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CHAPTER 122
~Dristan's POV~
I was sixteen when I shifted for the first time.
It happened under a blood moon, during winter training in the Highlands, surrounded by cold and silence—and the pressure of legacy.
Everyone had been waiting for it. The heir to the Blackfang Alpha. Son of General Rydor. Expected to be stronger, faster, better.
And I was.
The pain of the shift had been nothing compared to the burning in my chest when it was done.
Soren had risen inside me like a tidal wave—primal, feral, hungry. His presence took over so quickly, so violently, that I lost all sense of time.
The elders called it a "perfect bond" between human and wolf.
But that night, when I returned to my room—bones aching, skin slick with sweat, voice raw from howling—I saw something that changed everything.
I saw my mother.