The Banished Shy Luna Chapter 43

The woods hushed as if they were holding their breath. Toren hadn’t let go of my hand since we left the resort, but here in the small clearing, he finally stopped. The earth beneath us was damp and spongy, moss curling around the roots of old pines. Clouds pressed low, heavy with rain, their weight settling on my shoulders like a second skin.

Toren turned to me, his fingers warm and strong around mine. His gaze was steady, burning with determination and something gentler, something just for me. “This is it, Starlight,” he murmured, squeezing my hand. “It’s time for your first shift.”

The words sank into me like stones. My mouth went dry. “Shift,” I echoed, my voice a whisper. Fear crawled up my throat. “I… I don’t even know how to do it.”

His expression softened, though the fire in his eyes never dimmed. “It’s different for everyone,” he explained. “For me, I surrender to my wolf. I let myself feel him—the hunger, the power, the need to run. Once I open that door, the change takes me.”

He brushed his lips over my knuckles, grounding me. “My Beta, though—he has to see it in his mind. He imagines himself already running on all fours, the wind in his fur, the scent of prey in his nose. That vision pulls his wolf out.”

I frowned. “So… which way do I try?”

“Both,” Toren said simply, his voice steady. “See what stirs inside you.”

I closed my eyes, trying. I pushed to feel—for claws, fur, fangs waiting beneath my skin. Nothing. My body was silent.

So I tried to see it instead. I pictured myself running through the woods, chasing an elk, my paws pounding earth. The image flickered weakly and then dissolved.

The silence stretched. The air pressed tighter. I tried again and again until my chest ached with the effort. Fifteen minutes passed. My lungs burned, my head pounded, and still—nothing.

Frustration tore at me. Tears blurred my vision. “Maybe…” My voice cracked. “Maybe I can’t shift. Maybe I’m broken.”

Toren crouched in front of me instantly, his large hand cupping my chin. His thumb brushed away a tear with surprising gentleness. “No,” he growled, fierce and certain. “You are not broken. You’ve just never been given the chance. Don’t ever believe the lies they fed you.”

“But—”

“No buts.” His eyes locked on mine, dark and burning. “We’ll find your way.”

Before I could argue, he stood, stripping off his jacket and shirt, the muscles of his chest flexing with restrained power. “Sometimes,” he said, voice low, “you need to see it.”

And then his body began to change.

The sound came first—bones splintering and reforming, the wet snap of tendons stretching. He grunted through clenched teeth as his back bowed, fur bursting from his skin in a ripple of brindle. His hands elongated into paws tipped with glinting claws. His face cracked forward, jaw stretching, fangs splitting through his gums with a sickening snap.

I stumbled back, one hand clamped over my mouth. It was brutal. Horrific. My stomach rolled as I watched his body tear itself apart and rebuild into something other.

But when it was over, he stood before me as a wolf.

He was massive, his shoulders broad, his body thick with muscle beneath the brindle fur that gleamed in the gray light. And his eyes—those deep, familiar brown eyes—were still Toren’s.

My breath caught. “You’re…” My throat tightened around the word. “Beautiful.”

Slowly, he padded toward me. His enormous paws made no sound on the moss. He lowered his head and nudged my hip with his muzzle, gentle despite his size.

“You want me to try again,” I whispered. He huffed softly, his nose brushing my side in encouragement.

I nodded, heart thundering. Closing my eyes, I reached inward again, desperate to pull at whatever thread connected me to this part of myself.

Nothing.

I pushed harder. The silence of my body was deafening.

Panic rose in me like bile. What if I wasn’t meant to shift? What if they’d been right all along? My breath hitched, my body trembling.

Then, like a ghost, I heard my mother’s voice from long ago. She hadn’t been speaking to me, but to another young girl in the pack.

“Females struggle more. Their minds are too crowded. The key is to clear it. Empty yourself. Only then will the wolf come.”

I hated her. I hated every word she’d ever thrown at me. But this… this stuck.

I forced myself to breathe. To let go.

I pushed the shame down, buried the guilt, shoved every cruel word and wound into the dark where they couldn’t reach me.

I focused instead on the world around me.

The bite of the cold air. The damp moss beneath my bare feet. The whisper of trees as the wind bent their branches. The strands of my hair brushing against my cheek. The steady presence of Toren’s wolf, warm and solid beside me.

My body loosened, my chest expanding as the air filled me clean and whole.

And then pain tore through me like lightning.

It started low in my spine, a searing bolt that made me collapse to my knees with a cry.

“Don’t fight it,” Toren’s voice echoed in my head, rough and steady. “Let it come, Starlight.”

I screamed as my bones cracked, my arms buckling under me. My spine arched, bending, twisting, snapping into a new shape. My skin stretched painfully as fur forced its way through my pores. Claws ripped free where my nails had been. My jaw throbbed with blinding agony as my teeth shattered and reformed into sharp fangs.

I clawed at the earth, my screams turning to guttural snarls. My body convulsed, each ripple of pain more excruciating than the last.

“Breathe!” Toren urged in my mind. “You’re almost there.”

I sobbed, the sound warping into a growl as my voice deepened, broke, vanished into something wild.

Then the pain crested—and broke.

I collapsed onto all fours, my chest heaving, my body trembling. For a moment, silence filled me.

And then I opened my eyes.

The world exploded into color and scent and sound. The moss beneath my paws was vivid green, damp with dew. The air shimmered with layers of smell—earth, pine, Toren’s wolf, the faint musk of distant prey. I could hear the flutter of wings above us, the rustle of insects burrowed under the soil.

I lowered my head—and froze.

Paws. My paws. White fur dusted with gray stretched where my hands should have been.

A sound tore out of me—half laugh, half howl. My tail flicked behind me, alive, strange, wonderful.

Toren’s wolf stepped forward, his eyes locked on mine, proud and fierce. He lowered his massive head and nudged my shoulder.

I nudged him back, a playful snap of my teeth surprising even me.

Joy ripped through me like sunlight. I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t cursed. I was wolf.