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.

sounded more like a wild growl. She dropped to all fours and her bones cracked and splintered as they grew and reformed. She

female voices whispered in

rough fibers of the worn fabric beneath

run made her whine and pace, her

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

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

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

looked like the

pale moonlight…” Ulster intoned, his

She yipped and backed

scattering in fear. Ulster’s skin split

to see what he had planned — she could guess — and burst through the

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

chased so ardently. She could only imagine it was

evil, a voice whispered, urging her

don’t do this! Ulster was everything she hated — malicious,