Instinct Unleashed — -chapter 9- By Kind Nightmares

Kael stood at the edge of the treeline, breath fogging the air despite the summer warmth. His hands were no longer trembling. That was the problem. For weeks, the tremor had been his anchor—proof that the thing inside him was still a passenger, not the driver. But now, stillness had settled into his bones like a second skeleton. Calm before the claw.

Elias circled slowly, never entering Kael's peripheral vision. A tactic meant to unsettle. It didn't. Nothing unsettled Kael anymore—not the blood under his nails, not the dreams of running on four legs through cities of bone, not the way his shadow sometimes moved a second after he did. Instinct Unleashed -Chapter 9- By Kind Nightmares

The rain had started to fall harder, slicking Kael's hair to his forehead, dripping into his eyes. He blinked slowly. When he looked up, his irises caught the fractured moonlight—amber now, where they had been brown. Kael stood at the edge of the treeline,

Kael smiled. It was not a human expression. It was something the face did when the thing beneath the face decided to wear it like a mask. For weeks, the tremor had been his anchor—proof

The moon hung low and fractured, as if something had tried to swallow it and thought better of it. Rain fell not in droplets but in sheets—grey, relentless, the kind of rain that washed away footprints and memories in equal measure.

Kael didn't turn. He already knew the scent—smoke, old leather, and the metallic tang of suppressed rage. Elias. The alpha who had raised him, who had taught him that instinct without discipline was just chaos with teeth.

The pack had scattered three nights ago after the incident at the silos. He could still hear the wet snap of Tobias's shoulder dislocating, still see the way Lena had looked at him—not with fear, but with the hollow recognition of someone watching a friend drown in slow motion. She had whispered, "You're still in there, Kael. Fight it."