SERAPHINA’S POV
We began training imdiately.
We chose a northern field beyond the Nightfang grounds—distant enough to prevent psychic backlash from harming others and to hide my silver wolf.
Tall pines surrounded the clearing in a loose ring, their branches whispering whenever the breeze stirred, and the damp earth still carried the scent of morning mist and pine resin.
Across the clearing, Corin stood with his arms folded behind his back, his sharp gaze fixed on with open curiosity. Beside him stood Maris, Brett, Ethan, and Maya. And, of course, Kieran.
Corin had insisted that the next phase of my training required to access my psychic abilities while in wolf form.
According to him, the interaction between my mind and Alina’s instincts would stabilize my power—and potentially make it far more dangerous.
So here we were.
Maris watched with quiet curiosity while Brett lingered just behind her, his usually relaxed deanor replaced by anticipation.
Neither of them had ever seen Alina before.
Kieran, however, looked at with a far more complicated expression, one that held both pride and concern.
“You ready?” he asked quietly.
I nodded and slipped behind a nearby bush to remove my clothes.
The mont my skin touched the cool air, Alina stirred inside . Our connection had grown even stronger since the night beneath the full moon.
‘Shall we show them?’ she asked, her voice flowing through my thoughts like liquid silver.
‘Let’s.’
The transformation ca easily.
Heat surged through my body as bones realigned and muscles reford.
When I opened my eyes again, every scent, sound, and movent in the forest was magnified.
I stepped out from the bushes.
Across the clearing, three very startled faces stared back at .
“Well...” Maris murmured slowly.
“...shit,” Brett finished.
Corin leaned forward, awe lighting his eyes. “Fascinating.”
Alina’s silver fur glead in the sunlight. The faint golden markings along her forehead, mirroring the script now etched at the base of my spine, caught the light in subtle flashes.
“I’ve seen powerful wolves before,” Maris said. “But that...that’s sothing else.”
“That’s my best friend,” Maya added proudly.
Corin circled slowly, studying every detail with the intense focus of a scholar encountering a rare phenonon.
“The energy signature alone is extraordinary,” he murmured.
Kieran said nothing. When our eyes t, he simply mouthed one word.
‘Beautiful.’
I let out a soft huff.
Corin straightened. “Now that we’ve all had our mont of admiration, we should begin.”
At first, the exercises were simple. Corin asked to project small pulses of psychic energy outward—sothing like sonar—to maintain awareness of everything around .
In human form, I had practiced sothing similar, but doing it as Alina felt completely different.
My wolf senses intertwined with my psychic perception until the forest unfolded around like a living map.
The rustle of leaves.
Every heartbeat.
The vibrations traveling through the ground beneath my paws.
“Good,” Corin called. “Now expand the radius.”
I pushed the ntal pulse outward, letting the sensation ripple through the trees like waves across water.
“Better. Now try targeting specific sources.”
Maris flicked a stone into the trees.
“Locate.”
Alina’s ears flicked, and before the echo faded, I spun toward the exact branch the pebble struck.
“Again.”
This ti, Brett moved silently through the outer ring of trees, trying to mask his position.
But he underestimated my instincts. The mont his weight shifted on the forest floor, the vibration carried through the ground into my paws while his heartbeat brushed against my awareness.
I turned toward him imdiately.
Brett froze mid-step. “Okay,” he admitted, raising his hands. “That’s mildly unsettling.”
Corin nodded approvingly.
“Your wolf senses are compensating for the lack of psychic intrusions. That ans your mind and body are integrating properly.”
He glanced at the others. “Let’s complicate things.”
Maya moved silently through the clearing, brushing branches and tossing small stones to create overlapping sounds.
At the sa ti, Ethan walked in the opposite direction, his heavier Alpha footsteps masking the smaller disturbances.
Suddenly, the forest erupted with noise.
Branches snapping.
Leaves crunching.
Stones striking bark.
“Separate the signals,” Corin instructed.
I let Alina guide . Her instincts sorted the information until the chaos separated into patterns—Maya’s light steps, Ethan’s heavier stride, Brett’s earlier movent.
One by one, the signals aligned.
Corin nodded slowly. “Exactly.”
For the next hour, the exercises grew steadily more difficult.
Corin layered illusions over the clearing, distorting scents and shifting shadows so that I had to rely on psychic awareness rather than physical senses.
At the sa ti, Maris attacked with sudden feints and distractions, forcing to distinguish real threats from psychic illusions.
Gradually, the rhythm of the training beca natural. Alina’s instincts sharpened my reactions while my mind guided the psychic energy flowing through us.
“You’re progressing faster than expected,” Corin admitted proudly.
But the real challenge ca when he introduced stress training.
“The greatest danger for psychics,” he said, pacing, “is simultaneous intrusion.”
He stepped forward alone. “We’re going to simulate that.”
The first round was simple. A single psychic pressure probed my defenses, and Alina and I reinforced the barrier until it collapsed.
The second round ca imdiately afterward.
Two psychic signatures attacked at once, one striking directly while the other circled patiently around my defenses.
Corin was splitting his focus.
Then the pressure increased.
Illusions twisted the forest while psychic force pressed against my mind from multiple directions. Different rhythms. Different patterns. Too many signals at once.
My concentration began to slip.
“Focus!” Corin called.
I tried.
But the psychic storm intensified until the clearing fractured into shifting fragnts of sound and movent.
Just when the pressure threatened to overwhelm —
“Enough.”
Kieran’s voice cut through the clearing with the unmistakable authority of an Alpha command.
The psychic pressure vanished instantly.
The forest snapped back into place.
I stood there panting as the tension slowly drained from Alina’s body.
Kieran crossed the clearing and rested a steady hand against my neck.
“Easy,” he murmured.
I nudged him in mild protest, and he raised an eyebrow.
“You think I stopped that too soon.”
‘Maybe a little,’ Alina admitted.
Corin watched thoughtfully. “She was not in actual danger.”
“That’s not why I stopped it,” Kieran replied.
“Then why?” Maris asked.
Kieran gestured toward .
“You’re training her like a traditional psychic.”
Corin frowned slightly. “That would seem logical.”
“Maybe, but Sera isn’t just a psychic—she’s a silver wolf. You may be an expert in psychics, but I’ve studied everything there is to know about silver wolves.”
Kieran explained that silver wolves did more than fight. Their presence influenced those around them, subtly aligning instincts and awareness like moonlight guiding the night.
“You’re teaching her to defend herself,” he said. “But you’re ignoring the part of her power ant to work with others.”
Corin’s eyes sharpened with interest. “Then we should test that theory.”
He turned to . “Instead of holding your power inward, try directing so of it outward.”
I huffed in reply.
“Everyone, shift,” Corin commanded.
The clearing erupted into movent. Everyone moved into the bushes, but Kieran stayed with .
He took off his clothes and discarded them nearby before he shifted.
The transformation was swift and fluid, his tall fra collapsing and expanding into the massive golden wolf I knew so well.
Ashar shook out his fur as obsidian eyes locked onto mine.
A pang ran through . I wished we could communicate through the mind-link, but the severed bond and my decision not to let Kieran mark prevented it.
Ethan’s broad gray wolf, Logan, erged from the bushes first.
Maris, Brett, and Maya erged monts later, forming a loose circle around us while Corin remained human. His rman form wouldn’t be any help here.
‘You holding up?’ Ethan’s voice brushed my mind.
’I’m fine.’
“Again,” Corin said.
The psychic pressure returned.
But this ti I didn’t contain it.
Instead, I let the power flow outward like moonlight spreading across the clearing.
The effect was imdiate.
Ashar’s stance sharpened.
Logan’s focus intensified.
Even the others moved with heightened awareness as my psychic field brushed against them.
It wasn’t control.
It was amplification.
Corin’s illusions returned.
But now I wasn’t facing them alone.
Ashar tore through one illusion to my left. Logan anchored my awareness through the mind-link while Maris and Brett forced the shifting psychic signatures to adjust their rhythm. Maya slipped between the trees, disrupting Corin’s attacks.
The clearing erupted into chaos again.
But this ti it was organized chaos.
‘Left,’ Logan warned through the link.
I turned instantly.
Ashar lunged, tearing through another illusion.
Corin increased the pressure again—three psychic signatures, then four, then five—but the force dispersed across the field connecting us.
Alina moved among the others with growing confidence, her silver form flowing like moonlit water.
Among them, two wolves stood out imdiately.
Logan and Ashar.
Logan synchronized perfectly with my awareness through the mind-link, while Ashar seed to anticipate my movents through instinct alone.
Together, they moved like extensions of my will.
Finally, Corin lowered his hand and lifted the illusion.
A smile spread across his face.
“Well,” he murmured. “That changes everything.”
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