POV Blake
"I don't know what to do anymore."
Matthias's voice cracks like thin ice, and suddenly he's not the Alpha who commands hundreds. He's just a man, exhausted and confused, laying his guts on our bedroom floor like an offering.
"I look at you and my wolf screams ‘mine,' but my brain says 'stranger.' I want to protect you, possess you, fucking worship at your feet— But I don't even know who you are." He laughs, bitter and broken. "How's that for pathetic?"
My chest feels like someone's performing open-heart surgery without anesthesia. "Matthias—"
"The negotiations about the merger with Nightshade pack happen in a week."
The words fall like bombs.
"Your parents will be here. Small talks, territory discussions, the whole political circus. And I'll have to stand there, pretending everything's fine while you pretend to be—"
He stops himself, but we both hear the unfinished sentence.
While you pretend to be Amelia.
"I should be focused on pack security," he continues, running hands through his hair until it stands wild. "Instead, I'm going insane trying to figure out why my Luna smells like never before. Why does she flinches when I call her by name? Why does she looks at me like I'm both salvation and damnation?"
Each word is a scalpel, cutting closer to truth. I try one last time, reaching for Amelia's serene mask. "You're overthinking. I'm just—"
"Stop."
The command in his voice makes me freeze. Something fundamental shifts in his expression—exhaustion winning over patience, perhaps.
"Just... stop. I can't do this tonight."
The defeat in his voice is worse than anger would be. This strong, incredible man who's shown me nothing but kindness, and I'm slowly destroying him with lies.
"You just need to rest," I whisper, because what else can I say?
'Sorry I'm not your dead fiancée'?
'My bad for the identity theft'?
He stares at me for a long moment, like he's memorizing my face. Then he nods, movements mechanical. "Yeah. Rest."
I climb into bed while he disappears into the bathroom. The shower starts, and I try to steady my breathing.
One week. One week until my parents arrive and this whole house of cards collapses. One week to figure out how to—
Pain.
It hits like a freight train made of molten metal, starting in my spine and exploding outward. Every bone in my body decides to rebel simultaneously, but this isn't the dull ache I've grown used to.
This is apocalyptic. Biblical.
The kind of pain that rewrites your understanding of suffering.
I need to get up. Need to call for help. Need to do something other than collapse like a marionette with cut strings.
My body has other plans.
I hit the floor hard, limbs refusing basic commands like 'move' or 'exist without agony.' My vision whites out at the edges, and I can't even scream properly. The sound that emerges is wrong—part human sob, part something else. Something wild.
"Amelia!"
Matthias is there instantly, water still dripping from his hair, wearing nothing but hastily grabbed sweatpants. He drops beside me, hands hovering like he's afraid to touch.
"What's wrong? Talk to me!"
I try to answer, but another wave hits and the sound that tears from my throat isn't human. It's a howl. Raw and primal and impossible because I don't have a—
My eyes find the window. The full moon hangs there like a cosmic joke, bright and merciless.
Oh.
Oh fuck.
Twenty years of being told I'm broken, and my wolf chooses NOW to make an entrance? The universe has a sick sense of timing.
"Your eyes," Matthias breathes, and I catch my reflection in his pupils.
Gold. Burning, inhuman gold. Not Amelia's amber. Not even close.
"Amelia, what's happening?"
Even now, he calls me Amelia.
Another wave of agony crashes through me, and this time I feel it—really feel it. My bones aren't just hurting; they're rearranging. Twenty years of human architecture deciding now's a great time for renovation.
"Can't—" I gasp, but the words dissolve into another inhuman sound.
My hands claw at the hardwood, and I watch in horrified fascination as my nails extend into something decidedly not human.
"You're shifting." Matthias's voice holds wonder and confusion in equal measure. "But you said—Amelia's wolf is—this isn't—"
Right. Because Amelia already had a wolf.
An established, elegant silver wolf that matched her perfect everything else. And here I am, apparently sprouting a completely different model.
Fantastic. Even my deception is failing spectacularly.
"I need to call the healer," Matthias says, already reaching for his phone.
"No!" The word comes out garbled, half-growl, but forceful enough to stop him.
The last thing I need is an audience for this disaster. Bad enough my arranged husband is watching me literally come apart at the seams.
He drops the phone, hands returning to hover uselessly. "What do you need? Tell me what to do."
What I need is to not be a genetic disaster finally manifesting at the worst possible moment. What I need is to rewind time and make better life choices.
What I need is—
Another crack. My ribs expand, lungs reshaping to accommodate new anatomy. The breath that rushes out carries the scent of pine and earth and something wild I don't recognize.
"Space," I manage to gasp. "Need space."
Matthias scrambles back, giving me room to writhe on his bedroom floor like the world's most pathetic shape-shifter. Because that's what this is—shifting. The thing I've watched everyone else do since childhood. The thing my parents beat me for failing at. The thing that marked me as defective, worthless, broken.
Except apparently I wasn't broken. Just late to the party. Twenty years late.
The humor of it—because I have to find humor or I'll scream—is that my wolf waited until I was living the biggest lie of my life to make her debut. Here I am, pretending to be my dead sister, married to a man who thinks I'm someone else, and my wolf decides THIS is the moment to prove everyone wrong.
"It's beautiful," Matthias whispers, and through the haze of pain I see what he sees.
Fur sprouts along my arms. My hands—paws—are massive, built for power rather than Amelia's grace.
Of course. Even as a wolf, I can't pretend to be her.
The transformation accelerates, bones settling into new configurations with sickening cracks. My face elongates, teeth sharpening into weapons. The human sounds stop completely, replaced by pure wolf vocals—whines, growls, pants of exertion.
Through it all, Matthias watches with an expression I can't decode. Not fear. Not disgust. Something else entirely.
The final change sweeps through me like wildfire, and suddenly I'm... different. Four legs instead of two. Fur instead of skin. Instincts flooding my brain that are both foreign and achingly familiar.
I did it.
I fucking shifted.
After years of failure, of being the family embarrassment, of accepting I'd never be whole—I'm a wolf.
A wolf who's still lying on her fake husband's bedroom floor, pretending to be his dead fiancée.
My life is a goddamn comedy of errors.