Chapter 7

Training Begins

Before I can respond, the first hit lands.

My jaw hurts like a flash, but I stay upright. Kade strikes again, faster and sharper, without waiting for me to recuperate. The soil stings when I hit the ground, and my reactions are too slow.

I taste blood. Thick and metallic, it drops from my lip. Even though my heart should be racing, it's not. It thuds fiercely and steadily. I have an internal observer. Awaiting.

Kade walks silently around me. His eyes are filled with expectation rather than pity. The question is blazing off him, and I can feel it: Will you break?

I don't.

I slowly stand up, my limbs shaking. Inside of me, the darkness changes. It's no longer hidden, but I'm not sure what it is yet. It is conscious.

Kade makes another lunge. I move this time. Not quickly enough to totally avoid the strike, but quickly enough to lessen its impact. It's not only her anymore, but my wolf snarls low in my chest. The older, darker voice clings to my memory like smoke.

Quicker.

I act before I think. My body twitches, regains equilibrium, and hits.

Astonished, Kade staggers backward.

I'm striking for the first time.

Days pass in a blur. My muscles hurt all the time. I have blood on my fingers. My entire body screams, but I keep going. I am unable to. I can't because of something inside of me.

I always get back up after falling.

The blaze in my chest intensifies. It's hunger, not just adrenaline. Not for consumption. For freedom, for power, for retribution.

The instruction is altered. It gets more vicious and harsh. Kade isn't kind to me. There are moments when I believe he wants me to despise him.

However, I don't. since I comprehend. I'm being sharpened like a blade by him.

I run across the forest by myself one night. My lungs hurt and my legs burn. The moon is crisp and silver as it cuts through the woods. I run until I can no longer see well.

Then it occurs.

The earth separates. I feel it, but not physically. Something bursts open within of me. My throat starts to scream, but it's not mine.

She takes a step forward.

Not my wolf.

Another stuff.

Clinging to my chest, I fall to my knees. My breath is labored. Dark veins swirl beneath the epidermis, giving my hands a subtle light. In a nearby creek, my reflection changes.

I have dark eyes.

Black  Not shadowed.

With my heart pounding, I stumble back. My wolf doesn't say anything. She isn't.

A low, poison-slick voice murmurs:

Permit me to enter.

I pass out.

At daybreak, Kade finds me. He doesn't talk. Eyes narrowing, it simply raises me to my feet. He notices the shift. He remains silent.

However, the training changes once more following that night.

He presses me even harder. forces me to practice underwater, in the dark, and under a blindfold. All the senses were stretched. Every flaw was shown.

The voice gets louder. Present but not constant observing and laughing as I tumble.

I shatter the bone in my hand one afternoon. I anticipate suffering. Panic is what I anticipate.

I don't feel either.

With a hiss of smoke, the bone snaps back into place as the darkness rises. My body trembles and then stops.

Kade notices. He clenches his jaw. He is aware. He still doesn't stop me, though.

"You're evolving," he adds at last.

I don't respond. since I am already aware.

I've changed from becoming a wolf. I am something different. The moon didn't create it. Something that doesn't give in to peer pressure.

Perhaps I was always.

The camp is behind a cliff. I climb it alone one night.

Cold and crisp, the stars scatter above me. I breathe shallowly and gaze down.

Falling would be simple. However, I don't. I leap off.

Not down. Out.

Before the earth can claim me, I am seized by wings of darkness. Something that envelops my body like hunger and smoke, but not actual wings.

I linger for a moment. Out of breath. without weight.

Then I fall, silent and controlled, my feet striking the ground as if I were a part of it.

I am evolving.

I'm not sure if I'm still myself, though.

Kade informs me that we are departing the next morning.

"Why?" I inquire.

He merely gazes at me. Then he gives the north a nod.

"They located us."

The group.

Jake.

Selena.

It's not just them, though.

There's a fresh smell on the breeze, old and unpleasant.

Hunting is something darker than me.

It is also aware of my name.

Before daybreak, we depart from the camp. Kade moves swiftly, effectively, and silently as if he's done this before. I make an effort to maintain my senses, but with every mile, the restless, savage darkness within of me stirs.

Deep in the forest, the route separates. Kade stops, his jaw clenched. I don't inquire about his senses. I sense that something is amiss.

The trees in front are too motionless.

There is a pause. A human, piercing scream.

Then another.

We sprint in the direction of the sound.

At the edge of the clearing, two wolves lie ripped apart. Not ours. Rogues.

And a boy is crouching low in the midst of the mayhem. Wild-eyed and covered in blood. No more than thirteen years old.

He raises his head.

His eyes like mine.

Dark.

His voice is rough as he says. "They're on their way."

He dives behind me, not at me, before I can inquire who it is.

I turn around. A huge, too-big, too-fast beast snarls as it crashes through the trees.

Kade yells, but I'm on the move. The voice inside of me hisses with delight as my instincts scream.

The creature appears, its eyes blazing silver, its face a hideous mashup of wolf and shadow.

It's not a shifter. It's not organic.

It is pursuing me.

And now I get it.

This inner strength?

However, there was a cost.

One word is snarled by the creature:

"Go back."

Once more, the boy screams. Kade makes a lunge.

And me?

I opened the door for the darkness.

All of it bursts into black flame.

However, it doesn't end there.

The globe sways.

The soil breaks open at my feet, and the trees turn to ink.

More than merely the voices of the shadows reverberate in my skull. Older ones. Old. Dead. Not Lily, yet my name is chanted. Another stuff. I feel something in my bones that I have never heard before.

Liri'el

Clinging to his head, Kade drops to his knees. The youngster remains motionless while the thing disappears into the smoke. He is now staring at me as if I were the monster.

He murmurs, "You're the key."

And all of a sudden, I realize...

I wasn't being hunted.

I was being called.