Kira stirred in her sleep, caught deep in a dream. Derek's words circled her like knives.
A weak, wolfless little runt. Did you honestly believe I loved you?
The one feeding everything we discussed straight back to your father.
She tried to scream, tried to tell him that she had never betrayed him, that she wasn't Rolf's daughter at all. But her voice was completely trapped.
Then came the pain of the shift, the fur tearing out of her, the bones breaking and reshaping, the howl ripping from her throat. She began to sob in her sleep, her shoulders shaking as the residual heartbreak of the confrontation mixed with the raw shock of her transformation. Tears slipped freely from beneath her tightly closed eyelids.
But there were arms around her. Steady, warm arms, holding her through it.
"Shh. You're safe now. You're safe. I've got you," a low voice murmured, soothing and certain. "Nothing can touch you here. You're safe."
