The moment the sedan door slammed shut behind him, snuffing out any flickering light that Selena had unwittingly brought into his profound, dark abyss, all peace was robbed from him. Damien shuddered violently in agonizing recollections. The beast denied her mate screamed against its cage of flesh and bone in great fury. Leaving her had been the hardest thing he had ever done; to him, it was a ripping away from a part of his own soul he had never known existed. Every wolfish instinct had screamed at him to turn, to enter her apartment, to break down her door and stand guard over her, to engulf himself in her scent, and ride out the storm. But the human part of him, the lone flickering remnant of control called Damien Voss, knew that he was the greatest danger to her. "Where to, sir?" The voice of the driver, Elias, was steady, but his eyes were filled with concern in the rearview mirror. To drive upstate to the estate was two hours. It was going to be too long. He felt the change now, like some biological horror speeding away after an uncontrollable train. It was an ache deep in his bones and through an unearthly thrum. "The Red Hook facility," he bit, teeth clenched against a torrent of excruciating pain pulsating down his spine. "The old warehouse. Now."
Elias did not question the great order. He just nodded and tightened his hands around the steering wheel while expertly maneuvering late-night traffic, pushing the powerful car to its very limit. The warehouse was an unused asset from days gone by from an acquisition of long ago; a cavernous windowless structure of reinforced concrete and steel downtrodden by the waterside. A tomb. Perfect. With every block they passed, the pain increased. His tailored suit now encased him like a straitjacket, muscles that were quite suddenly exploding. The scents from the city—of hot garbage, exhaust fumes, oozing street food—became a horrible onslaught on his aware senses. He could smell Elias's lurking fear, the menthol on his breath, a hint of soap on his skin. He ripped his collar apart, gasping for air, getting his breaths in ragged, painful gasps. A searing liquid run in his veins; molten lava felt so tender to his blood. The image of Selena's face came to his mind, with wide, panic-stricken eyes as she reached out stabilize him. Her touch had become an anchor. With the newfound pain, he was just afloat in her ocean; the anchor was gone.
"Stop here," he snarled when they reached the rusty chain-link fence that marked the property. "Get out. Go home. Do not return until dawn, is that understood?" Elias stopped the car, drifting in a little paler than he used to be before the illumination of the dashboard. "Sir, are you—" "GO!" It was not a command; it was a roar ripped from his throat, deeper, more guttural than any human voice had ever been. Fear finally took flight. Elias scrambled from the car, disappearing into the night without a backward glance. Damien was alone. He stumbled out of the sedan, shook, and seconds away from collapsing. The full moon, wide and impossibly white, broke free from behind cloud cover and its light slammed onto him like a physical blow. This was the trigger. The change was well on its way now. A scream emanated from him, a scream of pure, unadulterated agony, as his spine arched backward and his vertebrae cracked and rejoined with an uncanny loudness, sickening even to his own listening. His shoulders widened, ripping through the expensive fabric of his suit coat, his muscles bunching and swelling with unnatural growth. He fell to his knees on the cracked asphalt, fingers clawing desperately into the ground as his nails thickened and yellowed, splitting as sharp and black claws burst forth from the gory nailbeds. As a transcendent being of suffering, the pain was a white-hot novae blazing in the firmament of thought. The human mind that prevailed presently over the consciousness of Damien Voss struggled to hold on, and it crumbled under systematic destruction. His jaw stretched onward with the elongation of his teeth falling out over it in lieu of larger, sharper fangs that burst out of his gums in sickening levels of blood and agony. Coarse black hair sprouted from his skin to envelope his arms, chest, and face like a tide—immense transformation for a worthy monstrosity. His senses exploded. The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of confusion. A heartbeat of a rat went frantic, one block away. The salt of the East River filled his nostrils. Every detail of the moon-drenched dark opened brightly before him. Between it all, his mind broke. Selena. Lock your door. Pain. Need her. Hunt. His designer suit was torn to shreds, nothing but an insult to the memory of his previous self. He found himself on all fours, his body no longer human but a flicker of a distorted half-formed monstrosity. With one last, heart-wrenching howl, reverberating through the desolate waterfront, the final flickers of man yielded. The beast rose. It stood more than a man in height—a great brute with muscle corded beneath midnight fur, its amber eyes ablaze with ancient predatory intelligence. It tossed its ponderous head back and forth, testing the power in its new frame. The pain dissolved, replaced now by that thrilling sense of power and freedom. City, its turf. Night, its dominion. The beast tasted the void, flaring its powerful nostrils. It sorted its way through the million scents, finding its ambrosia, that which had seared its very soul. Lilac. Rain. Mate. The scent was faint, miles away, but a beacon in the darkness. The concrete walls of the warehouse, meant to be his prison, were irrelevant. It turned its intelligent, burning gaze north, toward Selena's apartment. Low, dangerous growls rumbled from the depths of its chest. The hunt had begun.