It was only her second shift. The first had been in pain. Fear. Chains. This one felt… like returning.
As if she'd lived a thousand lives in that glowing white form. Like her body had simply been waiting to remember it. Every step had been fast, but not frantic. Every leap through the snow felt like she had been born for it.
She didn't want to stop.
But her legs were beginning to ache.
Her breath came in clouds.
And when the trees thinned, she saw it — a hot spring, steam rising from the water in soft spirals, tucked between the rocks like a hidden gift.
She slowed, breath heaving, and padded toward a tree.
She shifted mid-step, skin replacing fur in a shimmer of silver, and collapsed to her knees, panting. The cold slammed into her at once. Luckily, she had been wearing a training suit when she shifted. Training suits were enchanted to return unaltered once the body reverted, the entire garment forming seamlessly back into place — including the built-in booties, the same material as the suit but reinforced with thin soles on the bottom. Without that enchantment, she would have been naked, barefoot, and even more freezing than she already was.
She heard voices.
Voices.
Nova went still.
For a heartbeat she assumed they were rogues, but the cadence was wrong. The way they spoke — clipped, sharp, organized — marked them as soldiers.
"...get in, get out. No fighting unless we have to."
"If needed, we'll slip, poison the mage. Quietly. Without him, their shields drop."
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Poison the mage? Aeron?
How did they know? He was a secret weapon that not everyone in the pack knew. Let alone outsiders.
She crept quietly to the edge of the rocks, staying low. Four of them. All armored in dull black leather with no pack insignia. Not rogues. Not Shadowclaw..
Her stomach turned.
She tried to remember what she knew — how to backtrack silently. How to avoid scent trails. If only she was actually a member of the Shadowclaw pack… she would have mindlinked someone. Jax. Aeron.
But even if she could — would they want to hear from her?
Their expressions… she shuttered thinking about it.
They're afraid of me.
She clenched her fists, the cold creeping into her skin.
I need to warn them.
She turned—
Too late.
Rough hands grabbed her, followed by his arms around her waist.
She screamed — loud, high-pitched — but a palm clamped down over her mouth.
"That was easier than I thought it'd be," a man growled in her ear.
And then pain.
He slammed her into the frozen ground, her ribs screaming in protest.
She gasped, but another man grabbed her leg. A third came from behind.
A boot cracked into her stomach and on her already bruised rib, knocking the air from her lungs.
She screamed through the hand covering her mouth. Her rib was broken no question.