Lillian wanted to strip her skin off.

She was hot, itchy and queasy from all the different scents. It was like nothing she had ever experienced. But she had given birth to twins, so this was bearable.

Until the growling at the back of her mind started.

"What do you mean?" Elle asked, sitting with her sword on her lap.

"It's your wolf," Noah said, his eyes smiling. Lillian couldn't help but smile back.

A wolf. She would have a wolf.

She must be dreaming.

Lillian shook her head. The presence was growing stronger by the second. She didn't know what to expect. But as the day waned on, the wolf in her mind started taking shape and growing more present.

Lillian had thought it would be like sharing herself with another entity. But it wasn't.

It was as if a part of her, one that had always been there but which was buried deep within under all the layers of her human consciousness, burst into the surface and came to life.

It was still murky, its presence dreamlike and vague, but it grew stronger with every breath she took.

And then the heat began.

She had thought she couldn't grow any warmer. She was wrong. A furnace flared to life in her chest, spreading through her veins and setting her skin on fire.

Lillian gasped, tugging violently on her top. "It's hot."

Her eyes watered and her mouth dried. The edges of her vision blurred. A haze took over her mind. Noah helped her take off her top, and it barely registered in her fog riddled brain. She didn't care about modesty. All she wanted to do was strip away the layers of clothing abrading her sensitive skin.

Colors blended in her eyes, sounds muddled. She blinked, and her mind blanked.

Cool hands framed her face.

The sensation was a welcome reprieve from the sticky hotness. Lillian focused on it. The earthy scent, at once familiar and new, filtered through her nose to her brain. She opened her eyes. The light had changed. Impossible. How long had she been under? It didn't feel that long. Was she dreaming?

A persistent whisper that got louder. A familiar voice in which she could now hear layers she hadn't before.

"Lillian?"

The world came into focus, and Noah's beautiful face filled her eyes. Every single line, every single hair, every single lash on his face, the three scars along his cheek, every detail was suddenly crystal clear. Her heart hurt from how beautiful he was.

Touching her fingers to his cheeks, Lillian breathed out, her surroundings coming back in a rush of deafening sounds and clogging scents. She winced.

"Focus on me," Noah said. "Just me."

Breathing through her mouth, Lillian did as told. She was laying on her back on the blanket, every fiber of it soft and pressing on her bare back. The sky was the color of dusk, the clouds floating overhead shaped like waves.

"I see everything," she whispered, her eyes on Noah. Focusing on him helped. The heat became bearable. The growling presence in her mind at peace with Noah drowning all her senses.

A fresh breeze blew. It felt heavenly against her hot skin. Noah pressed his lips gently to hers. And her eyelids lowered in blissful oblivion.

There was no peace the next time she woke.

Pain.

Hot pain laced her ribs and limbs, bone deep. Growling.

"Shh, it's okay."

Lillian opened her eyes to darkness. Stars dotted the sky, yet she could see very clearly. Any other time, she would've enjoyed the spectacular view of the night sky. But she couldn't. She was painfully aware of every person in the backyard. Elle and Arthur stood by the house's shattered wall. Benjamin and Harvey nearby. Amanda and Noah were hovering over her. Someone squeezed her arm, but when she looked, no one was touching her.

The beast inside her pushed forward.

Crack.

Lillian screamed, staring at her arm through tear-blurred eyes. It stuck out at an unnatural angle.

"Oh, God," Amanda whispered. Lillian looked away from the gory sight of her arm and focused on Noah, her breathing loud. He looked like his own arm broke, his face painted with pain and frustration.

Pressure on her legs. The beast in her head reared its head and growled, trying to take over her brain. Her control over her body threatened to slip away from her. Lillian panicked and pushed the wolf back. She didn't want to lose herself. Then her legs broke.

The pain was unbearable. Everything around her melted again. Why did it hurt so much?

"Lillian!" Noah's voice broke through the haze of suffering. He took her face in his hands, his amber eyes glowing in the dark. "Let it take over."

Lillian gasped. She mumbled something, but it was a gargled sound even she couldn't understand. The growling increased, and Lillian felt it in her chest. Oh God. She was the one growling. She couldn't seem to stop.

"Don't fight your wolf. Work with it," Noah said. "You need to let her shift."

It took a moment for her brain to decipher his words. But she didn't know how to do what he said. Lillian wished she knew how. She opened her mouth to ask and felt her gums swell, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth.

Her chest strained, ribs threatening to explode outward. Someone was stretching her skin until it hurt. Black bled into her vision.

"You got this, baby," Noah's voice pierced her ears. "Let it take over."

The beast took shape in her mind's eyes. A wolf with glowing amber eyes, growling and snapping against invisible chains.

Let it take over. How? How?!

Lillian focused on the wolf, wondering how to let her shift already?!

Her. It was a she. Lillian shut her eyes tightly. She reached over, acting on instinct, and touched the wolf gingerly. An energy so wild and blazing it took her breath away. So strong and proud. Lillian's emotions flowed forward, all her insecurities and past memories, all her fears and hopes.

The wolf cocked her head under the flow of emotions and memories. Embracing them with an ease Lillian envied. And the blurry shades of the wolf sparkled with color.

The wolf's energy rushed forward, embedding itself in Lillian's psyche. Lillian opened her heart, embracing the strength of the wolf, the powerful magic that let it be and the range of its instincts, from her violent urges to her protective instincts. Lillian let it take root in her heart.

It all took a second, but it was like a switch flipped on.

Blinding pain rolled over Lillian's entire body as one. Cracks in quick succession and a thousand needles piercing her skin. Then her sight returned.

Her body was no longer her own. Or no longer hers alone. She was there, she felt the air brush her body and she saw with impossible clarity the eyes of the people around her, she heard the rustle of trees and the breeze whistling through them, she smelled the immortals around her and her mouth watered at one particular scent. She felt all those things. But she felt them from the back of her mind, as if she was sitting in the passenger seat of a car driven by her wolf.

Her wolf was laying on her side. Noah filled her senses, his scent and his heartbeat and his beautiful scarred face. A whine slipped past the wolf's throat. It seemed as if the entire night had been spent in paralyzing pain and breaking bones. She was so tired. They were both so tired.

"Lillian?" Noah's face broke into a breathtaking smile that pushed exhaustion at the back of Lillian's mind. She wanted to speak, but all she managed was a gargled sound that scared her. Her eyes, those of her wolf, widened and she raised her head.

"Why don't you try to get up?"

Noah helped her up on all fours, supporting her body with his. Her legs shook. Lillian was confused. She didn't know how to move in the wolf's body. Her wolf whined.

"Let her take over," Noah mumbled. "She knows what to do."

It took her a while. But Lillian pulled back enough. Her wolf wanted to push to the surface, eager to take over, but Lillian still held the leash. She didn't know what the wolf might do. What if she hurt someone?

Giving her beast enough leeway to take over the body, Lillian felt herself grow more confident in it as the wolf shifted on her feet, turning around herself. She flicked her tail and looked at it. It was a fluffy white at the tip that darkened to light brown on her body. She raised a paw and looked at it. White. Were all her paws white? Yep, they were. She raised her head and met Noah's glowing eyes. Her head reached his stomach, and she sniffed him. He smelled really good. She gave his stomach a lick and Lillian pulled her back before she embarrassed them both.

Noah chuckled, rubbing her head.

"Oh, she's adorable!"

Lillian turned to look at Amanda. Her wolf was shorter than Lillian's human body, and it was odd seeing the world from a lower height. Her wolf yipped and walked closer to Amanda, taking cautious steps until she was more confident in her own feet. She nudged Amanda's hand with a sound close to a whine.

"You're so pretty," Amanda mumbled, scratching behind her wolf's ears. Ah, that felt nice. Now Lillian understood why the twins and Noah liked it.

Lillian looked at the others, standing up the porch.

"Looking cute even in wolf form, Lillian," Elle said with a grin. "Noah will have to watch his back."

Lillian grinned, the motion slipping to her wolf. It was still weird. She didn't yet know how to keep her wolf from doing things. But that would have to wait. She'd learn.

Her wolf cocked her head at Arthur, the darkness in him on a flimsy leash. He smelled... odd. Not like Amanda and Harvey. It almost felt as if he smelled like nothing. But that wasn't true. Her wolf sneezed two times. She shook her head and looked away from the enigmatic vampire lord to Benjamin.

She cocked her head. Benjamin raised a brow, but he didn't look away. For some reason, the thought made her wolf stand taller and pull her lips back in a snarl that echoed around the woods. Startled, Lillian pulled her wolf back. It took a few seconds, and for a moment Lillian thought she'd lost control over her body, but eventually the wolf acquiesced and Lillian turned them towards Noah. He was watching them with a thoughtful look. He shook his head and crouched in front of her.

"How about a run?"

Lillian grinned, and Noah shifted in a shower of torn clothes, as if he couldn't wait to be in his fur.

Noah's wolf was driving him insane. The past several hours had been the longest in his life. He'd aged two centuries in mere hours.

Seeing Lillian's pain almost drove him to the brink of losing control of his wolf once more, only the knowledge that she needed him sane and reasonable held his wolf back from taking over.

But then her shift flowed like water at the last minute, and his wolf and him stood at awe at the wolf laying there. Brown fur similar to the twins. But where the twins' fur was a uniform color all over, Lillian's ears, legs and tail were all a snow white that shimmered under the glow of the moon and the stars.

With eyes that were the blazing amber of werewolves, Lillian yipped at him. Noah's wolf cocked his head to the side and yipped back, approaching his mate with cautious paws.

She closed the distance and bumped her head into his neck. A flash of teeth on his fur. Noah pulled back, surprised. Lillian grinned and yipped, her tail wagging. Noah growled and nipped at her nose. She wrinkled her muzzle and sneezed twice. She was still getting used to her new senses. Noah licked her face, then her neck. Surprisingly, Lillian stayed put.

"They're so cute," Amanda told Harvey, who'd come to stand beside her. The wet crumpled sheets and the water bottles on the ground were the only indication of what Lillian had been through earlier.

"Damn it. Now I want a mate," Benjamin said out loud.

"Grow up a little first," Harvey said with a grin. "Otherwise you'll end up scaring her away."

Benjamin cursed.

Lillian had enough of Noah's licking and stepped out of his reach. With a mischief he often saw in her gaze, she looked over her shoulder at him, turned and ran away toward the trees. Noah ran after her, enjoying the chase.

Even in his wildest dreams, he'd never thought he'd have this. Not as the boy he'd been while his father grieved his mother with an insanity that broke their pack, and not as the barely grown man he'd been after freeing his father from his life and his pack from the broken shards of their past.

Lillian darted like an arrow, quick on her paws, through the trees. Her control over her body was spectacular already. Moonlight sneaked through the trees and played on her fur with silver digits. Noah gave her room to precede him, but when she approached the vampire sentries Arthur had placed around them, he herded her away from them. She still needed to know how to use her nose.

She needed to learn a great many things, things a wolf would grow up learning over years. But she had time. They both did, now that she was no longer human.

He was so relieved at the thought she could no longer die from a deep wound, that her broken bones wouldn't take weeks to heal, that she would no longer be as vulnerable.

Right then, she tripped over a tree branch peeking from the forest floor. Attuned to her, Noah broke her fall with his body, and they rolled to the ground together.

Breathing heavily, her side pressed to his, she closed her eyes and laid her head on her paws. Her muscles shook with exhaustion. Noah whined and nudged her head. She cracked one eye open and yawned, revealing sharp teeth. Then she rubbed her head against his neck and sighed, closing her eyes.

It only took seconds for her breathing to even out and her body to relax. She was asleep. Noah laid his neck on top of hers and breathed out. It seemed as though his own body had been beaten to a pulp. He was so tired it was a wonder he even had the strength to think anymore.

He reached through the link to his brother. He knew Lillian had been turned, but he didn't contact Noah all afternoon, knowing he needed to focus on Lillian.

"She shifted," Noah linked.

He felt his brother's relief and elation through the link. "Well, the pack will be in for a surprise."

They would. Noah raised his head and looked at the female wolf pressed to him. She was so strong, now that he was calm enough to feel it. Earlier, her wolf had been annoyed by Benjamin's eye contact. And it wasn't just empty puffing, either, her dominance was a close match to Benjamin's.

She would make things very interesting.

Noah felt the shift moments before it rolled over Lillian. It was smooth and quick. A blink, and she was sleeping naked against him, snoring softly. Noah shifted and picked her up, groaning at the feel of her silky skin against his.

"Can you tell Amanda to get us a blanket, please?" Noah linked Benjamin.

A pause, then Benjamin said, "you're going to have your hands full with her."

Noah chuckled. "Yes, I will." And he wouldn't have it any other way.

Amanda met him halfway to the house, a pair of shorts and a blanket in her hands. Noah gave her Lillian. With her vampire strength, she could hold her weight easily while he slipped on his shorts. He bundled Lillian up in a blanket and took her again. She didn't even stir.

"Why don't you put her to sleep and come out," Amanda said once they were in the backyard. No one had left.

Noah put Lillian on the couch, tucking the blanket snuggly around her. He didn't want to have her out of sight so soon after the attack. Brushing hair away from her face, he kissed her forehead and stepped out to the backyard.

Harvey, Arthur, Elle and Amanda all sat on the grass, Benjamin on the steps of the porch.

Noah plopped down next to Benjamin with a weary sigh. The day had been a roller coaster. He didn't even know how he survived.

His senses attuned to Lillian's breathing, he rested his elbows on his knees and looked at Arthur. "What happened to the rogues?"

"Two of them survived," Arthur replied. "I had Mariano fly in, he looked through their heads."

"Could he even make sense of their thoughts and memories?" Noah asked. Rogues were rogues for a reason, their minds were lost to a crazed animal.

"Making sense of their thought pattern was difficult," Arthur said, reaching over to tug on a blond lock of Elle's hair. "But Mariano said their minds weren't too far gone. He'd met rogues before and looked into their heads, and these were nothing like them. It was as if they'd just begun losing sense of the world. A few days and they would lose all sense and reason."

"So what did he find?" Benjamin asked.

"A hex." Arthur smiled. "Which points to one person."

"Blazius," Noah breathed out.

"The bastard who wanted the unmated female wolves?" Benjamin let out a colorful curse. "What does he want with Lillian?"

Elle met Noah's eyes. "I don't know if you remember, probably not, since you were half dead. I first met Blazius back when you and I were kidnapped, Rami introduced him and said something about some experiments Blazius was running, experiments that had to do with my mother."

"What experiments?" Benjamin asked.

"We don't know yet," Harvey replied. "Elle's mother left a diary, but it's taking us a while to look through it. However, there were mentions of experimentations on humans, theories that allude at humans' utility in circumventing some of the weaknesses immortals have."

"Like the fae's vulnerability to vampire's venom, among other things," Elle added.

"You're saying he wants to use Lillian as part of some experiment?" Benjamin asked.

"Or," Noah said, his mind working. "Lillian is already part of the experiment."

That would explain all the odd things she could do that no human could, not the least of which was the fact that she carried immortal pups.

"It also explains how easy the shift took over," Arthur said. "It was like her body was willing to accept it. I have been present in countless human shifting attempts. Lillian's shift was by far the smoothest."

Noah didn't want to know what he would have done if the shift had taken longer.

Amanda gave a firm nod. "Elle's mother left too many threads for us to follow. We don't know what Blazius is working on. We don't even know if the experiments Elle's mother left in her diary were all she'd worked on."

"We need access to her blood," Arthur said, making Noah sit straight.

Elle shot her mate a scowl. "What his lordship means is that in order to figure out exactly what Blazius wants with her, and if she is, indeed, part of some experiments, analyzing her blood might be useful. If she agrees, of course."

"We also need to take a look at her past," Harvey said. "Anything that can help."

Noah rubbed his hands down his face. "I'll talk to her when she wakes up. If she's up to it. What about your mother's diary? How far along are you?"

"We're looking through it. But you know it's written in the First Tongue. So only Arthur or I can actually read through it."

"The First tongue burns an amount of magic as you read it," Arthur added. "It takes some time. But we also haven't been prioritizing it the past few months. We didn't know it might come to be of use in such a way."

"Yeah." Elle sighed. "I guess we'll have to pick it up and do some reading again."

"Alright." Amanda clapped her hands once. "Here's what we'll do. Lillian will have to adjust to being a wolf, to do that she must be in her pack. I suggest we bring down all we have of Elle's mother down to your pack, Noah, and sift through it there. Also, the Seer must meet Lillian. If the Seer is close to the pack, it might make it easier for her to pick up on things related to you guys. Also, you guys remember what she said. I have a feeling that the wolf she spoke of might be you, Noah, and the woman Lillian. Though what she means by unborn remains a mystery."

"Yes, your highness," Harvey said with a teasing smile.

"I'll show you 'your highness' later," Amanda said with a devilish smile. Harvey's ears actually turned red.

"I guess you'll have your hands full," Benjamin told Noah. Noah nodded. It was about to get hectic.

--- ---- ---

Hey guys!

A bit of a shirt chapter, but I hope you liked it. 

Don't forget to vote and comment, I appreciate it.

Much love <3 <3 <3

M.B.