THE HALF BLOOD'S CURSE

on my wrist

ting in this cold, damp basement for three hours, listening to the waves of the Black Sea crash against the rocks below our house. Th

the darkness. "Let me out. Just

ut

floorboards but still sharp enough to cut. "You're

ons

n. Half-blood. They called me all of those things-the villagers who crossed the street

so old no one remembered its beginning. They had me. A half-breed. A mistake wrapped in flesh and fur.

l moon. Three days a month, I

it me like a knif

bend the wrong way. My fingernails dug into the concrete floor, and I wa

yet. Hol

a storm, leaving me broken and bleeding on the other side. But tonight... tonight something

pered. Let me breat

" I gasped, sweat dri

ries to hurt you. T

nds and saw the fur spreading across my knuckles-dark br

me in my life, I

thed i

hands. I focused on my fingers first. The claws retracted. The fur faded. Then my spine. I ima

t streamed through the

ed up

enty-two years, I shifted pa

lose. But my hands remained human. My face remained human. The wolf was there,

as a broken, hy

"Mom, I did it! I control

en I heard

ng. The girl is clueless

hands than any shifter should have. He wasn't one of us. He was just a human my mot

ed. Her voice was cold. So cold. "Worthles

urity. They care about secrets. And your daughter's

art s

et?" my mo

want the gold they promised. Fifty thousand. C

in

lf stirred again, but this time it wa

owled. Let me tea

eathed. "I need

f a chair scraping against the floor, the cl

She's not my daughter. She'

ears ago. Something deeper. The last thread of hope I had been clinging to, the

sna

e wolf

of it-and I screamed as my body broke itself apart and put itself back together in

ins sha

or spl

ping from my elongated jaw, and I looked up the stairs to

ard the

ice trembled. "Elif, s

one s

ano

een in wolf form-not massive, but lean and powerful, every muscle coiled

op of the stairs, a kit

h!" he shouted.

let him

ung

kin, and I watched the color drain from his cheeks. The knife clattered to the floor. H

ood frozen b

ne moment, I saw something other than hatred i

im," she whispered. "

didn't change that, that I had controlled it for the first time tonight. But my thr

ambled to

ieked, pointing a shaking finger at me. "T

inside

said. Let

I was standing in the kitchen-naked, shivering, but human. My mother gra

" she said. "You

lly looked at her. The gray in her hair. The lines around

aving,"

ha

to lock me up anymore. You don't have

g? Where will you go, Elif? You have no pack. No family

ind som

lled them. The Council knows where you

e cliffside path down to the beach. My bare feet

gone before

li

cked on my na

rry," s

. Eight yea

wasn't looking at me. She was staring at the floor, at the shattered p

said. "You're just s

lked out

ing over the Black Sea like a silver coin. I could hear the waves crashing

ted ru

ong the cliff's edge, the rocks cutting my feet, the wind pu

the footste

s. Heav

nning and tu

t men. Wolves in human skin. I could feel it in the way they mo

ing from his temple to his jaw. The one on the right was smaller

ce was deep, accented. Russian, maybe. "Dau

ighter around myself

s ask

smiled. It wasn'

" he said. "Your father owed a

h steppe

me for you