The grief had a shape now. Sharp. Vicious. It curled in my chest like barbed wire, coiled tight around the hollow place where life had once bloomed.

They took it from me.

They tore something sacred out of me, and the world had just… kept turning.

But I hadn’t. I wouldn’t.

I moved like a ghost through the shelter that morning. Mira clung to me, eyes wide with worry, but she didn’t ask where I was going. Maybe she already knew. Maybe part of her, the part that had lived too long on the streets, recognized what that darkness in me meant.

I kissed her forehead. Tucked her into her cot. Promised I’d come back.

I wasn’t sure if I believed it myself.

The streets were quieter than they should’ve been. Or maybe I just couldn’t hear anything over the thrum of blood in my ears.

My wolf had been silent for weeks. Ever since Kade shattered the bond and left me in that sterile, stinking hospital bed. But now…

Now she stirred.

Not with words. Not yet. But with presence. With a pulse that vibrated in my bones. My senses sharpened. My stride lengthened. My vision carved through the shadows.

I hunted.

I found the first boy near the train tracks. He was slouched against a wall, cigarette dangling from his lips, phone glowing in his hand.

He didn’t hear me coming.

I slammed him against the brick before he even looked up.

“Where are the others?”

He choked on his cigarette, wide-eyed. “Who—what the hell—?”

I bared my teeth. “You know who I am.”

And then my bones cracked.

The shift hit me like lightning. Not graceful, not smooth—just pain and fury and heat. My skin tore. My spine bent. My fingers curled into claws. I collapsed forward onto paws that hadn’t carried me in weeks.

My wolf howled.

The boy screamed.

I didn’t kill him.

But I let him bleed.

The second one ran when he saw me.

Smart.

He didn’t run fast enough.

He tried to pull a knife. I knocked it from his hand. His cries echoed down the alleyway as I pinned him, teeth inches from his throat.

“Tell me,” I growled—half voice, half snarl. “Where’s the leader?”

“T-The warehouse!” he sobbed. “Old textile mill on 9th—please—I didn’t know she was pregnant—”

That wasn’t the mercy he thought it was.

I left him shaking.

The warehouse stank of oil and mold and fear.

He was waiting.

I didn’t speak. Didn’t waste breath on warnings or last chances.

He pulled a pipe from the floor.

I lunged.

The fight was brutal. Close. Messy. He clipped my shoulder, shattered something in my ribs, but it didn’t stop me. I was all fang and fury. I tore into him with everything I had left. Not enough to kill. But enough to mark him. Scar him.

He’d never forget me. Never forget what he took.

And he’d never use another child again.

By the time I limped back to the shelter, dawn was breaking.

I shifted before I crossed the threshold, blood-soaked and broken, but whole in a way I hadn’t been since the bond snapped.

Mira ran to me.

I dropped to my knees and held her tight.

My wolf was back.

So was I.