They didn’t want me, they wanted Wolf.

I curled up on the floor, trying to think while Wolf whined her incessant logic at me.

In the end, I decided that if I was going to do this, it would be my own choice, under my own control. I wasn’t going to shift in a rage-filled panic like I had last time. I could do this calmly, sensibly even. I had a choice. Or I could pretend I did.

I took off my sweater, jeans, panties. Folded them neatly, put them out of the way next to a craggy piece of rock where I could find them again when I was ready. Kneeling, keeping my balance with a hand resting on the stony ground, I breathed steadily, calming myself. I was hungry, and this was the solution to the problem. Made perfect sense.

The Change hurt less when I didn’t fight it, when I let it slide over me like water pouring through a channel. I imagined a cage in my gut where Wolf lived, where she slept behind bars. As I let out my next breath in a long exhale, I imagined the bars disappearing, the cage opening, and Wolf sprang free. In a wave of tingling pinpricks, fur sprouted along my arms and back. My fingers bent into claws, and my muscles spasmed as the bones under them began to change.

Like water … Without a sound, I closed my eyes, arced back my head, and the Change passed over me in a wave—

*   *   *

—when she opens her eyes, she sees the world in a sharp light. The scent of meat fills her. It’s why she’s here.

She pads over to the carcass. Suspicious, she noses it all over, searching for tricks, for proof that this is a trap. But it only smells like good, fresh deer. She noses under the skin and rips into flesh. Settles in to devour as much of the feast as she can, because she doesn’t know when she will eat again. Or if it might unexpectedly vanish. The meat should taste good, but she’s anxious, eating too quickly to enjoy this. She’s alone, here. Cornered. No pack to keep watch with her.

She has almost finished the flesh and starts cracking and gnawing on bones when a noise catches her attention and her ears prick up. In front of her, the door scrapes open. The enemy has come. Her hackles stiffen, fur standing straight up. Her muscles brace. Her claws click against the stone as she backs away.

Their scents reach her, alien and uncertain. Four of them, all different. Her lips curl from her teeth and her throat burrs a growl. They’ve brought more light with them, a glare that fills the space, hurts her eyes. But she can’t look away. Ears flattened, tail straight, she stares at them, challenging. If they try to hurt her, she will mangle them all.

“Oh, she’s beautiful,” says one of them, female, smelling of feline, of musk and desert.

“Dangerous,” mutters another. Male. Another wolf. She hates him.

The group approaches and she backs away, keeping her distance. She can only back so far, and when they corner her, she’ll strike. She will not let them corner her.

Of the other two, one is cold. He smells of carrion without being rotten. She keeps her distance from him. The other, another female—this one smells of prey. Fear, sweat, trembling. Weak, she stands behind the others for protection.

She stares at the prey, and the curl in her lips feels almost like a smile.

“Here,” says the cold one. “We’ll start from here. No need to frighten her.”

For a moment, the door beyond the group stands open. A faint touch of mountain air seeps in, and her nose quivers, taking in the taste of freedom. But the door closes again before she can rally herself to escape.

Too slow, too late. Her muscles are stiff from standing rigid, from spending days locked in this cold, stone-filled space. Her mind burns. The blood of her meal coats her tongue; part of the haunch still remains, but she’s no longer hungry. Now, she wants only to escape. That, or devour the enemies standing before her.

She has to move. Circling back, she paces, following the wall, hoping it will run out, lead her to some wide open space where she can run, but it doesn’t. It loops back to the start, to the enemies and their droning voices. They stand their ground, don’t try to stop her from moving. But she has no path around them without going through them, which seems unwise. So she paces. She can still taste blood and wants more.

On the next loop, she ducks and charges, mouth open. Her claws scrape on the ground, her muscles pump—running feels good. She sees through a haze of anger. The cold one, whose voice has ice and smoke in it. She aims for him.

The wolf steps in her path. She plants her jaw on his raised arm. His skin rips, she tastes his blood. He shoves her back, redirects her, slams her into the cave wall. Pain stings her shoulder. Writhing, she twists out of his grip, falls, finds her feet again.

He braces, arms spread, standing between her and the others. He’s ready to fight. Blood drips down his arm; she tastes drops of it that smear on her tongue. There’s a tang of fear—from the lion, who comes forward and wraps cloth around his arm.

She remembers: traces of poison are everywhere here, imbedded in the walls. They wouldn’t have to rip out each others’ hearts, merely poison each others’ blood with traces of metallic stone.

His teeth are bared; so are hers. She won’t back down from the challenge. Softly, she growls.

Stop. We can’t win.

She stands, legs rigid, panting.

Calm, calm. We must stay calm. We have to wait them out.

The cold one speaks. “We have gathered to raise power, in order to do battle with great evil. We invite Regina Luporum to merge her power with ours. Now, in your truest form, see with your wolf’s eyes what we do here, see the power we have already gathered…”

She glares a challenge at him; the cold one meets her gaze, and her focus tumbles. The world turns to fog, and she cannot look away.

His tone is like singing. This makes her think of howls, of her pack under the full moon’s light, surging pure and ever skyward. But the cold one’s singing is broken and grates on her nerves. At the start, she almost understands what he says. Her two-legged self strains to listen. But as the chant goes on, her head aches, and it becomes meaningless, like everything else about this place. She doesn’t understand, and her other self fades to a distant influence. A murmur in the back of her head urges, listen, listen, remember what they’re saying, we have to understand what they’re saying …

They know things, they have the key to what this is about, but she doesn’t understand.

The others speak, telling their parts of the muddled flood of voices. They are not speaking her language, she is not part of their pack … but she could be … they are letting her in by telling their secrets.