Pain exploded in my stomach, ripping me out of tired, dreamless sleep. I moaned, half-rolling out of bed, clutching my midriff as it began to spread, radiating towards my chest and my lower abdomen.

Tears prickled my eyes as I began cursing Cole and fucking Lana under my breath, sure that I was being ripped apart my wolf because of them.

But I opened my eyes.

There was sunlight streaming into the bedroom and...

I screamed.

There was blood on the sheets.

So much of it, it looked like a crime scene. Only without a body.

I scrambled off, still shrieking, feeling for my stomach, my arms, my body, anywhere the blood must have come from, where I must have been injured. But I couldn’t find it.

Oh goddess.

What have I done? Could this be like that night I woke up with muddied footprints without remembering ever returning to my bedroom? Did I hurt someone? Oh goddess...

My breaths grew ragged with panic. The shorts I had found in the closet and had thrown on before collapsing into bed last night was drenched in the blood and—

The door suddenly slammed open, and the chair I had wedged behind it flew across the room.

The four Lycans were in my doorway, gloriously shirtless with sweat dripping into their sweatpants like they had been working out when they heard my scream.

Collectively, they stared from my bloodied sheets, to my bloodied hands, to my shorts. They all went very still.

A violent shiver wrecked my body, even if the heater was turned on, and cold sweat broke all over my skin as I tried and failed to put words together. "I-I d-don’t know where it came from... I was sleeping... I don’t know... I woke up and there was blood and... I swear," Tears began pouring down my cheeks and my shivers worsened. "I didn’t kill anyone—"

Mercer started laughing.

Jericho gave Mercer a pointed, exasperated stare, but his laughter only crested higher, bordering on diabolical, and even after he turned on his heel and left, it echoed through the entire house.

Quinn pulled away next, muttering something about "getting Corazon", leaving Soren, Jericho and I with the crime scene.

"Adams," Soren started softly as I continued to shake. "You didn’t kill anyone. You got your monthly cycle."

I stared at the sheets and blinked. Blinked harder, my tears pausing for only a moment.

I had given up on ever having my monthly cycle that when it finally came, the last thing that came to mind was that.

Then, I started to sob for a completely different reason, thick ugly tears rolling down my face and nostrils,.

I was so damned embarrassed, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.

And then, I cried harder because I missed Mom, and because she hadn’t lived for long enough to have The Talk with me.

Soren shifted uncomfortably, itching the back of his head. "Uh..." He cleared his throat, exchanging looks with Jericho who said, "Don’t look at me. You’ve got way more experience with crying women than I do."

Before Soren could respond, a woman came rushing through the door. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, was about five foot two inches tall, and had the mien of a human. But she had a stern fierceness about her, as she all but shooed Jericho and Soren out with a wave. "Go on, the lady needs her privacy."

"But—"

She slammed the door in their faces. I flinched as she whirled, eyeing the bed. "Just how much blood do you have left in you if you’ve shed this much?" She nodded toward the bathroom, voice stern but not unkind. "Strip and get in there. I’ll run you a bath."

When I stayed frozen, she clicked her tongue and came straight for me. Her small, surprisingly strong hand wrapped around my wrist and tugged me gently toward the ensuite. "Come. No time for standing around like a startled deer."

She guided me into the bathroom, turned on the taps. Steam quickly filled the room. Without fuss, she helped me out of the ruined shorts and guided me into the tub as the hot water rose around me.

Sinking in, I watched the woman move swiftly, muttering something to herself. "Thank you..."

"Corazon," she supplied. "The one who keeps the house running and the masters fed, since not one of them have enough sense to care about it." She casted me a long glance. "They tells me you will be here awhile. Never had a woman sleep over before. Well, except the crazy chica."

I blinked. "Who?"

She shook her head and kept talking. "This used to be her bedroom, you know. Or was it the next one? Oh, I don’t know. Did you know she tore out the lashes of the last woman Master Jericho brought here?"

I stilled. "Who... what are you talking about?"

"Oh, I’m sure you’ll meet her soon enough..." her voice trailed off as she kept talking without pause and I thought I heard her say something that sounded like, "... wedding’s around the corner..." before dissolving into more grumbling that had nothing to do with me. Then slammed the door shut behind her.

A few minutes later, she returned, setting a tray of food on the wide edges of the jacuzzi tub. I was mostly clean and feeling much better. Enough for my stomach to rumble, reminding me that I hadn’t had a bite since sometime around afternoon yesterday.

"Eat," she said. "A fresh set of clothes have been set out for you. Master Quinn expects you down in two hours."

The constant use of ’Master’ was beginning to weird me out, but I said nothing, pouncing on the food uncontrollably.

"What is your name, girl?"

I glanced up from where I was stuffing a delicious piece of tart into my mouth. "Er... Maisie," I mumbled around another bite.

There were crumbs and filling smeared all over my mouth.

Corazon’s face twisted in disdain. "Well, Mason, you are nothing like the women they bring. For one, you eat like a wild animal. I do not understand how you will ever fit in here."

I choked on the tart, not even getting a chance to correct her mistake of my name before she was out the door.

That was when I caught my reflection in the large mirror across the tub.

And I froze.

Abandoning the food, I stepped out of the tub and halted in front of the mirror. I squeezed my eyes shut and reopened them again to be sure I wasn’t seeing things.

But the image stayed the same.

My skin... I ran my fingers along my face, twisted left and right... my skin was flawless. There were no cuts. No callouses. The bruises, scars and scabs that I had earned over the years had all vanished. So had the stretch marks I’d gained from losing weight.

Even my lower back that had scarred slightly from the whip was smooth.

Even worse, my skin was lumiscent.

The dull, plain sheen to it was gone.

My cheeks were rosy... my cheekbones seemed higher, like overnight, it had relocated up my face, and had grown sharper, taking up an almost elegant look.

My lips were reddened. I don’t think you understand. It looked lush, like I had blood on them. I licked them, half expecting it to go away, but the lush, sensual color stayed.

My hair, still damp, was gleaming an impossible richer, deeper brown, contrasting the golden highlight that now caught the light like polished silk.

I lowered a trembling hand to my neck. It felt thinner, like a model’s.

Blinking rapidly, I glanced down at the rest of me. And I tried not to gasp.

My breasts seemed to have grown a size larger overnight. And my hips seemed even wider than they usually were.

What on earth was going on? It felt like I had fallen asleep plain as a rusty doorknob and woke up as a completely different person.

Then something impossible happened.

My eyes suddenly flared a bright, blinding gold. I gasped, rushing forward to the mirror, clamping the edge as I pulled up my eyelids, blinking rapidly. The ring of gold only flared brighter.

Bright as that of an Alpha’s.

And then, the gold began to bleed from my pupils to my irises, transforming into pure, pitch black.

A startled sound escaped me and I wrenched myself away from the mirror, nearly falling back against the tile. Oh goddess, oh goddess.

My lips parted as I began panicking. And I saw them.

Canines stretching from my teeth—no. They weren’t just stretching. They were transforming. Sharpening. Tentatively, I bared my teeth at the mirror.

And I yelped when I found fangs staring back at me.

And for one wild second, claws jutted out of my fingertips.

Forget the two hours. I had to talk to Quinn right now.