(Isla)
Caius said we would finish it together.
The words stayed with me while the cold yard pressed against my paws and the day air moved through fur I still didn't understand. My body felt powerful and wrong at once, as if every part of me knew what to do except the mind trying to catch up. I looked at him and wanted to answer, but all I had was breath and instinct and silver eyes fixed on his face.
Then the strain hit.
It came without warning, a hard pull beneath my skin that made my legs shake. The shape I wore suddenly felt heavy in a different way, no longer new and rising but difficult to hold. I lowered my head and a rough sound left me before I could stop it.
A voice moved inside me.
'Yield.'
I froze.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't strange in the way I expected a strange thing t
