slightly. “Stay down.”

  Liar, I thought. You already hurt me.

  I charged.

  I feinted left, then jagged right—a move I’d never used in practice. A move I saved for survival.

  Danny took the bait. He swung the blade left.

  I slipped under his guard. I slammed my shoulder into the suit’s knee joint, putting all my momentum into the strike.

  Metal screamed. The joint buckled.

  Danny dropped to one knee.

  I didn't stop. I went for the throat again.

  But Danny was a Dhampir. His reflexes were wired into the machine.

  As I leaped, the black wings snapped forward, hitting me like a battering ram.

  BOOM.

  The impact threw me backward, tumbling end over end across the polished floor. My ears rang. My equilibrium shattered.

  I tried to stand, but the room was spinning. My legs felt like jelly.

  Get up, I told myself. Get up or die.

  I managed to get my massive feet under me. I shook my head, white fur bristling, trying to clear the static.

  A shadow fell over me.

  I looked up.

  The black exoskeleton stood over me. It blocked out the spotlight. It blocked out the world.

  Danny reached down. He didn't strike. He didn't cut.

  He grabbed me by the scattered collar of my leather jacket and slammed me down onto the floor again.

  This time, he didn't give me room to move.

  He pinned my arms with his metal hands. He pressed the full weight of the suit onto my torso, effectively paralyzing me.

  I snarled, snapping at the air, but I couldn't even lift my head. I was trapped.

  “Forgive me,” the speaker buzzed.

  A panel on the suit’s wrist slid open.

  A needle emerged. It wasn't a medical needle. It was a harpoon. Thick, silver, and filled with a glowing blue liquid.

  Wolfsbane-Synth.

  I knew what it was. I’d read the files. It wasn't just poison; it was a genetic dampener. It forced a reversion. It locked the wolf away in a cage of chemical agony.

  I struggled. I whined, a high-pitched sound escaping my throat.

  No. Not that. Anything but that.

  Danny hesitated for a fraction of a second. The red eyes stared down at me, unreadable.

  Then, he drove the needle down.

  It punched through the tough purple leather, through the thick fur, and hit the muscle of my shoulder.

  HISSS.

  The plunger depressed.

  Cold.

  Just cold.

  My bones grinding backward. The fur sloughing off like dead grass.

  I screamed.

  It was a sound of pure agony, morphing from a wolf’s roar into a human shriek as the change was forced upon me.

  My vision grayed out. The strength left my limbs. The wolf didn't just retreat; it was dragged, clawing and screaming, into the dark.

  My bones snapped again—reverse, reverse, reverse. The massive muscles shrank. My elongated feet cracked and shortened.

  The heavy metal hands that had been pinning a monster were suddenly holding a girl.

  I lay on the cold concrete, shivering and human. The pain was fading into a dull, throbbing numbness. My purple leather jacket was shredded, hanging off my shoulders in strips, and my pants were torn open at the knees and thighs, but they were still there. I was covered, but broken.

  The suit hissed.

  Danny reached up and unlocked the seals of his helmet.

  Hiss-click.

  He pulled the black helmet off and let it drop to the floor with a hollow clang.

  He looked down at me. His face was pale, his dark hair matted with sweat. He looked wrecked. Hollowed out.

  He dropped to his knees beside me, the exoskeleton clanking against the floor.

  “Nikki,” he whispered, his real voice rough and broken.

  I couldn't move. The Wolfsbane had paralyzed my motor functions. I could only blink, staring up at him through a haze of gray static.

  “You… traitor,” I tried to whisper. My lips moved, but no sound came out.

  He reached for my hand. He didn't cuff me. He just held it, his thumb brushing over my knuckles.

  Then, the heavy blast doors at the far end of the warehouse ground open.

  Slow footsteps clicked on the concrete. Heavy. Authoritative.

  Danny stiffened. He let go of my hand and stood up, snapping to attention.

  A tall figure emerged from the shadows. He wore a charcoal suit that cost more than my life, and his silver hair was perfectly coiffed. His eyes were cold, dead sharks swimming in a sea of ice.

  Moldark. The CEO of Pandora. The monster behind the curtain.

  I tried to snarl, but I couldn't even lift my head.

  Moldark walked up to us, his polished shoes stopping inches from my face. He looked down at me with a sneer of disgust, then looked up at Danny.

  A slow, terrifying smile spread across Moldark’s face.

  “Asset secured,” Moldark said, his voice smooth as velvet. “Efficient, Daniel. I expected more collateral damage.”

  Danny looked at Moldark. The sadness in his eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, dutiful mask.

  “Yes,” Danny said. “Father.”

  The world stopped.

  My heart missed a beat.

  Father?

  I stared at Danny, my mind reeling, trying to process the word.

  I thought he betrayed me to save his father’s skin. But I was wrong.

  Moldark placed a hand on Danny’s armored shoulder. “You make me proud, son. You played the lovestruck puppy well. Disarmed her completely.”

  Danny nodded. “She never suspected a thing.”

  It was all a lie.

  Every smile. Every touch. Every moment in the gym. Every shared secret.

  He was the heir to the kingdom of monsters. He was the Prince of Pandora.

  Tears, hot and stinging, finally spilled from my eyes.

  Moldark crouched down, bringing his face close to mine. He smelled of expensive cologne and death.

  “Did you really think,” Moldark whispered, his voice dripping with malice, “that you were the hunter here? You were always just the prey. You should have released my secrets. Let the whole world know our existence. But you fell in love with another monster. My boy, who never loved you in the first place. Stupid girl. Sentiment is a glitch, my dear. And we just patched it. Now you will never see daylight ever again unless I say so.”

  Danny didn't look at me. He stared straight ahead, a soldier at attention.

  “Load her up,” Moldark commanded the approaching soldiers. “I want her secure and watched at all times. No more mistakes.”

  As the darkness rose up to swallow me whole, I looked at Danny one last time.

  I didn't scream this time. I just watched him. The Prince of Pandora. And I promised the wolf, deep in the dark: We eat him first.