Leon led her deep into the woods, farther than Celine had ever dared to go alone. The trees grew denser, their shadows longer, the path disappearing beneath a thick layer of pine needles and old roots. The air turned colder, sharper, thick with scent—moss, bark, and something raw underneath. Something that prickled her instincts.
She didn’t ask where they were going. She knew.
Leon stopped in a clearing where the trees bowed outward, as if something older than them had once stood here. He turned to her, the faintest steam rising from his breath.
“You don’t understand a wolf’s power,” he said, voice low and steady, “until you see it.”
Before she could reply, before she could brace—he dropped.
His body moved in ways no human body should. Not all at once, but in ripples—like something alive beneath his skin was pushing outward. Muscle convulsed. Bones cracked. She heard it. Felt it. The sound of spine reshaping, joints tearing and reforming.
And then came the fur—dark as smoke, rippling across his limbs like ink dropped in water, with streaks of red like fire caught beneath the skin. His hands—no, paws now—hit the ground hard, claws sinking into the earth. His snout elongated, fangs glinting beneath a long, low exhale that steamed in the cold.
He stood there—towering, massive, unnatural.
Not just a wolf.
Alpha.
His eyes—those same eyes—burned brighter in this form. Not cruel. Not gentle. Just ancient. A force that didn’t need words to command the space around him.
Celine didn’t move.
Her breath caught somewhere between awe and fear. Her fingers twitched at her sides, but she couldn’t look away.
This was Leon.
And this… was what he truly was.
He was massive, primal. A creature that had hunted before the first cities were built. His very presence filled with dominance, the weight of centuries of blood and instinct pressing down on her like gravity.
When he stepped forward, something deep in her flinched. Her body reacted before her mind caught up.
Every instinct lit up at once—drop your gaze, lower your head, bare your throat and yield.
But she didn’t move. Her heart slammed against her ribs, each beat louder than the last, but she held her ground. Eyes up. Chin high. Refusing to bend.
Leon’s wolf circled her, slow and deliberate. Not stalking—assessing. Every step calculated. Every pass a test.
His massive frame brushed the edge of her senses, his breath hot on her neck for a second too long.
She refused to flinch.
His tail flicked once. His snout dipped in what could have been a laugh, a low amused huff. Then, as fluidly as before, the transformation reversed—limbs cracking, shifting, lengthening. In heartbeats, the beast was gone.
Leon stood before her again—bare-chested, steam rising from his skin, breath steady.
"You’ll do it one day," he said, not as a comfort. As fact.
Her fists clenched at her sides. "And if I don’t?"
He looked at her for a long, heavy moment. No flicker of softness in his gaze.
"Then I was wrong about you."