Marlowe
Everything about being a wolf felt immediate in a way nothing human ever had — no careful calculation, no ten years of practiced stillness standing between instinct and action, just pure, focused intention translated directly into motion.
Vance recovered from his shock fast, raising the blade again, but a wolf's speed had nothing in common with a exhausted, wounded human's, and I closed the distance before he'd fully reset his stance. I didn't think about strategy. I didn't think about anything at all beyond the singular, total focus of an animal defending everything it had left to protect.
The fight that followed lasted only seconds, brutal and decisive in a way the whole drawn-out human confrontation before it never had been. Vance went down hard, the blade knocked clear, his
