The blood wasn’t human.

I could taste the difference — thick, coppery, a wild sort of purity that clung to my teeth. It still steamed in the cold air, pooling in the cracks between broken bricks. The wolf hadn’t died easy.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, breath quick, body thrumming. Not from the fight. From what came after.

It always hit like this — heat behind the eyes, skin too tight, like the world had slowed just to let me feel everything. Sound, color, scent. The heartbeat of the city thudding through concrete.

I laughed once — soft, sharp — and leaned back against the wall, neck bare to the sky. The stars were smeared behind cloud, but I stared anyway.

Somewhere out there, something had shifted. I felt it.

I wasn’t the only predator awake tonight.