Chapter 1
FEYRA
I knew that it would always be me to kill her. I swiped at the energy ball racing towards me, and it bounced into the stone wall; an explosion of bricks and tattered paintings rained against my Lycan body. Lady Skol screamed in anger and the full moon staring through the broken wall was alive in the sunset sky.
I was certain of it now.
I roared back, flexing my muscles. I pounded forward on my paws and leaped at her. Lady Skol brought her hands up too slowly to cast a spell. I slashed her belly, and blood bloomed in a waterfall of death.
I landed with a skid and turned. Her scream echoed into my soul, faltering my perception. My wolf whined.
I was heaving for oxygen. I had to kill her now.
But she was gone.
Laughter filled the room; the walls began shrinking and closing in. Lady Skol’s eyes danced in my mind, and I could already feel the wall at my hind legs. I ran to the wall that had been decimated with the energy ball, but it was fixed!
I shifted and ran to the door, but it was locked now. The door I’d splintered open as a wolf…
Lady Skol continued to laugh. The walls continued to close in. Shit shit shit. I ripped the pendant from around my neck and held it in my hand. I was going to be crushed–
I jerked awake.
I had fallen asleep in the Hall of Order, waiting for my turn to declare my blood status. I looked around, wiping the drool with my sleeve. Had anyone seen? Had I been talking in my sleep?
I couldn’t be a wolf in real life, but I could in my dreams.Dreams that felt so real I could swear–
They called a name. It was myname. I jumped from the bench, running to the designated monk that would take my details.
“Presumed dormant?” he asked a moment later. He rolled his eyes in disbelief. “Youdefinitelycan’t shift?”
I nodded.
The monk laughed, shaking his head at his papers, and continued filling them out. His bald head shone like a lamp.
I clutched my locket under my dress, the only thing I had from my parents—I had been clutching it in the dream…I had just turned twenty-one, and still no change had come over me. As a citizen of Lady Skol’s Lassig, I should’ve felt relieved. It was illegal to be a shifter or werewolf now, and I’d no longer be watched or have to do regular blood tests...
But I was gutted.I couldn’t shift.
“Here you go,” the monk said. He handed me a new card and I sat there reading it as a thousand voices were severed away inside me.Shifter status - Non-existent. Lassig citizenship class - Poor. Occupation - Herbalist.
I tried to hold back the tears, but shame descended into my belly and I felt like I’d let my parents down. Again there were those voices. My parents' locket clutched in my hand even more tightly.
I should be happy.I should be–
“Take that to Citizenship Processing in thirty days, and you’ll no longer have to worry about the mark against your name. We’ll reassign you a role in Outer Lassig and you’ll be moved to–”
“What? But I have a job. I live with my Aunt–”
“Until then,” the monk said. “You’ll still have to submit blood tests.” His eyes flashed with happiness.
“But I shouldn’t have to do that anymore…” I looked down at my lap, throttling the locket in my hand.
The monk laughed. “Some of your lot shift later. Still got a full moon to come.” He tapped the calendar on his desk then folded his arms. He gestured with his head for me to go. Like I was some dog.
I wanted to growl my hatred at him, but it would only make things worse. If I was going to have to argue to keep my position working for Aunty then I couldn’t cause any trouble.
The line leading out the doors was full of people in the same position as me. All with the inability to shift. I would only breathe easy once outside the inner walls of Lassig anyway. Our lot were technically banned.
