It looked painful, probably more so than it’d been since the first time he turned.
The claws grew as his clothes shredded, bones popping, muscles shifting. He howled toward the floor as his back arched, hair sprouting along his skin under his tattered shirt.
It took only a minute, but it felt like it stretched on forever.
And when it was done, Carter was gone.
In his place stood an Omega.
But….
Somehow he was still there. With us. In our heads. Oh, his bonds that stretched out between all of us were tenuous, and they were wracked by the storm, but they held.
And next to him, in his own cage, was a large brown wolf with eyes of violet.
No one stopped me as I rose.
No one said a word as I walked between them toward the wolf behind the line of silver, the bite on my neck pulsing.
He watched me as I approached, eyes narrowing, fangs bared.
I stood in front of him, separated by an invisible barrier.
“I can feel you,” I whispered. “You’re still here. It’s not the same, but you’re still here.”
I toed the silver, breaking the line.
He moved almost faster than I could follow.
But before he could reach me, Ox was at my side, half-shifted and roaring, catching Mark by the scruff of his neck and slamming him back down to the ground.
Mark tried to bite at him, tried to scratch and wiggle free.
Ox bent over him until they were almost face-to-face.
He growled and flashed his eyes, which swirled with a mix of red and violet.
And Mark just… stopped.
He was still filled with rage, roiling and mean, but it poured into Ox and was muted, like a feedback loop where the volume was lowered on one side.
Ox stood up slowly, letting Mark go.
Mark pushed himself up from the floor.
When he was shifted, when he was a wolf with eyes of orange or ice, I could still hear him in my head, singing my name, thinking thoughts of a wolf, however primitive.
That was gone now.
Everything from him was primal.
Feral.
His nostrils flared as he looked at me, growling lowly.
But he didn’t come for me.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”