Rose POV
Something was wrong with her body.
Rose threw off her blanket and gasped for air. The sheets were soaked through with sweat, clinging to her skin like wet hands she couldn't shake off. Her whole body felt like it was on fire from the inside out, like someone had poured molten metal through her veins while she slept.
It was 11:47 PM on her eighteenth birthday.
She pressed her palms against her eyes and tried to breathe slowly like her therapist had taught her, but her heart wouldn't listen. It was slamming against her ribs so hard she thought her chest might actually crack open. The pain wasn't sharp. It was deep and spreading, moving through her muscles like she was being pulled apart at the seams.
Her skin itched. Really itched. Like her body was trying to break free from something that was too small to hold it anymore.
Rose stumbled to the window and cracked it open. Cold night air hit her face and for a second she felt relief. But then something else happened. The world exploded with smells.
There was the neighbor's dog three blocks away. She could smell it. Could smell the exact spot where it had peed on the fence. There was someone grilling hamburgers four houses down even though it was almost midnight. She could smell the meat, the charcoal, even the sweat on the person's hands as they cooked.
And underneath everything, something sharper. Something metallic.
Blood.
She could smell blood. Not her own. Someone's blood, pumping through veins somewhere out there in the darkness. The smell made her mouth water and her stomach twist at the same time. It made her want to run outside and find it.
What was happening to her?
Rose grabbed her phone with shaking hands and texted Mia.
"something wrong with me"
Three dots appeared almost immediately. Mia was always awake. Always online.
"like what?? are u ok"
Rose tried to type an answer but her fingers wouldn't cooperate. The pain was getting worse. She could feel it moving up her spine now, settling into her bones like it was trying to rebuild them from the inside out.
"burning. can't breathe right. everything smells weird"
"omg rose go to hospital now!!"
Rose stared at those words. The hospital. Like they could help. Like someone in the emergency room would know what to do with this. Her body was changing into something and a doctor with a stethoscope couldn't fix that.
She dropped her phone and walked to the mirror on her closet door.
The girl staring back at her looked normal. Same brown eyes. Same dark hair. Same face she'd been looking at for eighteen years. But something underneath the skin felt wrong. Like she was wearing a costume that was three sizes too small.
There was a noise from the hallway. A door opening. Her father's bedroom door.
Her dad appeared in her doorway in his old college t-shirt, already looking older than he was. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. His eyes were red and his face was pale and the moment he saw her, something in his expression cracked even further.
"Dad?" Her voice came out strange. Deeper than it should be. "What's wrong? Why are you up?"
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Rose, I need you to stay calm. What time is it?"
She checked her phone. "11:53."
Her father's face went white.
"Rose, I was going to talk to you tomorrow morning. I was going to explain everything properly, but your body is starting early and I don't know how to..." He ran his hand through his hair, messing it up completely. "Honey, you're not sick."
The pain spiked through her shoulder blades. Rose gasped and gripped the edge of her dresser. The wood was real. Solid. Everything else felt like it was floating away.
"I don't understand."
"I know you don't." Her father's voice was breaking apart. "Your mother, she wasn't exactly human. Not completely. And neither are you. That's what we've been hiding from you your whole life. That's why your mother's family never visited. That's why we moved so many times. That's why I've kept you away from..."
The pain hit her like a truck.
It wasn't like a normal injury. It wasn't like she'd broken something. It was like her whole body was being unmade and remade all at the same time. Like her skeleton was being pulled out of her skin and reshaped by invisible hands. She screamed without meaning to. The sound that came out of her throat wasn't human. It was something between a scream and a howl.
"Rose, it's okay, it's okay, just let it happen, don't fight it," her father said but he was still in the hallway. He wasn't coming closer. He looked terrified of her.
She fell to her knees.
The pain moved through her arms and legs. Her muscles contracted and released like they were having a conversation with themselves. Her fingernails felt like they were being driven into the floor. The bones in her spine were cracking, popping, realigning.
Her phone buzzed. Another text from Mia.
"rose?? you there? im worried"
But Rose couldn't text back. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She could only feel the ancient thing inside her that had been sleeping her whole life finally, finally waking up.
The clock on her dresser flipped to 12:01 AM.
At 12:01:18, her bones cracked for real.
The change was so fast and so complete that her mind couldn't process it. One second she had two legs and two arms and the next her body was something completely different. Longer. Stronger. Wrong and right at the exact same time.
Her room exploded with a smell that her human brain couldn't even categorize. It was sweet and wild and powerful. It filled the air like someone had smashed a perfume bottle mixed with lightning and something ancient that had no name.
Her father gasped. A real, shocked gasp that came from somewhere deep in his chest.
"No," he whispered. "Oh God. Not both. The bonding scent shouldn't come out this strong until you meet..."
But he didn't finish because Rose was looking at her own hands and they weren't hands anymore.
They were paws.
Her entire body had transformed. The girl in the mirror was gone. In her place was something she couldn't even comprehend. Her room was suddenly much smaller. Her human clothes were shredded on the floor around her. Every sense she had was screaming with information her brain couldn't handle.
She could smell her father's fear from three feet away. She could smell the night air from outside, each scent separated and distinct like they were colors in a painting. She could smell something else too. Something on the wind that made every nerve in her body go electric.
Another wolf. Or not a wolf. Something like her. Something that was calling to her across the miles between them.
Her father backed away slowly, his hands up like he was trying to calm a dangerous animal.
"It's okay," he said, but his voice was shaking. "You're okay, Rose. You're changing. You're becoming who you were always supposed to be. Just hold on, just wait, I have to call and warn them that you're..."
He pulled out his phone.
The number he dialed connected immediately. Someone answered on the first ring like they'd been waiting.
"She's changed," her father said into the phone, and his voice sounded like he was delivering news of a disaster. "The scent is coming through. She's not even fully awake yet and the compound is going to smell it for miles. They're going to know. Chase is going to..."
The world tilted.
Rose felt a pull. Something at the very core of her being was reaching out toward something miles away. A pull so strong it made her knees buckle and her breath come faster.
There was something out there. Something that wanted her.
And it was coming.
Her father was still talking into the phone, his voice getting higher and more panicked, but Rose couldn't hear him anymore. All she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat and the distant echo of something else.
Something howling.