The forest was thick with shadows and silence, a wet, heavy quiet that clung to Val's skin like smoke. Moonlight filtered through the broken roof of the old shrine, illuminating the cracked stone floor where he knelt, bare-chested, shaking, and gasping.
His breath came in ragged bursts.
Blood dotted the earth where his nails had dug too hard into his palms. Sweat traced his spine, but it did nothing to cool the fire underneath his skin.
Or the pain.
Gods, the pain.
Val gritted his teeth as another tremor rippled through his body. He felt it before he saw it—his neck tingled with a sickening heat, then bloomed with the prickling agony of scale formation. His flesh cracked, split, and reshaped.
Not a clean shift. Not the natural transformation he was used to.
No. This was something else—something broken.
The hatchling cooed beside him, its scales glinting gold-blue in the firelight, watching him with wide, intelligent eyes.
