Chapter 125 Surging.
Rowan's POV
The forest erupts into panic.
"MALIA!" July's voice broke with panic. She's already moving, pushing through the brush where Freddy said Malia went.
Students stop and look at each other in confusion and alarm. The competitive energy dissipates, replaced with something cooler. Fear.
“What's happening?” Patterson asks.
"She's gone," I say as I am already moving. "Malia has been gone for at least fifteen minutes."
Aiden doesn't wait for more. He’s up instantly, dirt from the statue on his hands, face completely white. Not with anger. With terror.
The bond. We both feel it now. That pull that’s supposed to be warning us all day—it’s screaming danger.
"Where?" Aiden barks, already running in the direction I point.
"That direction. Maybe two hundred yards. She went to look at something Lydia—"
He doesn't allow me to finish. There goes my plan,running full speed,not caring about the bush whacking or following trails or being safe.
I follow. Camera bouncing against my chest. Heart hammering.
Behind us, July grabs Freddy. "Come on!"
"But the professor said—" someone starts.
"I don't give a damn!" July's voice is razor sharp. Scared. "Malia's alone out there and it’s getting dark. Move!"
Lydia’s voice cuts through. Sweet. Irrational. Totally wrong. “She’s probably fine. Just lost track of time. We'd better head back and let the rangers—”
“Shut up, Lydia.” Freddy yells “Just — shut the fuck up.”
Several students began pushing farther into the woods, calling Malia. Some have second thoughts, torn between aiding and obeying the rules.
The darkness feels artificial now. You can tell everyone is. The shadows too deep for mid-afternoon. The atmosphere is too heavy.
Something is very off about this preserve.
And Malia's lost in it.
Aiden is ahead of me, moving fast. I'm struggling to catch up. He’s calling her name over and over, voice raw with desperation.
“MALIA! MALIA, WHERE ARE YOU?”
The wind picks up. Sudden and cold. Branches whipping. Making it harder to hear, harder to see.
"We need to split up! " Aiden yells over at me. "Cover more ground!"
"That's a terrible—"
But he’s already swinging to the left, melting into thicker woods. Still calling her name. Still running like his life depends on finding her.
Maybe it does.
And that connection between them—fractured, broken though it was, was pulling him like a compass. That she’s in danger and that’s where to find her.
I keep moving forward. The direction Freddy said. Breaking down bramble that seems to be pushing back.
My foot snags on something. I trip and look down. And I freeze in my blood. Fragment of cloth. Green. Snagged on a branch.
Of Malia's sweater.
"AIDEN!", I yell. "This way! I found—"
But the wind steals my voice. And he's too far ahead now. Can't hear me. I forge ahead for the path. More torn fabric. Turned over earth. Evidence that someone passed through here not long ago. Quickly. Not carefully.
Then I see it.
The slope. Concealed by briers. Steep. And at the bottom there's more torn fabric. Disturbed earth. Like someone fell and rolled.
I start down carefully, using trees for support. The incline is treacherous. Loose dirt. Hidden roots.
How far did she fall?
My phone buzzes. Signal cutting in and out.
A text from July: Where are you? We don't see anyone.
But I can't answer Too busy keeping myself from falling. Halfway down, something glints in the darkening light.
I crouch. Pick it up. A bracelet. Dainty with small moonstone charms.The one Aiden gave Malia on the island. I've seen it on her wrist a hundred times since.
It's here. Broken. Lying in the dirt. My heart skips several beats. What happened to her?
—------
Malia wakes to pain.
Sharp, all-consuming radiates from her head down into her whole body. Blood.
She can feel it flowing down her temple, warm and sticky. It tastes like copper when she tries to swallow. Her hands won't stop shaking. Vision swimming in and out of focus.
Then she sees them. Her hands.
Glowing. Gold light pulses beneath her skin as if her veins were filled with molten savior.
Her eyes—she can feel them. Wrong, burning.
And her eyes, not brown anymore.
Golden. Full wolf eyes that hybrids don't have.
And her fangs. Oh god, her fangs.
They’re out. Not just extended. Fully transformed. Too long. Too sharp. There was blood in her mouth from the tear in her gum tissue.
The shift. It's happening.
It was supposed to be the thing her hybrid body could never even begin to do. Full transformation. Compelled by some force this nature preserve has, intensified by her own erratic powers.
Her bones starts to shift.
The feeling is beyond description. Agonizing. As if her skeleton is attempting to reconfigure itself from the inside out.She tries to scream but what comes out is half-human, half-animal. A sound that has no place in either throat.
Pain shoots up her leg — the one she landed on when she fell. Twisted. Maybe broken. She couldn't tell through all the pain.
Then she hears it. Distant but getting closer.
"MALIA!"
Aiden's voice. Desperate. Frantic. She wants to call back. Wants to tell him where she is. Wants help.
But her jaw is shifting, extending. Her vocal cords shifting. All that comes out is a growl.
Her wolf—terrified and cornered and overwhelmed—is taking over. Responding to pain and fear with the only instinct she has: fight.
Malia tries to stop it. Tries to push the shift back. To get control of it back. She can't.
The preserve’s magic is hooked into her, too deep. Amplifying everything. Continuing the impossible transformation.
Her back arches. Bones cracking, reforming.
She slumps to all fours. Not by choice. Her body dictates the position as her spine reshapes.
Another growl rips from her throat. Louder. More feral.
Footsteps. Close now, bursting through the bushes. Then he's there. Aiden and the look on his face—
Terror. Pure, absolute terror. Not of being hurt. What he’s seeing. Malia, hardly recognizable. Catch mid-transformation. Eyes glowing gold. Fangs dripping blood. Hands—claws, now—are digging into the soil.
"Malia—" His voice breaks. "Oh god, Malia—"
He’s sliding down the slope. Not carefully. She’s just desperate to reach her. She wants to tell him to stop. To stay away. That she can’t control this.
But another wave of transformation hits. Her fingers elongate. Claws fully extending. Black. Sharp. Deadly.
Aiden reaches her. Drops to his knees. Tries to pull her up. To help. She shoves him.
Not meaning to, not consciously deciding.
But the wolf in her — scared, in pain, cornered — sees a threat and reacts.
The force behind the push isn’t real. Or supposed to be real. But the preserve's magic amplifies everything.
Aiden flies backward. He hits a tree with a sickening thud. Hard enough that bark cracks.
He goes down.
For a terrible second, he doesn’t move.
Then he's getting up. Slower. One of his hands is pressed to his ribs.
“Malia—” he gasps. “I know you’re scared. I know it hurts but you have to fight it. You have to—”
She can’t. Can’t fight, can't stop. She can do nothing but exist in a hell of bones cracking and remaking and a power she never wanted burning her from within.
He reaches for her again. And her eyes now completely gold, not a trace of brown—lock onto him. Her eyes were now fully gold, not one shred of brown left, and they locked onto him.
The wolf perceives motion. Sees a hand approaching her.
Reacts. She slashes.
His chest is raked with claws. Beneath shirt and skin. Deep slashes that start bleeding immediately.
Aiden groans in pain. He backs up, needs to get away. Hand on the wounds. Blood. So much blood. Seeping out from between his fingers.
Malia attempts to pull back. Take back even a shred of control. Yet the change is gaining pace. Her mind breaking into pieces. Becoming more difficult for a human to understand. Wolf mind is completely taking over.
Then—voices. The movement in the forest above.
"Oh my god!" It was Lydia's voice. High. Performatively horrified. “She’s attacking him! Somebody help!”
Dinah next to her. Phone at the ready. Filming. Recording everything.
"Oh, she went feral!" Lydia screams. "Aiden, stay away from her!"
Malia tries to speak. To explain. To tell them this isn’t but another growl rips out instead. Deeper. More animal.
Her back is thrown in a violent twist. She can sense fur beginning to grow out from beneath her skin. The final stage.
The full transformation. Total loss of humanity.
I burst into the clearing. Sees the scene—Malia changing, Aiden bleeding, Lydia and Dinah videoing.
My face turns pale. But I did not hesitate.
I drop my camera and run to Malia. Not to hurt her. To restrain, using strength I didn’t know I had—alpha strength, full power—I pin her to the ground. My weight holding her down even as she thrashes.
"Stop!"I command."Malia, STOP!"
She keeps trying to throw me off. The same impossible force that sent Aiden tumbling.
But I was ready for it. Braced. Using skill and not just power.
We roll over the ground beneath the forest canopy. Malia with everything she’s got. I Hold on with grim determination.
“I’m me!” I bark into her ear. “It’s Rowan, you’re safe. You’re SAFE!”
Something in my voice cuts through.
Perhaps the bond. Maybe the desperation. Perhaps the way I keep repeating the word "safe" as a charm.
The wave of potency begins to recede. Just slightly. Malia’s struggling is finally getting weaker. The growls turning more pained than hostile.
I reposition. I was not restraining any more. Just holding. My arms snuck around her in what was half a pin and half a hug.
“Look at me,” I say, making her look in my eyes. “Malia. Look at me. It’s all right. You’re safe. I got your. You’re safe.”
The glow in her eyes still lock on mine.
And gradually the light begins to wink out.
The change reversing. Bones shifting back. Claws retracting, fangs shortening.
“That’s it,” I mutter. “That’s it. You can do it. Come back to us."
Her breath slows. The awful tension in her body relaxing. The gold in her eyes fades to brown. To human.
"I've got you," I say again. "You’re okay. You're safe, Malia."
Her eyes flutter. Close. And she goes completely limp in my arms.
Unconscious. Finally, blessedly unconscious.
The transformation halted. Reversed. Her body human again.
But covered with blood. Dirt. Injuries after the fall and the forced shift. I hold her, feeling for breath, for pulse. Both there. Neither thriving but both there.
I glance towards Aiden, still standing pressed to the tree, his hand over the bloody claw marks on his chest.
Our eyes lock.
And in that second, all that’s divided us, the rage, the pride, the dumb, impotent break fades away.
Leaving only the bond. And revulsion at nearly losing her.
"Is she—" Aiden doesn't finish his sentence.
"Alive for now," I say. "But we need help. Now."
Above us, Lydia's still filming, capturing everything.
The blood, the transformation. The violence.
Just the kind of thing she was looking for.
Proof that Malia is dangerous. Unstable. Just what everyone’s been saying.
And there’s no trace—absolutely no trace—of what caused that. Just the aftermath. The monster they’ve been painting her as.
Finally revealed to them.