Previously: After a week of brutal training with Aldric, Sera ventured into town for supplies only to run into Marcus. She barely controlled her power and walked away, but the encounter proved she wasn't ready yet. Now, with three weeks until the full moon and her second awakening, Aldric is pushing her harder than ever...
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The next three weeks blurred together in a haze of pain, sweat, and incremental progress.
Each dawn began the same way ice water to the face, five minutes to dress, then hours of combat training that left me bruised and aching. But the bruises healed faster now. My body adapted, grew harder. What had seemed impossible in week one became routine by week two.
By week three, I was starting to understand what Aldric was building me into.
"Again," he barked, his staff cracking against mine hard enough to send vibrations up my arms. "You're still telegraphing your strikes. I can see them coming from a mile away."
I gritted my teeth and attacked again, this time keeping my shoulders loose, my movements fluid. The staff became an extension of my arm as I struck high, feinted low, then swept at his legs with a speed that would have been impossible a month ago.
Aldric blocked the first two strikes, but the third connected with his shin. Not hard, he'd taught me too well to actually hurt him but solid enough to count.
"Better." He stepped back, barely winded despite our hour-long session. "You're finally learning to hide your intent. Now let's see if you can do it when you're exhausted."
Without warning, he attacked. His staff moved in a blur, a pattern of strikes designed to overwhelm and break through defense. I backpedaled, blocking desperately, my arms screaming from the impact of wood on wood.
But my body remembered the drills. The endless repetitions Aldric had forced me through. Block high, pivot left, redirect the momentum, strike at the opening.
My staff caught him in the ribs. Light contact, but I'd landed it while on the defensive.
Something shifted in Aldric's expression. Pride, maybe. Or satisfaction.
"Not bad at all, Seraphina." He lowered his staff. "Three weeks ago, you couldn't land a hit without using your enhanced speed. Now you're doing it with pure technique."
I bent over, hands on my knees, sucking in air. "Feels like I'm still getting my ass kicked."
"Because you are. But you're getting your ass kicked at a much higher level than before." He tossed me a waterskin. "Five minute break, then we move to the advanced course."
The "advanced course" was Aldric's sadistic invention—an obstacle course through the woods that combined combat, agility, and sensing exercises. Wooden targets hung from trees at random intervals. Trip wires crisscrossed the path. And somewhere in the course, Aldric would be waiting to ambush me.
I'd failed it fourteen times in the past week.
"Ready?" Aldric called from the starting line.
I took my position, closing my eyes and reaching for the silver light inside me. It came easily now, responsive to my will. I pushed it outward, extending my awareness into the forest.
There. Aldric's presence, sharp and wolf-shaped, hidden behind a tree about fifty yards ahead. And beyond him, the obstacle course stretched through the woods like a gauntlet designed by someone who hated me personally.
"Go!"
I exploded forward, my enhanced speed eating up the distance. The first target appeared on my left—I struck it with my staff without breaking stride. The second came from overhead, I sensed it before I saw it and rolled, my staff lashing out to connect as I passed beneath.
Trip wire ahead. I jumped it. Another wire, lower. I dove under it, came up running.
Aldric's presence shifted. He was moving to intercept.
I adjusted my path, using the trees for cover. My expanded awareness showed me his position, showed me the exact moment he committed to his attack.
I ducked under his staff swing and kept running. Behind me, I heard him curse in surprise.
"You're learning!" he shouted, genuine pleasure in his voice. "Now prove it!"
The obstacles came faster. Targets. Barriers. Hidden pits I had to sense before I fell into them. My lungs burned, my legs ached, but I didn't slow down. Couldn't slow down. This was what Aldric had been building toward the ability to fight and move and think all at once, to use every skill he'd drilled into me simultaneously.
The final target appeared ahead, hanging from a branch twenty feet up. Impossible to reach at a normal jump.
But I wasn't normal anymore.
I hit the base of the tree at full sprint and leaped. My enhanced strength launched me upward, and for a breathless moment I was flying, staff extended.
The impact sent the target spinning wildly. I landed in a crouch, staff ready, expanded awareness searching for Aldric's inevitable ambush.
Nothing. The forest was quiet except for my ragged breathing.
"Aldric?" I called cautiously.
"Behind you."
I spun, staff coming up.
He was standing there, arms crossed, that rare smile creasing his weathered face.
"Fifteen seconds off your best time," he said. "And you didn't miss a single target. Well done."
The praise hit harder than I expected. I lowered my staff, suddenly aware of how exhausted I was. Every muscle trembled. Sweat soaked through my training clothes. But I'd done it. Finally, after two weeks of failures, I'd completed the course.
"Does this mean I'm ready?" I asked.
Aldric's smile faded. "For the obstacle course? Yes. For what comes next?" He shook his head slowly. "That remains to be seen. Come on. We have one more test before tonight."
---
The clearing behind the cabin looked different in late afternoon light. Aldric had set up a makeshift arena a circle marked with stones, maybe thirty feet across. And standing in the center of that circle was a stranger.
The man was huge, easily six and a half feet tall with shoulders like a bull. Scars crisscrossed his bare chest, and his eyes held the flat, dangerous look of someone who'd killed and would do it again without hesitation. He watched me approach with the lazy confidence of a predator that had never lost a fight.
"Seraphina," Aldric said, his tone formal, "meet Garrick. He's a Beta-level mercenary who makes his living hunting rogue wolves. I've hired him to test your skills."
My stomach dropped. "You want me to fight him?"
"I want you to survive him." Aldric's expression was grave. "Garrick will come at you with full force no holding back, no pulling punches. If you can last five minutes and land three solid hits, you pass. If you can't..." He shrugged. "Then we know you need more time before your second awakening."
Garrick rolled his massive shoulders, grinning. "Don't worry, little girl. I'll try not to break anything permanent."
Rage flared hot in my chest. After three weeks of Aldric's training, after everything I'd overcome, this mercenary thought I was just a "little girl" to be toyed with.
Good. Let him underestimate me.
"What are the rules?" I asked, moving toward the circle.
"No killing, no maiming," Aldric said. "Everything else is fair game. First blood doesn't stop the fight. Only unconsciousness or submission ends it before the five minutes are up."
I stepped into the circle. Garrick watched me with those dead eyes, still grinning like this was all a joke.
"Whenever you're ready," Aldric said.
The world narrowed to just me and Garrick. I reached for my expanded awareness, feeling his presence like a wall of hostile intent. He was strong physically stronger than me by a significant margin. And experienced. I could see it in the way he stood, balanced and ready, no wasted movement.
But he didn't know what I was. Didn't know about the silver light humming beneath my skin.
I attacked first.
My staff lashed out toward his head fast, but not enhanced-speed fast. Just fast enough to test his reaction. He blocked lazily, his own staff coming up with practiced ease.
"That all you got?" he taunted.
I didn't answer. Didn't waste breath on words. I struck again, a rapid combination Aldric had drilled into me high, low, middle, feint left, strike right.
Garrick blocked them all, his grin never wavering. Then he counterattacked.
The speed of his strikes shocked me. He might be a Beta-level wolf, but he fought like someone who'd spent decades perfecting violence. His staff became a blur, driving me backward, each impact sending shockwaves up my arms.
I gave ground, blocking desperately, searching for an opening. There his weight shifted too far forward on that last strike. I dropped low and swept at his legs.
He jumped over my staff and brought his own down at my head.
I rolled, barely avoiding the blow that would have ended the fight. The tip of his staff cratered the earth where my skull had been a heartbeat before.
Okay, I thought, coming up in a crouch. No more holding back.
I reached for the silver light and let it flood my limbs. The world slowed. Garrick's next attack became readable, predictable. I could see the exact trajectory, could calculate the perfect counter before he even committed to the strike.
I moved.
My staff caught his mid-swing, redirecting the force rather than blocking it. Using his own momentum, I spun inside his guard and drove the butt of my staff into his solar plexus.
First hit.
Garrick stumbled back, surprise replacing his grin. "What the."
I didn't give him time to finish. I pressed the advantage, my enhanced speed making my strikes almost invisible. He blocked most of them, but he was on the defensive now, his confidence shaken.
"You're not just a Beta reject," he growled, his eyes narrowing. "What are you?"
"Pissed off," I said, and struck at his knee.
He twisted away, but not fast enough. My staff connected with a solid crack.
Second hit.
Garrick's expression darkened. The lazy predator was gone, replaced by something focused and dangerous. He dropped his staff and shifted bones cracking and reforming as his wolf burst forth.
The transformation took maybe three seconds. When it finished, a massive grey wolf stood in the circle, easily three hundred pounds of muscle and fang. His lips peeled back in a snarl that showed teeth designed to tear through flesh and bone.
"Is that allowed?" I called to Aldric.
"I said everything else was fair game," he replied calmly.
Great. Just great.
Garrick charged. In wolf form, he was even faster, his powerful legs eating up the distance between us in heartbeats. I barely had time to dodge before his jaws snapped shut where my throat had been.
I rolled, came up running. My staff was useless now it would break against his thick wolf hide before doing any real damage. I needed something else. Some other advantage.
The silver light pulsed inside me, stronger than before. And beneath it, I felt something else. That other power. The red flicker that Aldric had warned me about.
Not yet, I told myself. The shadow power isn't unsealed. Don't reach for what you can't control.
But I could use the moon power. All of it.
I dropped my staff and faced the charging wolf with empty hands. Garrick probably thought I'd given up. His eyes gleamed with victory as he leaped, massive jaws opening to.
I moved faster than I ever had before. Faster than thought. The silver light erupted through my entire body, and suddenly I could see every individual hair on Garrick's muzzle, could count the scars on his face, could feel the exact moment when gravity would pull him down from his leap.
I stepped aside. Just one step, but placed with perfect precision.
Garrick sailed past me, his jaws snapping on empty air. Before he could land, I struck my hand driving into the pressure point behind his shoulder. The same point Aldric had shown me on the anatomy charts. The sweet spot that would temporarily paralyze a wolf's leg.
Garrick crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs, his right foreleg useless. He tried to rise, stumbled, fell again.
Third hit.
"Time!" Aldric's voice cut through the silver haze clouding my vision. "Five minutes. Seraphina wins."
The silver light faded. Exhaustion hit me like a physical blow, and I dropped to my knees, gasping. Every muscle in my body screamed. My head pounded from maintaining that level of enhancement for so long.
But I'd done it. I'd beaten a trained Beta-level mercenary.
Garrick shifted back to human form, cradling his right arm. The paralysis was already fading it would only last a few minutes but the shock on his face was worth every ache in my body.
"What the hell is she?" he asked Aldric.
"None of your concern." Aldric handed him a pouch of coins payment for the test, presumably. "Your work here is done. I suggest you forget what you saw today."
Garrick took the money, his eyes never leaving me. There was no mockery in his gaze now. Just wariness and a healthy dose of fear.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Forget. Right."
He gathered his things and left quickly, limping slightly on his recovering leg.
When he was gone, Aldric knelt beside me. "Can you stand?"
"Give me a minute." My legs felt like water. "Did I pass?"
"You exceeded every expectation I had." His voice held quiet pride. "Three weeks ago, you could barely land a hit on me when I was going easy. Today, you defeated a seasoned fighter who was trying to hurt you. You've earned this, Seraphina. Tonight, under the full moon, you'll undergo your second awakening."
I looked up at him, my exhausted mind trying to process his words. "Tonight? Already?"
"The moon is full. Your body is ready, even if you don't feel like it. And frankly, we can't afford to wait any longer. Every day you spend incompletely awakened is a day you're vulnerable." His expression grew serious. "The second awakening will unlock your true wolf form not just the enhanced abilities you've been using, but actual transformation. You'll become what you were always meant to be."
"And it's going to hurt."
"More than anything you've ever experienced." He helped me to my feet. "But you're strong enough now. You've proven that. Come on. You need to eat and rest. When the moon rises, we begin."
---
The hours until moonrise felt both endless and too short.
I forced myself to eat the meal Aldric prepared protein-rich stew designed to give my body fuel for what was coming. I tried to rest, but sleep wouldn't come. My mind kept circling back to the same questions.
What would my wolf form look like? Would it be silver, like the light inside me? Or would it reflect the shadow power too, that red flicker that I'd been carefully avoiding?
And the pain. Aldric had compared it to every bone in my body breaking and reforming. Was that hyperbole, or literal truth?
I suspected it was literal.
"Seraphina." Aldric's voice pulled me from my spiraling thoughts. "It's time."
I rose from the bed and followed him outside. The full moon hung low and massive on the horizon, so bright it cast sharp shadows across the clearing. Its light seemed to pulse in time with my heartbeat.
Or maybe that was just my imagination.
Aldric had prepared the center of the training circle, marking it with symbols I didn't recognize ancient letters in a language predating anything I'd learned. Candles surrounded the circle, their flames dancing in the night breeze.
"Stand in the center," Aldric instructed. "I'll begin the unsealing ritual. Once it starts, you can't stop it. The pain will be immense, but you must stay conscious. If you pass out, the transformation will be incomplete, and your power will tear you apart from the inside."
"No pressure," I muttered.
"You can do this. I wouldn't risk it if I thought otherwise." He positioned himself at the edge of the circle. "When you feel the seal breaking, don't fight it. Let the power flow through you. Let your body change. The more you resist, the worse it will hurt."
I took my place in the center of the circle, the moonlight washing over me like liquid silver. The symbols Aldric had drawn seemed to glow faintly, responding to the moon's presence.
"I'm ready," I said, surprised to find I meant it.
Aldric began to chant in that ancient language, his voice rising and falling in a rhythm that made the air itself vibrate. The candle flames grew brighter. The symbols pulsed with light.
And inside me, the seal that locked door that had kept my true nature hidden for eighteen years began to crack.
It started as warmth in my chest. Pleasant, almost. Like drinking hot tea on a cold day. Then the warmth became heat. The heat became fire. And the fire became agony.
Every cell in my body was burning. I gasped, fell to my knees, the pain so intense I couldn't even scream. It felt like my skin was being flayed off, like my bones were melting and reforming, like something massive and powerful was trying to claw its way out of my flesh.
Aldric's chanting grew louder, more insistent.
The moonlight intensified, focusing on me like a spotlight. I felt it entering my body through every pore, flooding me with power that my human form wasn't designed to contain.
Let it change you, I remembered Aldric saying. Don't fight it.
But every instinct screamed to resist, to hold onto my human shape, to make the pain stop.
No.
I forced myself to relax. To accept. To surrender to what I was becoming.
My bones began to break.
The sound was horrific wet cracks and pops as my skeleton restructured itself. My spine elongated. My skull changed shape. My hands and feet twisted, fingers becoming claws, nails becoming talons.
I screamed then. Couldn't help it. The pain was beyond anything I'd imagined, beyond anything that should be survivable.
But I didn't pass out. I held on, consciousness clinging by a thread, as my body tore itself apart and rebuilt.
Fur erupted from my skin not brown or grey like normal wolves, but pure silver that seemed to glow with its own inner light. My senses exploded outward. I could smell everything the forest, the night, Aldric's controlled fear, and my own blood where my claws had dug into the earth.
I could hear the heartbeat of small creatures hiding in the underbrush a hundred yards away. Could taste the moonlight on my tongue like cool water.
And I could feel my power, fully unleashed for the first time, coursing through me like lightning in my veins.
The pain began to fade, replaced by a sensation of rightness so profound it brought tears to my.
My eyes.
I had eyes again. Wolf eyes. I could see in the darkness as clearly as day, every detail sharp and defined.
I rose on four legs, testing my new body. I was massive easily twice the size of the largest normal wolf, my shoulders level with Aldric's chest as he approached cautiously.
"Seraphina?" His voice was quiet, careful. "Can you hear me? Do you understand?"
I tried to speak and only managed a rumbling growl. Panic flared was I stuck like this? Had something gone wrong?
"Relax," Aldric said, reading my distress. "The ability to shift back will come. Right now, your body needs to adjust to its true form. Walk around. Test yourself. Get comfortable with what you've become."
I took a tentative step. Then another. My new body felt strange and familiar all at once, like putting on a costume that fit perfectly. I moved around the clearing, testing my strength, my speed, the way my enhanced senses showed me the world.
I was powerful. Stronger than any normal wolf, faster than anything that walked on four legs. My teeth could shred steel. My claws could rend stone.
This was what had been locked inside me. This was what I truly was.
A Moon Blessed wolf, awakened at last.
I turned to Aldric and saw the wonder in his ancient eyes.
"You're magnificent," he breathed. "Exactly as the legends described. Silver fur, eyes that glow like captured moonlight, size that dwarfs even the strongest Alpha." He smiled. "They rejected you as defective. Now look at what you've become."
Pride surged through me. Not the petty pride of proving others wrong, but something deeper. The pride of becoming what I was always meant to be.
But as I stood there in my new form, basking in the moonlight and my newfound power, something shifted in the shadows at the edge of the clearing.
A presence. Watching. Malevolent.
My enhanced senses locked onto it immediately. I snarled, my hackles rising, power gathering in my muscles as I prepared to.
It was gone. Whatever had been there vanished like smoke, leaving no trace.
But I'd felt it. The wrongness. The hunger.
And for just a moment, before it disappeared, I could have sworn I saw eyes the color of fresh blood staring back at me from the darkness.
The same red eyes from my dreams.
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Next Chapter: "The Silver Ghost" - Sera learns to control her new wolf form and discovers abilities she never imagined. But someone from her past is getting too close to the truth. Plus, Aldric reveals a shocking secret about what the red eyes in the darkness really mean...
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End of Chapter 5