As the swell reached its peak, I knew I was about to find out. I closed my eyes, as if somehow that was going to make this easier. It didn’t.
A thousand knives stabbed through me, filleting my skin, breaking my bones, destroying everything that I was and remaking me as something new. I’d felt a similar pain the first time I’d shifted to wolf, but such a minute piss-poor version that it was barely worth comparing. I huffed in and out, my breath limited behind the cloth. I needed more air, I needed to be free. There was nothing worse than this sort of pain and the inability to move around on the ground. My eyes were still closed, I couldn’t seem to open them. My chains burst free, and in the same heartbeat I shifted.
It took longer than usual, and afterwards I was disorientated. Getting to all fours, I expected to feel like my wolf. But something was wrong, off about the shift. Why the hell was the floor so far away? My eyesight was strange as well. Generally I saw things in a black, white, and grayscale landscape, but now I had super intense vision. Even in the darkness the room was so bright, colors streaming at me in long waves – was I seeing the freaking light spectrum?
I was hungry, so hungry. I wanted to eat, and there was only one thing in this room even remotely edible. I stumbled, unsure of these new longer limbs. It felt as if I was heavier at the back; something dragged along and tripped me up. It took two steps to reach the vampire cowering in the corner.
Enemy.
Must be destroyed. Instinct driving me, I opened my mouth.
“Jessa!”
A shout halted my movement. I spun around; my head seemed to be able to swivel at least ninety degrees further than it could as a wolf. Braxton stood on the other side of the room, his hands held aloft. I’d reacted to the noise of his yell, but the name meant nothing to me.
I was not a Jessa, I was a nightmare brought to life. I could kill, destroy and hunt with ease. I was never going to be weakened again. I was a dragon.
It had taken my mind a few minutes to piece it together. Not a shadow spirit, I was the real deal.
Braxton didn’t move, but his voice lowered and started to caress my senses. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Nothing will hurt you now. You need to shift back, find Jessa inside.”
I stepped closer, more sure on the clawed feet. Then his scent hit me; it was that of family, kin. He was me and I was him. We were not enemies, but friend. I opened my jaw and a loud, echoing roar emerged. In that moment I found myself again. If I didn’t have so much experience controlling my wolf, I think the dragon would have taken me over forever. But I could fight it and I did. My demon was a dragon. I was a dragon and a wolf somehow.
Dual shifter? I’d never heard of anything like that in my life. I knew the demon … dragon, would not go back into its cage. So now it was about learning how to live with her. Already the wolf had accepted the third part of me. Human, wolf, and dragon. It was not natural and I wasn’t sure how to control it. The only thing I had working for me was the fact that I’d been dealing with the wolf and demon energy my entire life. It was this strength I drew on, pulling the dragon energy back far enough to trigger the shift to my human form.
After my change I lay on the freezing floor, unable to lift my head. Shudders continued to flow over me. The dragon settled back inside, almost voluntarily moving into her cage. It was as if now that she’d been free once, she was more confident in her place within me, no longer fighting me but coexisting, like my wolf.
Warmth draped over me, and I was gathered into strong arms. “You’re safe, Jessa.” The deep voice wrapped around me as warm as the shirt he’d laid over me. I could scent Braxton all over the material, so it was probably his own shirt he’d removed. “We’re getting out of the prison.”
I wasn’t in pain any longer, but a deep seated exhaustion had taken hold and didn’t seem to be letting go. It was strange. The first time I’d shifted to wolf I’d been energized, but now I felt drained.
“What color was I?” My slurred question was unexpected. Of everything I could have asked, like where had he been, was he okay, or even how we were getting out of the prison, I’d asked about my color. But I was trying to picture the dragon in my head.
“Blue and silver,” he said. “Like an iridescent wash of rainbow but in those hues.” He hesitated. I felt his chest heave.
“What?” I mumbled.
“I’ve never seen this on a dragon before, and there’s no reference in the history books, but … well, you had fur.”
I squinted one eye, trying to figure out if I’d understood him correctly.
“Fur?”
He pulled me closer into his chest. “Yes, in most ways you look like me, only smaller and more delicate. But then, sort of in the same places as a horse mane, you had this strip of black hair or fur, and the rest of your body looked like it was … furry. It was almost as if some of your wolf had bled into the dragon.”