CHAPTER 81: _ THE HUNT

It hits like lightning.

Power explodes through Heidi’s veins, brighter than anything she’s ever felt. She feels taller, stronger as her senses sharpen at once; the dampness of moss in the corner, the musk of wolves lingering in the hall, the faint crackle of bulbs outside the window... all are vividly loud and bright to her. The entire world tilts, expanding, and breathing with her.

And gods... It’s intoxicating.

Her laugh turns into a half-growl and cry as she tilts her head back. Every inch of her feels too small for what’s inside her, like her body is a cage about to split open. She should be afraid, but instead, she’s drunk on it.

"This is only the beginning," her wolf purrs. "Get ready to hunt."

It is agony and ecstasy crumpled into one.

The moment Heidi surrenders to the ache, her body ceases to be her own. Her bones splinter and crack like glass under pressure, and yet it feels right, like her very marrow has been waiting all this time to break free of its cage.

"Ahhhhh!" She screams, voice splitting into two tones as her throat reshapes itself.

She collapses onto the forest floor, clutching at the emerald silk of her dress as though it might tether her back to sanity. The fabric shreds with every twist of her frame, the seams crying out before bursting apart. Her skin burns, her muscles coil, and her spine arches until she swears she’ll snap in half. The earth is wet beneath her palms... no, claws. She stares in a daze as her fingernails blacken, thicken, and curve into razor-edged crescents.

"Yes!" a sultry voice whispers in her skull. "This is what you were made for. Let it happen."

Her wolf, the one who had laughed and promised freedom is now riding shotgun in her body, urging her on.

Heidi wants to scream "stop," but the word dissolves into a strangled growl as her jaw juts forward. Her teeth are lengthening, sharpening, and rearranging with sickening cracks. Saliva floods her mouth as canines spear down like daggers. She tastes iron and realizes she’s bitten her tongue.

Her dress rips down the middle as her ribcage expands, her chest thrusting outward. The fabric is no match for what swells beneath. Fur bursts from her skin, white as frost beneath moonlight. At first it’s soft, faint, like a whisper of feathers—but then it thickens, races across her body, covering her in brilliant snowy fur streaked with black stripes.

It’s not spots or patches, but stripes. It’s bold and defiant, jagged across her shoulders and thighs like claw marks left by the gods themselves.

She hits the ground on all fours. Her bones grind and shift again, hips snapping, legs bowing, and feet distorting until her paws slam into the earth. Her claws sink into soil, and her body... her wolf body, finally steadies.

At first, there’s silence.

Heidi blinks. The forest doesn’t just look alive; it is alive, singing to her. The individual heartbeat of every creature, the rustle of beetles in bark, the drag of an owl’s wing across the night; she feels them all. The scents rush her at once: pine, wet earth, squirrel musk, the faint perfume of the couple in town who passed by hours ago.

She raises her head. The world is sharp, glinting with color and scent. She is magnificent. A gasp leaves her—except it’s not a gasp, but a low, quavering howl.

"Ahooooo!"

That howl... her very first guttural howl doesn’t feel ordinary. It feels like she is in the center of a network of communication chains and has just sent a message to every server link on that chain.

It feels so... good. It feels intoxicating. Like she’s high on heroin. She can’t explain how one can find so much pleasure beneath all that pain.

And then laughter bubbles through her mind.

"Look at you, little wolf. You’re no longer prey. Look at the fur and the stripes. Do you feel that power?" Her wolf purrs, teasing.

"Yes. Goddess, yes."

Heidi shakes her body out, and it’s intoxicating. Her fur ripples in a shimmer of white, moonlight catching every strand. The stripes are like living shadows that move when she does. She stretches, muscles sliding and flexing, and it feels like she could outrun the world.

She runs.

One push of her paws, and she’s airborne, sprinting through the forest with a speed that makes her human life feel like crawling. Trees blur by, the wind whistles through her fur, and the earth pounds beneath her. She leaps fallen logs, slices through brambles, and crashes through bushes like they’re made of paper.

Her laugh—her wolf’s laugh, rings in her mind. "Yes! Faster! Feel it... the freedom. This is ours."

Heidi’s human side wants to cling to awe, to marvel at the miracle of it. But her wolf is hungrier. Her wolf isn’t satisfied with running.

"Hunt, little wolf. Let’s hunt!"

Her paws skid on damp earth. Hunt? As in rabbits? Squirrels? Deer?

Her wolf growls out a reply. "Not prey or scraps. Blood. Fear. Something that runs on two legs. You’ll taste what it means to rule."

B-blood?!

Her stomach knots. A part of her recoils at the thought of hunting for blood. As in, how could she? But the wolf swells, drowning out her doubt. The scent of sweat is faint but present, and catches her nose. She whirls her head in the direction and sniffs harder.

The scent of wolves is gone. The trees smell wrong... fainter, and older. The air is polluted with exhaust fumes. Her paws have carried her too far.

She can smell human scents somewhere close. Just how far had she run for her to be in the human city? Heidi is dumbfounded but the sharp tang of their deodorant, the chemical burn of lighter fluid, and the sweet char of marshmallows are too heavy for her to think straight.

She can tell those are campers.

Without realizing it, her legs carry her toward the smell. Her paws are silent as snowfall. She slinks between trees, tail low, and ears twitching at every shift of the night. And then, finally, she sees them.

Two humans sit beside a small campfire, the flames crackling merrily, throwing orange light across their smiling faces. It’s a man and a woman, college-aged maybe, passing a thermos back and forth, laughing at some private joke. A tent squats behind them, shadows dancing over the nylon.

"Perfect. Just perfect." Her wolf purrs.