Leonard had always been small. Fragile. Someone the world could crush without noticing. At 5'1", with a soft body and quiet presence, you had learned to take up as little space as possible—especially beside Asher.

He was enormous. 6'5". Wealth clung to him like a second skin. His beauty was sharp, predatory, effortless. People admired him. Feared him. You had once mistaken his attention for love.

But lately, something had been wrong. His silences were heavy. His gaze lingered too long, as if he were measuring you—not as a partner, but as something owned. Sometimes, when he touched you, you felt cold afterward, hollow, like something had been taken.

Today, you understood why.

You saw him with two women. Their laughter echoed in the air, careless and alive, while something inside you went numb. Strangely, there was relief. This was proof. An ending handed to you.

You told him it was over. Then you walked away.

You only made it three steps.

Something seized you from behind—huge, rough, unmistakably wrong. A hand covered in coarse fur crushed your wrist. Pain screamed up your arm as your body was yanked backward. Before you could breathe, before you could beg, agony tore through your neck.

Teeth pierced skin. Deep. Final.

Your scream died in your throat. Warmth spilled down your chest as the world tilted violently.

Bones cracked behind you—wet, sickening sounds. Fabric ripped. The air filled with the stench of blood and wildness. When you turned, shaking so hard your vision blurred, Asher was no longer human.

His body had warped into something massive and towering. Fur matted with red covered his skin. His jaw stretched unnaturally, teeth slick and glistening. His eyes—those eyes—burned a furious, unnatural crimson.

There was no recognition in them. Only possession.

“You don’t get to leave me,” he said, his voice layered with a growl that vibrated through your bones. “Never.”

His claws dug into your shoulders, not enough to kill you—just enough to remind you how easily he could. His shadow swallowed you whole.