The world came back to Fia in fragments—
Blinding white light pressing against her closed eyes.
The smell of soap and something faintly metallic.
The softness of the bed beneath her aching body.
She stirred, a pained groan catching in her throat. Her limbs felt like they had been filled with wet sand—heavy, slow, foreign.
A shadow moved above her.
"Fia?"
The voice broke, rough with guilt and something deeper.
Her eyes fluttered open, the world blurry at first—
and the first face she saw was Emiliano’s.
He looked wrecked.
Dark circles carved deep under his eyes. His hair a mess like he had been dragging his hands through it for days. His usually strong features pulled tight with worry and sorrow.
"I’m so sorry," Emiliano rasped, sinking down beside her bed, his large hand trembling as it reached for hers. "Please, Fia... forgive me. I should have protected you. I should’ve never let this happen—"
Fia tried to shake her head but the simple movement made her dizzy.
When she finally forced words out, they scraped her throat like broken glass.
"Stop," she croaked, reaching weakly for him. "W-what's wrong?"
Panic flashed across Emiliano’s face. He bolted up, grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand, and helped guide it to her dry lips. She drank greedily, the water feeling like heaven sliding down her parched throat.
When she finished, she slumped back against the pillows, her chest rising and falling shakily.
Her voice was still a whisper, but stronger now. "What's wrong, Emiliano?"
He hesitated. His jaw clenched like he was holding back a thousand words.
Finally, he asked quietly, "How much do you remember?"
Fia squeezed her eyes shut, searching her mind—
and like a dam breaking, it all flooded back.
The screams.
The snapping of bones.
The blood.
Mia's terror.
The Lycans throwing themselves against the bars.
And Emiliano—
the way he had roared in pain, the way his body had twisted into something monstrous and beautiful and terrifying.
Her heart raced painfully, and without thinking, she flinched back from Emiliano, her body instinctively trying to put distance between them.
The hurt that flashed across his face gutted her—
but worse was the sudden, feral growl that rumbled deep in his chest, his golden eyes flashing dangerously for a heartbeat before he mastered himself.
Fia’s body answered before her mind could catch up—
a low, raw growl tore from her throat, wild and animalistic.
She froze, wide-eyed, shocked by the sound she had just made.
That hadn't been human.
Emiliano's face softened immediately, the tension draining from his body as he reached for her slowly, cautiously, like one might approach a wounded animal.
"It's alright, piccola," he said, his voice low and soothing. "You're alright."
Fia swallowed hard, pushing herself up slightly despite the screaming protest of her muscles. Her eyes locked with his, more serious now, more steady.
"What happened to me, Emiliano?" she asked.
He exhaled a long breath, raking a hand through his hair.
"Viktor," he said bitterly, the name like poison on his tongue. "He took you. Took you and Mia from your apartment. He planned to smuggle you into his territory, far away where I couldn't get to you."
Fia clenched the blanket in her fists, her knuckles whitening.
"Somewhere along the way..." Emiliano's voice cracked, and he looked away for a moment, guilt written across every line of his body. "He bit you."
Fia blinked at him, confusion furrowing her brow.
"Bit me?" she repeated dumbly.
"You were... changed," Emiliano said carefully. "You're not a full-blooded Lycan like me, but you're not human anymore either. Viktor made himself your sire."
Silence filled the room.
Heavy. Suffocating.
Fia stared at him, the weight of his words sinking deep into her bones.
Her mouth opened, closed, opened again, her mind scrambling to make sense of it.
"I'm..." she began, then shook her head violently. "I'm not— I'm not like them."
"No," Emiliano said fiercely, leaning forward, his hands hovering over her like he wanted to touch her but didn’t dare. "You're not like them. You're like me."
Tears burned the back of her eyes. "But I saw it. I saw how much pain you were in, how much it hurt you to change. It was like watching you die."
"Fia," Emiliano said, his voice achingly gentle, "your first shift won't be like that."
She stared at him, trembling.
"You're different," he said firmly. "You’re not born Lycan. Your body’s human enough to take it slower. It’ll still hurt, yes—but not like what you saw. Not like what we go through."
Fia's breathing shuddered out of her, and she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to stop the flood of panic rising inside her.
"I don't understand any of this," she whispered.
"You will," Emiliano said, leaning closer until she could feel the warmth of him, the steady thrum of his heartbeat under his skin. "I'll teach you everything. You’re not alone in this, Fia. I swear it."
For a long moment, she didn't speak.
Didn't move.
Just breathed, in and out, in and out, grounding herself in the steady presence of the man she trusted—
Even if the world around her had shattered.
Finally, she looked up at him with eyes still full of fear but also stubbornness—the spark he had always loved about her.
"Okay," she whispered. "Tell me everything."
And he did.
Fia didn’t realize how much her life had changed until the days started slipping by.
The first night after waking up was the worst—
wracked with fever-dreams and nightmares, her body burning, her muscles aching as if they were still trying to finish the transformation Viktor had forced on her.
But Emiliano never left her side.
By the next morning, he started teaching her.
He was patient—so much more patient than Fia could ever have imagined.
Every day he sat with her, walking her through the terrifying new world she had been dragged into.
"First rule," he said, crouched at her bedside as she struggled to sit up without feeling like her skin was on backward, "you don't let humans see what you are."
He paused, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
"I know," he added, "you're technically not human anymore. Hard to get used to being called something else, yeah?"
Fia gave a breathless laugh that ended in a cough, wiping tears from her eyes. "Yeah. No shit."
Emiliano smiled crookedly and continued.
"You're stronger. Faster. Your vision? Thirty times sharper than it used to be. Smell, too. You'll catch scents on the wind humans can’t even imagine. Blood. Fear. Lust."
He said it all so matter-of-factly that it should have scared her.
Instead, a strange excitement stirred somewhere deep in her gut.
"There are rules," he said seriously. "Never shift in front of humans. Never let the rage control you in public. And for the love of God, don't ever let your instincts show when you're around blood."
Fia nodded, absorbing every word even though the idea of losing control again made her stomach twist.
Then there was her wolf.
It wasn't a separate voice in her head—no dramatic internal conversations like the books and movies joked about.
But her wolf was there—
a primal, wordless awareness curled deep inside her chest.
It didn’t speak in sentences.
It whispered in instinct.
Tugging her attention toward danger.
Urging her to bare her teeth when she should have smiled.
Filling her with protectiveness when Emiliano looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the world.
Emiliano explained it over one of their endless training talks.
"Your wolf won't talk to you the way a person would," he said, tossing her an apple to test her reflexes—
(which she caught one-handed without even thinking, surprising herself.)
"It’s instinct," he continued. "You'll just know things sometimes. Like sensing lies. Or feeling when danger's close."
Fia stared at the apple, turning it over in her hands.
"So I'm basically a bloodhound," she muttered.
"A very dangerous, beautiful bloodhound," Emiliano corrected with a grin that made her stomach flip traitorously.
Each day, Fia grew a little stronger.
Able to walk longer without needing to lean on Emiliano’s solid, comforting weight.
Able to eat without feeling like her stomach was about to rebel.
By the end of the week, her senses had sharpened so much it was almost overwhelming.
She could hear Emiliano's heartbeat from across the room.
She could smell the rain in the air before it even started falling outside.
She could tell when Emiliano was lying about being fine—his scent changed ever so slightly, sadness leaking into the edges of his aura.
And the wolf inside her?
It grew more present every day.
Protective. Curious. Proud.
When she caught her reflection in the mirror one night, she barely recognized herself.
There was a wildness in her eyes now—a flash of gold when her emotions ran too high.
And something in her stance, the way she carried herself, that spoke of silent, animalistic strength.
Fia wasn’t just a woman anymore.
She was something more.
And it scared the hell out of her.
But with Emiliano by her side, teaching her how to exist in this new skin, the fear didn’t feel quite so heavy.