The Twelfth Moon || ✔️

10. The Transformation

I could barely explain how it felt. I had never experienced anything like it—and it took me only the briefest moment of pain to realize I never wanted to feel anything remotely close to this, ever again.

My bones were burning, aching to twist themselves into something new. Every part of my being was on fire. My entire body was screaming at me, begging me to release the wolf inside, to rid myself of this cage of flesh and blood. My skin was throbbing with anticipation, wanting to see this new version of me. 

But nothing happened, only the pain was there and kept me company on this cold night. My own body was fighting against itself, as one part was begging me to change, to transform, and the other part was... I didn't know. It just was not. What was happening?

I fell to the ground, my hands grasping at my neck, the place where the Alpha had bitten me. Why did he bite me there? Was that why this was taking so long? Did it take this long for the others, too? No, it probably didn't.

The pain refused to back down. But my own body betrayed me and denied me the release.

I could vaguely register someone screaming, maybe it was me. But I couldn't really hear anything of it. My heart was pounding too loudly in my ears.

My hands felt wet. I didn't know what it was. Blood, sweat? Rain perhaps. Had it been raining? I couldn't remember. All I could feel, see, hear, taste or smell was the pain. The pain that would not go away or even diminish just a little bit. I could feel some of my bones cracking, preparing for a different anatomy, but then just popping back to their human form. Why wasn't I transforming?

In the background, I could hear the screams again. I was pretty sure by now they were mine. 

I also heard someone growling. One of the Alphas. Beckett? Oh, by the Moons. Beckett. I didn't have the strength to look up at the Alphas, to locate the source of the growling. And I couldn't even dwell on Beckett for longer than the briefest moment—if even that, before a new flash of pain waved over me. 

My back curled up as I moved to my hands and feet, trying to prepare myself for my first transformation, but once again, my body blocked me. I could taste something salty in my mouth, and I knew I was crying. I tasted my own tears, but not for long before the pain overtook me again. What was wrong with me?

I didn't know how long I knelt there, my entire body in flames, but slowly the pain ebbed away. As soon as my body stopped trying to transform, I slumped to the ground. I was such a failure. Even my own body had given up on me, had quit trying to transform. 

I had stopped screaming and crying, perhaps for a while already. My mind was too absorbed with the failure that had just occurred and I wasn't able to take in anything of what was happening around me. The growling had stopped too. Had the growling maybe been me as well? I didn't know and thinking about it asked too much of me.

Two of the blue-robed wolves came to me and slowly lifted me up. They supported me as I could barely walk, and carried me out of the clearing. The priests led me inside the castle and hoisted me up the stairs. I didn't count the floors we passed, maybe two? But we left the stairs at some point and marched in a hall, filled with doors on either side. They opened one of them and guided me in the room. Before me stood a bed, perhaps the biggest bed I had ever seen. It was filled with pillows and it looked so soft. And as the priests laid me down in the bed, it was even mushier than it looked.

"Death Moon had alerted us in advance not to prepare any other rooms for them tonight. So you will rest in your Alpha's chamber for now instead of your own, blessed Wolf. Rest well and may our Moons bless you," one of them said before the other one pulled the blanket over me, and then they both left the room and I was completely alone.