Fire.

It started in my stomach, a cold, sharp burning that rapidly turned into an inferno. The glass slipped from my fingers, shattering against the hardwood floor. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't scream.

*“You had to be removed,”* Chloe’s voice hissed in my mind, a venomous echo bouncing off the

The silence in the bedroom was so absolute I could hear the hum of the city traffic ten stories below.

Kaelen stepped between me and the door, his massive frame blocking the only exit. His face was an unreadable mask of stone, but his Alpha aura rolled off him in suffocating waves, testing me, try

The shift back to human form was as effortless as taking a breath—a stark, euphoric contrast to the agonizing transformation I had just endured.

As I stood naked in the center of the room, my skin flushed and my muscles humming with a violent, electric energy, Kaelen didn't turn away. He simply pi