Chapter 2

“Mason!” Danny’s voice was distant, muffled by the roar of blood in Mason’s ears.

He couldn’t answer. His vision swam, the forest sharpening into impossible detail—every leaf vein, every grain of bark, every drop of blood on the dead wolf’s fur. And the smell. Iron and earth and sweat and fear. His fear. Their fear.

Beside him, Seraphina let out a strangled gasp. She had her hand clamped over her shoulder, but her eyes were fixed on her other hand—the one where her nails were lengthening, darkening, curving into points. “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no—”

Chloe stood frozen, her arms wrapped around her ribs where the slash burned. Her face was pale, but she wasn’t panicking. She was watching. Watching the way Mason’s fingers twitched, the way Seraphina’s nails grew, the way Danny’s leg trembled where the bite marked him.

“It’s happening,” Chloe said, her voice barely audible. “To all of us.”

Danny stumbled back, nearly tripping over a root. “We need to get to a hospital. This isn’t—this can’t be real. Rabies doesn’t do this. Nothing does this.”

Mason forced himself to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The heat receded a fraction, and the pressure in his chest eased. He looked at his hands. Normal. For now. But he could feel it waiting, coiled just beneath the surface.

“A hospital won’t help,” he said, his voice rough. “They’ll just ask questions we can’t answer.”

Seraphina turned on him, her blue eyes wild. “So what? We just bleed out in the middle of nowhere?”

“No.” Mason pushed himself to his feet. His legs were shaky, but they held. “We get out of these woods first. Then we figure out what’s happening to us.”

He reached down and offered Seraphina his hand. She stared at it for a long moment, her jaw tight. Then she took it. Her palm was cold, but her grip was fierce.

“Fine,” she said. “But if I start turning into a wolf, I’m blaming you.”

“Fair enough.”

They started moving, Danny limping beside Chloe, who kept her eyes on the ground. The forest pressed in around them, darker than it had been before. Or maybe that was just the new sharpness in Mason’s vision—the way he could see every shadow move, every branch shift.

Seraphina stayed close to him, her shoulder brushing his. “Does it hurt?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah. You?”

“Like someone’s trying to rearrange my bones from the inside.” She laughed, but it was hollow. “I always thought I’d die in a car crash or something boring. Not mauled by a wolf in the middle of a dare.”

Mason almost smiled. “At least it’s memorable.”

They walked in silence for a while. The only sounds were their footsteps and the occasional groan of a tree. Mason’s arm throbbed where the wolf had bitten him, but the heat was different now—not just pain, but something hungry. It wanted out.

He clenched his fist and focused on the cold air against his face.

“There,” Chloe said suddenly, pointing ahead. A faint glow flickered through the trees—a light. A cabin, maybe, or a road.

They quickened their pace. The light grew brighter, resolving into a single window set in a small wooden structure. The old hunting cabin. The one they’d been looking for.

“We made it,” Danny breathed. “We actually made it.”

But as they stepped into the clearing, Mason felt it again. The heat surged, stronger this time, and his vision doubled. For a split second, he saw the cabin not as wood and glass, but as a den—a place to hide, to curl up and wait.

He shook his head violently. “Not now.”

Seraphina grabbed his arm. “Mason? Your eyes—”

He looked at her reflection in the cabin’s window. His eyes were glowing. A dull, amber gold.

“You too,” he said.

She turned to look, and her breath caught. Her own eyes stared back, the same sickly gold.

“We can’t go back,” Chloe said quietly. “Not like this.”

Mason felt the truth of it settle into his chest. They were changed. Marked. And somewhere in the distance, a real howl rose—long, mournful, answering something inside him that he couldn’t name.

“Then we don’t go back,” he said. “Not yet.”

Seraphina’s hand tightened on his arm. She didn’t let go.

And for the first time that night, Mason didn’t feel alone.