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.

growl. She dropped to all fours and her bones cracked and splintered

and female voices whispered

completely transformed. The rough fibers of the worn fabric beneath her

through the dirty windows. The compulsion to run made her whine and pace, her head down low and menacing at the men who continued to

was of two minds. Her wolf senses were alive and vibrant and she saw things in variations of color and texture but her human senses remained

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

red haze encased his body, ebbing and flowing like ripples in a crimson ocean, but his eyes

looked like the

the Breeder will be like no other, the color of pale moonlight…” Ulster intoned, his eyes glowing. Cassandra caught her reflection in the mirror above the mantel.

She yipped and backed away from the image until she realized she had bigger problems.

scattering in fear. Ulster’s skin split and his bones shattered and knit back together as he changed

see what he had planned — she could guess — and burst through the window with an explosion of coiled muscles and

quickly followed her out the

was the

voice whispered, urging her to lift

malicious, abusive, and power