Chapter Forty-Nine

F L O R E N C E

The excitement that sparks in my chest makes me stop in my tracks for a moment, and for the first time in a long time, I feel hope coursing through my body.

Suddenly the weakness in my body vanishes in one go; I find myself strong and motivated once again. I grab Dad’s hand and together we head toward the door, but then the tied servant jumps to his feet and attacks Dad.

My instincts flare up, and I find myself punching him straight in the face before he can even make a move. He falls down again, and even though I don’t want to hurt him, I kick his side three times to make sure he won’t follow us again.

“Let’s go,” Dad says, but that’s when the door opens.

And Alpha Isaac himself comes in.

This time, he looks different. He no longer looks like his usual smug, kingly self. His face is gaunt and almost purple, with black veins protruding from his neck and up to his face. His eyes have gone completely white, with only his pupils indicating that he’s still able to see. He looks at me and smiles, and I see the blood inside his mouth.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he says, and it’s like he’s housing a multitude of souls inside his body, his voice now a choir of so many other voices. “You belong to me. Together we can be... invincible.”

“Stay back,” Dad says, swerving in front of me and shielding me from Alpha Isaac, who continues to advance toward me. “I am warning you--”

The rest of his words get cut off when Alpha Isaac raises his hand and pushes Dad back.

There’s a wave of force that comes with that simple move, something that I have never felt before. It’s like a force field, an invisible wall of pure power that washes throughout the room and brings me and Dad to our knees.

The flying debris rushes towards us and I shield my face.

“You can’t beat me now,” he whispers. “I am more than a wolf. I have become my true form, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Dad gets up and growls, about to transform into his wolf form when suddenly, Alpha Isaac catches him by the neck midair and flings him across the room.

“Dad!” I yell, but then I see that the wall breaks behind him, and he falls right off the building into the night.

Cold wind rushes inside the room as I stare at the broken wall in shock. We’re high up, which means that Dad has fallen down...

Time seems to slow down right before my eyes at that very moment. My breath gets stuck in my throat. I can feel my mouth opening and from it comes a high-pitched scream, but it still takes me a while to realize that it’s coming from me.

Without hesitation, I pull back, clench my fist, and smack Alpha Isaac in the face with all the force I can muster.

Alpha Isaac lets out a snarl as I drive his body back and push him hard against a protruding drawer. I make sure that his back collides against the hard surface with enough force to knock the breath out of him, at least temporarily. He thrashes around and tries to claw at me with his strange sharp nails, but I swerve and avoid every blow without breaking a sweat. His claws are straying closer and closer to my face in near misses, but I don’t find myself being afraid.

My knuckles make contact with his jaw, and the force makes my entire arm hum with both pain and energy. He falls to the ground because of the impact. He stares at me, clutching his face with his eyes wide and his open lips bleeding.

The look of absolute shock on his face is priceless, and I would love to bask in this glory, but he gets up immediately and swipes his legs under my feet.

The move is unexpected, but to my surprise, I manage to step back just in time to avoid getting swept off my feet. He gets up and I lunge at him again, scooping up a chair with one hand and hitting him on the back with it.

The chair breaks on his back like a prop, but he doesn’t even flinch. He straightens up just as I’m about to aim a punch, then he elbows me right in the face.

Stars dance in my eyes. Pain erupts from my nose and spreads through my whole face. His elbow hit me like a battering ram, in a way that I didn’t expect.

Still, even in my dazed state, I’m able to lift my leg and give him a hard kick that sends him flying toward the arrangement of chairs. Then I stand over him, press my knee against his throat, and lean all my weight against it to cut off his air supply.

“You are a sick and twisted man,” I say through gritted teeth as I press down harder and harder. His eyes are going wide. His veins are standing out against his neck. “I will kill you for everything you’ve done.”

Heat, strong and intense and unstoppable, starts to invade my body. It crawls in the pits of my veins, spreading right from my chest to the tips of my fingers and my toes. Suddenly, my whole body is just humming with energy, with powe— something I have never felt before.

It’s too much, I must admit. As I take a step forward to go to Dad, I stumble onto my knees. I have to double over as the concentration of heat begins to center around my stomach. I feel like crying, screaming, or passing out. It’s a bombardment of sensations that’s leading my muscles to clench.

Then they begin to expand.

No, not expand. They’re starting to morph and shift into a form that’s entirely different from my human body.

My ears start to grow long. My teeth are becoming longer and sharper. Fur starts to cover my entire body, smooth and fine and black like my father’s and my brother’s. My hands become paws, tipped by long sharp nails that I know can tear through just about anything. My legs fold into my hind legs, bending into a tense position.

I’m in my wolf form now, and I howl into the night. Then, I bend down and try to claw Alpha Isaac’s chest open with my nails.

To my surprise, the look of pain on his face slowly transforms into a smirk. “Good luck with that.”

With that, he grabs my leg and crushes it with his hand. I can feel my bones breaking in his grip. My vision turns black, and I fall off him, my voice raspy with pain as I cry out. I shrink back to my human form, vulnerable and small and broken. He pushes me off of him and looms over me, prodding my limbs with his foot as I'm splayed on the floor beneath him.

“There’s nothing you can do now, Florence.” Alpha Isaac smiles at me, and I can almost see him morph before my eyes. He looks evil. He doesn’t look like a werewolf anymore. It’s like he did something to himself to make him completely inhuman. Power is emanating from him as he smiles, and I see that his teeth grow longer and sharper. “Nothing at all.”

He leans forward, then he sniffs my neck, and I can tell that there’s something entirely wrong with him.

I feel like he wants to... eat me.

That’s when it occurs to me. He already had blood in his mouth earlier. He already ate someone, and that’s the most forbidden thing that a wolf can do.

He has crossed the line. He has done something that even the gods consider a grave sin. That’s why he looks like that, why he has turned completely evil.

“You know now, don’t you?” Alpha Isaac whispers, extending his tongue and tasting my skin. “Don’t worry, I will not consume you. I will make you like me.”

Alpha Isaac smirks at me, opens his mouth wide, and leans in to bite my neck— right where my mark is.