THE AWAKENING

Noooo! Her heartbeat thundered so hard against her chest bone she thought she might die.

The heat was almost consuming her and as much as she needed sex, she couldn’t allow Ulster to plant his seed in her belly! His son — their son — would bring about the end of the world as they knew it.

She couldn’t allow that to happen! With the last bit of herself clinging to reason, she reared back and punched Ulster in the face with every ounce of strength she had.

A soft crack from a broken nose sounded in the still room and she sprang from his hold.

He roared as blood streamed down his face and she ran blindly down the dim hallway, trying to recall where she saw the door.

The adrenalin pumping through her body was spreading the Phase through her blood like poison.

Her temperature was dangerously high. She might die if she didn’t get what her body needed, but she couldn’t allow Ulster to impregnate her.

She felt a prickling across her nerve endings and her bones started to scream in protest as something horrifying began to happen within her body.

“You’re changing,” Arja’s awed voice cut through the red haze beginning to permeate her vision.

“What’s wrong with me?” Cassandra cried, but her voice was rapidly cut off by the elongating of her canines as they ripped through the gums.

more like a wild growl. She dropped to all fours and

female voices whispered in fear.

was completely transformed. The rough fibers of the worn fabric beneath her sensitive paws made her lift

feel the night air and taste the moonlight cascading through the dirty windows. The compulsion to run made her

and vibrant and she saw things in variations of color and texture but her

in shock and apprehension at her sudden transformation while Ulster simply stared with

his body, ebbing and flowing like ripples in a crimson ocean, but his eyes blazed with darkness.

looked like the

like no other, the color of pale moonlight…” Ulster intoned, his eyes glowing.

stared back at her. She yipped and backed away from the image until she realized she had bigger

filled the room and sent the women scattering in fear. Ulster’s skin split and his bones shattered and knit back together as he changed before her

— she could guess — and burst through the

quickly followed her out the window. She could sense his urgency, his lust for power, in the way he dogged her, refusing to let her

it was the influence of the Phase racing through her blood

there was something seductive about evil, a voice whispered, urging her to lift her tail and

in a panic, don’t do this! Ulster was everything she hated — malicious, abusive, and power hungry — why in God’s name would she even consider mating