<h4>Chapter 298: The Awakening of the Wolf</h4>


    <strong>Easter~</strong>


    The pain didn’t announce itself. It didn’t build up or give warning. It struck—sudden, ruthless—like a thief slipping through a window in the dead of night.


    One moment, I was lying there, dazed and breathless, blinking up at a moon-drenched ceiling that felt both familiar and foreign. My thoughts were a mess—half tangled in the faces I didn’t recognize, half drowning in the surreal joy of seeing my baby for the first time. She was beautiful. Tiny, warm, soft against my chest, as if made of stardust and breath. When I held her, for a second, the world had stopped spinning. Everything had felt... right.


    Then it hit me.


    A blistering heat shot through my body like lightning trapped in my veins. It was fire, pure and unforgiving—crawling under my skin, setting my nerves aze. It wasn’t pain in the normal sense. It was worse. It felt ancient, wrong, like my very soul was being rewritten against its will.


    At first, I tried to brush it off. Maybe it’s normal, I told myself. Maybe this is just what happens after giving birth. But no one talks about this kind of aftermath. No one warns you that your bones might feel like they’re breaking from the inside out, or that your heartbeat might sound like war drums in your ears.


    I hadn’t even held my daughter for five whole minutes. Just enough to memorize the weight of her. The way she sighed into me like she already knew I was hers. Just enough time to fall in love.


    And then my body betrayed me.


    My muscles locked. My vision blurred. My back arched violently off the bed as if something inside me wanted out.


    "Jacob!" I choked out his name, raw and cracked, like my throat had been scraped with ss.


    Through the fog in my mind, I could only recognize him.


    How could I forget the man who moved into the house across from mine with that easy smile and those wild, brown eyes? The guy who always smelled like pine trees and distant rain. The one who waved every morning like we shared some inside joke I didn’t remember agreeing to.


    The man I stupidly fell for—fast, reckless, headfirst—only to realizeter there was something off about him. Too many coincidences. Too many times I "bumped into" him in ces he shouldn’t have been. He was charming, sure, but underneath all that charm was something I couldn’t quite name. Something dangerous.


    Still, he was the only face I recognized in that room.


    Everyone else—those beautiful strangers who looked like they belonged on the cover of fantasy novels or ancient myth—werepletely unknown to me. Not just unknown—unreal. Their skin seemed to glow, like the moon had kissed them on purpose. Their eyes sparkled in strange hues, not quite human. They didn’t blink as often as they should. They were watching me with this strange mix of wonder, worry, and... guilt.


    And I was lying there, shaking, hurting, terrified. My baby gone from my arms. My body unraveling. The world tilting sideways.


    And Jacob—Jacob looked like he knew exactly what was happening.


    Like he’d seen it before.


    Like he was the problem.


    "Jacob, please," I begged again, reaching for him as my body arched violently. "Make it stop! What’s happening to me?!"


    He was already at my side, his warm hand clutching mine. His face was too close, too calm—and somehow too broken. His deep brown eyes shimmered with grief.


    "I’m here, Easter," he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine. "I’ve got you. Just breathe, love. You’re shifting."


    "Shifting?! What—what does that even mean?!" I cried, thrashing as my spine twisted sharply, the sound of bone against bone echoing in my ears like breaking branches. My fingers bent in unnatural angles. I felt them dislocate, reform, stretch. "Oh God, oh God, am I dying?! Jacob, am I dying?!"


    "No, you’re not dying." The voice came from the tall man with green eyes and golden-brown hair. His voice was calm but rumbled like thunder. He stepped forward and raised a hand glowing faintly with green light.


    Before I could scream again, the world changed.


    The bed vanished.


    The walls, the windows, the floor—gone.


    Suddenly, I was on the forest floor. Cold, damp soil beneath my back. The air was filled with the scent of pine and earth. I could hear distant howls, the rustle of leaves, the sharp snap of twigs underfoot. Fireflies blinked in the trees like scattered stars.


    "What the hell..." I gasped, sitting up.


    But I wasn’t alone.


    They were all still with me. The silent man with the storm-colored eyes and endlessly flowing ck hair stood by a tree, his silver gaze fixed on me like a hawk’s. The fiery one—the red-haired man—was crouched beside a tree stump, casually tossing pebbles at a roon that stared at him like it owed him money. The man with the translucent blue eyes sat under the stars, gently patting the back of my daughter.


    "Rose?" I gasped.


    My baby girl was curled up against his chest, fast asleep, her curls a dark halo around her peaceful face.


    The red-haired woman—fierce and beautiful—sat beside a glowing tree trunk with a tiny bundle in her arms. My newborn. Sleeping, serene, as if her mother’s world wasn’t burning down around her.


    "Why are they so calm?" I whispered. "Why is everyone so calm? I’m falling apart!"


    "No, you’re bing," the green-eyed man said softly.


    "Bing what?!" I snapped. "My bones are cracking!"


    And just like that, my ribs shifted again—jerking violently as they moved and realigned. I screamed and wed at the earth. My legs spasmed. My nails scraped furrows into the dirt. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Painfully slow, my jaw... it popped, twisted, reformed—


    And then, everything stopped.


    The silence was eerie. Unnatural. Even the wind held its breath.


    I lifted my head slowly, my body trembling. Something felt... wrong. Off. I was a bit low to the ground. My limbs—long, strange, too heavy in some ces, too light in others.


    I nced down.


    I wasn’t looking at my arms.


    I was looking at paws.


    Massive, silvery-grey, w-tipped paws.


    "No..." My breath caught in my throat. "No, no, no..."


    I scrambled backward, but my legs didn’t move right. I stood—on all fours. Four.


    "What the actual—"


    "Easter," Jacob said gently, kneeling in front of me, "you’re okay."


    "I’m not okay!" I barked.


    Actually... I literally barked.


    A bark burst out of my mouth.


    A loud, desperate, canine bark.


    My eyes widened in horror.


    "What is happening to me?! What am I?!"


    And that’s when it happened.


    A voice came out of nowhere.


    Inside my head.


    Not mine. Not Jacob’s.


    "My name is Kiki," it said, soft and musical. "And I’m very d to meet you."


    My entire body went stiff.


    "What?!" I howled—again, the sound not quite human, not quite wolf.


    "Don’t be afraid," the voice continued. "I’m your other half. Your wolf. We’re one now."


    "Nope. No, no, no!" I bolted, skittering backward with more speed than grace, crashing into a bush. "Get out of my head! I’m dreaming—I have to be dreaming! JACOB!"


    Jacob tried to step forward, but I panicked. I ran.


    I tore through the woods like something feral, the wind screaming past my ears, my heartbeat a thunderous drum in my chest. Branches pped against my fur—fur! I had fur!—and the earth thundered beneath my pounding paws.


    I couldn’t outrun the voice.


    I couldn’t outrun myself.


    "Please," Kiki whispered again, gently this time. "I’m here to protect you. To love you. You don’t have to be afraid of me."


    "I don’t even know you!"


    "But I know you, Easter."


    "Stop it!" I wailed inside my own mind. "I have kids! I’m not supposed to be a freaking animal! What am I supposed to do, howl lubies?!"


    I stumbled to a halt at the edge of a narrow stream, lungs burning, paws unsteady against the wet earth. My breath came in ragged bursts, fogging the night air, while curls of steam rose from my trembling fur. The adrenaline was fading, but the panic still clung to me like thorns.


    I lowered my head, eyes locking onto the rippling surface of the water.


    There she was.


    A wolf stared back—wild-eyed, chest rising and falling in uneven heaves, ears twitching with leftover fear. Her coat was slick with sweat and rain, bristled from the run. But it wasn’t the fur or the shape that made my stomach twist.


    It was her eyes.


    Green.


    Still green.


    Still mine.


    Still... me.


    I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The world seemed to blur around that single truth. My heart thundered in my chest, loud enough to drown out the wind in the trees. I didn’t know how long I stood there, suspended in that strange space between recognition and disbelief—until something shifted in the underbrush.


    A soft rustle. Not threatening. Just... there.


    I jerked around, muscles taut, but it wasn’t danger that stepped into the clearing.


    It was Jacob.


    He emerged slowly from behind a tree, his presence quiet but solid, like the forest had shaped itself to allow him through. No sternmands. No scolding. Just a steady calm in his gaze that I couldn’t quite understand. It wasn’t pity. It wasn’t fear.


    It was something else entirely.


    He raised a hand—slowly, gently, like he was approaching a wounded animal.


    "Easter," he said, voice low and grounding. "Please... just breathe. I know you’re scared, but I need you to calm down. I promise—I’m going to exin everything."


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