My Hockey Alpha
#Chapter 262: Shifting

Nina

I felt myself begin to shift just as the rogue caught up with me.

The feeling was overwhelming. It felt as though the world was spinning around me, and I was just holding onto the earth for dear life. I dug my fingers down into the frozen soil and groaned as it felt as though my bones were growing and changing inside of me, and felt a bit of vomit bubble up and pour out of my throat and onto the ground.

When I looked up, I saw the rogue leader's glowing yellow eyes staring at me from the shadows. A large paw stepped out into the moonlight, followed by a body and a snarling, grimacing face. “Cora, if you're going to shift, it needs to be right now,” I thought to my wolf, pleading with her to hurry up with the process. Even if I couldn't fight well yet in my wolf form, I could at least run once it was over. I just hoped that I would be able to outrun the rogue leader.

“I'm trying,” she responded. “But I don’t have that much control over it.”

I groaned again, partially from pain and partially from terror. I tried to push myself up onto my hands and knees, but as I began to crawl away I felt my limbs shaking beneath me. I fell to the ground and began to drag myself into the underbrush on my belly, as though doing so would even help me to stand a chance at getting away from the rogue leader.

Of course, the rogue leader was now stalking closer to me. He was toying with me as if I was his prey. I pictured him behind me grinning widely as he came closer and closer, and at the same time his stinking scent filled my senses and made me gag.

Suddenly, I heard his voice echo in my mind.

"What are you running from, girl?” he asked.

Another groan escaped my lips. His menacing voice was so loud that it made my head throb and my ears ring, but I kept trying to drag myself forward nonetheless in a last ditch attempt to get away.

“You're not going to get very far.”

“F-Fuck you,” I moaned, gritting my teeth against the pain of my bones and my skull vibrating under my flesh. Every fiber of my body was screaming out at this sudden change in my biology. Was it always this painful? When I had seen Enzo and the others shift before, it seemed so quick and easy. Nothing could have prepared me for this amount of pain; surely it was just like this the first time and it wouldn't hurt like this afterwards.

The rogue leader came closer. I heard his mocking laughter echo in my skull

“This is quite the spectacle. And what perfect timing, too. If I didn't have a mission to complete, I would like to wait to see your pain as you shift for the first time. You know, some don't even live through the first shifting process. It's quite taxing on the body.”

"What do you want?” I snarled. “What is the Luna hiring you to do? You were a human once, just like all of the other rogues; why would you fight for someone who would murder your entire family?” Once again, the rogue leader's laughter echoed violently in my skull. He came closer. I felt a large, heavy paw press into my back, pinning me to the forest floor. No matter how hard I struggled, it was no use. And no matter how much I begged Cora to shift already and get it over with, there was nothing that she could do. The process had already begun, and there was no stopping it or changing its course

“I was never human,” the rogue said. He removed his paw from my back, and while I was catching my breath and still writhing in agony from the pain of shifting for the first time, he dug his paw under me and flipped me over onto my back. Now, for the first time, I looked at him face to face. There was something different about him compared to other rogues; something harder, more solid. He didn't look like any rogue or werewolf I had ever seen.

“What were you, then?” I whispered.

The rogue leader pressed his paw into my chest. As he did, he stepped on the vials of antidote in my jacket. The glass broke beneath his weight, causing blue liquid to seep through my clothes. If it weren't for the thick sweater beneath my jacket, the broken glass would have pierced through my skin.

When he saw the blue liquid seep out, he laughed again. His teeth were bared in an animalistic, yet strangely human, way. He was mocking me, even in his wolf form. Did he even have a human form? “That antidote won't work, but it was a good try,” he said. “The Luna made me herself. Genetically engineered me. Before me, the way I am now, there was nothing.”

“That's impossible,” I said, shaking my head.

The rogue leader didn't answer. He didn't have time to answer, because at that exact moment, Enzo leaped out of the forest and slammed into the rogue’s side. They tangled together in a ball of teeth and growls, and began to grapple on the forest floor.

As they fought, I let out another whimper of pain and rolled back onto my belly. The shards of glass from the broken vials poked through my sweater and scratched my skin, but I didnt care. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees and choked again on my own tongue as my throat began to morph inside of me.

Enzo and the rogue battled fiercely just a few feet away from me.

“Hurry, Cora,” I thought.

And then... I shifted for the first time.

I felt myself being overcome with a flash of blinding light. My ears filled with the sound of ringing, drowning out the sounds of Enzo and the rogue fighting nearby. My body became engulfed in searing pain, but at the same time, I felt nothing. I felt weightless, as though I never even existed at all; as though this human version of me was nothing but a temporary state of being.

Then, suddenly, all of it ended. The light, the sound, the pain, the nothingness. There I was, just lying on the forest floor... but I wasn't me anymore.

I stood, not on two legs, but on four. When I looked down, all I saw was bright red fur. The forest became bright, as though I was wearing night vision goggles, and all of my senses became enhanced at once; smell, sound, hearing, even taste and touch.

I realized now that the power that I had felt before, whenever Cora gave me a bit of her strength, was just a fraction of the true power that I had now. I felt more powerful than ever. I felt unstoppable.

And as Enzo and the rogue leader grappled on the forest floor beside me in a tangle of razor sharp claws and long, pointed teeth, I couldn't help but bare my own teeth.

My mate was in trouble, and I needed to protect him.

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