n like every other normal wolf out there?!"I remembered the night I had shifted clearly. Four years ago, sixteen without any hope of having a wolf after I had missed the chance to shift on my tenth birthday. It had happened so suddenly. One minute, I felt nothing. The next, my bones were shifting and turning.There was nothing I could say in response. He didn't need me to explain myself. All he wanted was for me to bleed, and I could tell."No, please!" Even then, I still couldn't fight off the urge to beg him to spare me as he grabbed my hand and dragged me down to the basement where I had been kept prisoner more than I would have liked.There was a dim light hanging from the ceiling, casting eerie shadows along the walls of the basement. Shadows that had spoken to me on lonely nights in the basement. I had been brought down here a lot as punishment.But it was different this time, and I could feel it."What... No, no, no. Please, don't do this. I admit that I made a mistake," I pleaded as he grabbed a leather I was familiar with. It was carefully threaded with silver so that only the person holding it would control where the silver touched so it wouldn't burn.Peter didn't care. He grabbed my hands and strapped them with the leather."I've had enough of you being weak," he said as he smeared something cold and dark across my chest. From the strong smell of iron emanating from it, I knew it was blood. And then he started to chant words I'd never heard before."I'm done waiting," he muttered under his breath. "If the goddess didn't bless me with a powerful child, I'll just have to make do with the one she gave me. I'll awaken something in you, Seraphina. Something even the most powerful alphas will have no other choice than to bow to."And that was how it started. Days of torture. He kept me tied up in the basement, bringing food and water only once daily before he would start his strange rituals.He would burn herbs, slice the palm of his hand, chant spells I didn't think he was supposed to even know about. Each night, there were more cuts and more symbols. My bones ached with fatigue.But I didn't cry. Not anymore. Something in me was changing, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I started