SERAPHINA’S POV
The scent hit me first—wild musk and hunger, raw and untampered.
The unseen presence pressed against me like a wall, primal and unrelenting.
Every instinct in me screamed, danger!
Then I heard it—the crunch of heavy steps, deliberate and slow, somewhere beyond the curtain of trees.
Snow displaced with each weighty stride, followed by the low, guttural huff of a massive creature exhaling steam into the frozen air.
I couldn’t see it yet, but its shadow loomed, and I could guess what it was—a bear. And not a small one.
Shit.
I shifted my weight slowly, pressing the woodpile closer to me like a flimsy barrier.
My first thought—funnily, stupidly—was to shift forms. Wolf against bear. Fang to fang, claw to claw.
But then reality slammed into me like an iron door in my face.
I couldn’t Shift.
I might have laughed if I weren’t so fucking terrified.
I’d trained so rigorously, worked so hard, so that I would not be defined by what I lacked, by my one deficiency.
