The dream was always the same.
Elena Morozova stood in a field of snow, her bare feet burning against the ice. Above her, a full moon pulsed like an open wound, staining the night red. Shadows moved in the trees—wolves, or something worse. Their growls slithered into whispers: "Nocturna."
Then came the blood.
It dripped from the branches, thick and black, pooling around her ankles. The metallic stench filled her lungs. She tried to run, but the snow became hands, dragging her down—
Elena woke with a gasp.
The orphanage dormitory was freezing, the air sharp with the scent of mildew and ammonia. Pale dawn light seeped through the barred windows, casting jagged lines across the floor. Around her, girls slept like corpses, their breath shallow.
She pressed a hand to her chest. Her heartbeat was too fast. *Just a dream.* But her fingers came away damp with sweat—or was it sticky? She squinted. In the dim light, it looked almost dark.
No. Impossible.
A bell clanged downstairs.
Breakfast was stale bread and weak tea. The dining hall echoed with the clatter of spoons and the occasional whimper from the younger children. At the head table, Sister Valya watched them like a vulture, her rosary beads clicking between skeletal fingers.
Elena tore her bread into tiny pieces. She wasn't hungry.
"Dreaming again?" whispered Anya, the only girl who ever spoke to her.
Elena nodded.
"Was it the wolves?"
"…And the blood."
Anya's face paled. She crossed herself. "You shouldn't talk about that. *She'll* hear you."
She meant Sister Valya. The old nun had once dragged a boy out of bed for screaming about "monsters in the walls." He'd vanished the next day.
Elena glanced at the empty chair beside her. "Where's Luka?"
Anya shook her head. "Infirmary, maybe. Or
A door slammed.
Dr. Anton Virek strode into the hall, his boots leaving wet prints on the floor. Snow melted in his black hair. Behind him, two orderlies wheeled a stretcher covered with a sheet. Something small and limp lay beneath it.
A child's hand dangled from the edge, fingers curled like a dead spider.
Elena's stomach lurched.
After breakfast, the orphans lined up for inspection.
Sister Valya paced the row, her cane tapping against the floorboards. "Backs straight," she hissed. "Eyes down."
Elena stared at her shoes. The leather was cracked, the laces frayed. Last winter, a girl named Irina had been beaten for "vanity" after tying hers with a red ribbon. No one knew where they'd taken her.
A shadow fell over Elena.
"Morozova."
She looked up. Dr. Virek loomed over her, his breath reeking of antiseptic and cigarettes. His left eye was glass—a milky, unblinking orb.
"You're pale," he said. "Are you ill?"
"No, Doctor."
He grabbed her chin, forcing her face into the light. His thumb pressed against her gums, probing. Searching.
"Your teeth are sharp," he murmured.
Elena's pulse spiked. No, they aren't.
But when she ran her tongue over her canines later, they did feel sharper.
The chapel was the only place they were forbidden to enter.
Elena waited until the halls were empty, then picked the rusted lock with a hairpin. The door creaked open, exhaling a breath of cold, stale air.
Inside, the walls were painted with faded saints, their eyes scratched out. A broken chandelier hung from the ceiling, its crystals glinting like fangs. At the altar, a statue of the Virgin Mary wept black tears.
Elena knelt, running her fingers over the floorboards. One was loose.
Beneath it lay a coin.
Tarnished bronze, stamped with a wolf and a crescent moon. Latin words circled the edge: "Gens Lupovka."
A voice hissed behind her:
"You shouldn't be here."
Elena whirled around. The chapel was empty—but the air smelled suddenly of wet fur and iron.
Then, from the hallway, a scream.
Luka's bed was stripped bare, the mattress stained brown.
Elena pressed her palm to it. Still warm.
In the corridor, orderlies muttered:
"—subject preparation—"
"—waste of blood—"
"—Project Lupovka needs fresher samples—"
A hand clamped over her mouth.
Kolya, the feral boy from the attic, dragged her into a closet. His pupils were slit like a cat's, his nails too long.
"Don't ask about Luka," he growled. "Or you'll end up like him."
Behind them, the orphanage groaned.
Something scratched at the walls.
The cold woke him—not the dull chill of the orphanage attic where they locked him at night, but the knife-sharp freeze of the Russian wilderness.
Kolya opened his eyes to a white hell.
Snow lashed his face. His bare chest burned where the skin had split, ribs protruding like a starved dog's. He tried to move, but his arms were twisted wrong—too long, the fingers ending in blackened claws. Blood crusted his knuckles.
Not again.
He gagged on the memory: the snap of bones, the wet tear of flesh, the thing that howled inside his skull last night. The orphanage called it episodes. Dr. Virek called it progress.
Kolya knew better.
It was the wolf.
And it was hungry.
The orphanage loomed ahead, its boarded windows like closed eyes. Kolya dragged himself through the snow, his knees raw. The sun hadn't risen yet, but he could hear them—voices from the infirmary wing.
subject seventeen's vitals are unstable
needs another transfusion before the moon peaks
A shadow moved in the courtyard.
Kolya froze.
Sister Valya stood by the well, her shawl flapping in the wind. She wasn't praying. She was waiting.
Her milky eyes locked onto him.
"Kolya," she croaked. "What have you done?"
He looked down. His hands were red.
Not from the cold.
The needle slid into his neck before he could fight.
Dr. Virek's office reeked of formaldehyde and burnt hair. Kolya strained against the leather straps, his muscles knotting. The glass eye watched him, unblinking.
"Fascinating," Virek murmured, pressing a stethoscope to Kolya's chest. "Your heartbeat slowed to thirteen BPM during the event. A wolf's rhythm." He scribbled in his ledger. Project Lupovka: Subject 17. Lunar cycle acceleration?
Kolya spat blood on the floor. "Where's Luka?"
Virek smiled. "Gone to God."
The lie prickled Kolya's skin. He remembered flashes—a cellar, chains, Luka's screams muffled under a gag. But when he grasped for the memory, it slithered away like smoke.
They're making me forget.
Virek held up a syringe filled with murky fluid. "This will help with the… confusion."
The plunger depressed.
Kolya's world went black.
He woke in the attic, his tongue thick with chemicals. Moonlight bled through the cracks in the roof.
Something scratched at the door.
Not rats. Too rhythmic.
Kolya crouched, his nails digging into the wood. The scent hit him first—salt and iron. Elena.
The lock clicked.
She stood in the doorway, her nightgown glowing like a ghost's. In her hand, the Roman coin caught the light.
"You were screaming," she said.
Kolya touched his throat. It was torn. Had he been howling?
Elena stepped closer. "What did they do to you?"
The words boiled up: They're turning me into a weapon. But his teeth clenched shut. Virek's drugs still coiled through his veins, a silent warden.
Instead, he grabbed her wrist. Her pulse jumped under his fingers.
"Don't trust the saints," he growled. "Their eyes are open."
The chapel basement was not on any map.
Elena led him there, her breath fogging in the dark. The stairs groaned under their weight.
"Look," she whispered.
The walls were painted with wolves. Not the mangy beasts of the forest, but armored warriors with gold eyes and spears. Above them, a banner: *Gens Lupovka.
Kolya's head throbbed.
He knew these faces.
Memory: A man with his own crooked nose snarling under a helmet. Blood on a battlefield. The taste of victory—and then betrayal.
Elena touched a fresco. "This is you."
A boy stood apart from the wolves, his hands chained. A crown of thorns circled his head.
Kolya recoiled. "No."
But the wolf in his chest howled yes.
up snow.
"Filthy animal," one hissed.
Kolya didn't fight. Let them think the drugs won.
But as they passed the infirmary, he smelled it—Luka's sweat, sour with fear. Behind the locked door, something whimpered.
Not a boy.
Not anymore.
Virek's voice echoed down the hall: "Prep the hybrid. We test at moonrise."
Kolya bared his teeth.
The wolf remembered.
And it would not be caged.