Chapter 227

She leaned closer to Sideburns, whispered something to him, then let out a peal of vicious, derisive laughter. He stared down at me with a flash of disdain and disappointment.

The angry, contemptuous look from my supposed fated mate pierced my skin like hundreds of needles.

Rage burned through my middle, hotter and sharper than the imaginary blade Sideburns had jammed into my gut. A scorching sensation surged through me, smelling of burning embers and pine.

Magic.

It ripped through me in what felt like a raging storm, all thunder and lightning, battering my insides. My heartbeat quickened, jolted by a kick of adrenaline. Wild wind ruffled across my stretched skin, and then fur

 appeared and raced across my body while my bones stretched and snapped painfully into their new form. It happened so quickly, I didn’t even have time to cry out from the brief, painful reconstruction. And then the agony was over.

One second, I was Pip the girl, then the next, I dropped to the ground on all fours as a wolf staring down at a pile of torn clothing, but I didn’t care. Crisp air filled my bigger lungs, and I howled in delight.

I pushed up with my hackles, my belly departing from the cobblestoned ground. I dipped my head and gazed down at the ivory fur on my chest, then at my paws. A rainbow streak decorated each of my front paws.

I twisted my head to look over my shoulder, and from the corner of my eye, I caught another broad rainbow splashed generously across my back.

Wolves were usually black, white, brown, gray, or golden, but I was an ivory wolf with rainbows.

Gasps and murmurs rose from the terrace, and the other wolves around me howled.

“Freak!” BJ shouted.

“Not a freak, but one of a kind,” Shade said, “a descendant of a pure, strong shifter bloodline.” He’d said a rainbow wolf was impossible. I bet he was more than impressed now.

Sideburns couldn’t take his eyes off me. BJ nudged him to focus his attention back onto her. My wolf was too overwhelmed to care about their little games when thousands of shifter animals howled and roared all around me.

My wolf raised her head and howled again, then ran after the other shifters and followed them into the forest.

I was one of them now. I’d shifted.

I’m a wolf, I said three times to myself, yet I still didn’t feel that much different. I still had the same thoughts, same urges, and probably smelled the same too.

A ray of light kissed my muzzle. I let out a huff and leapt over the undergrowth in an arc, my paws landing on soft layers of leaves.

Non-shifter animals scurried away, dashing through bushes in utter panic. A flock of birds flapped their wings, screaming warnings, and flew above the canopy to get away.

Shifters’ hunting calls, primary and bloodlust, echoed in the forest. I halted as I remembered how I’d been hunted. The terror I’d felt was still fresh in my head.