The Lunar Crest Academy: Marked by The Lycans
Chapter 104: Shifting

Chapter 104: Chapter 104: Shifting

Lorraine’s POV

I didn’t know how much time had passed.

Days bled into each other like the sweat and blood dripping off my skin, no mercy, no breaks, no excuses.

Astrid Voss was a tyrant in training gear. She didn’t smile. She didn’t encourage. She didn’t offer words like "good job" or "you’re improving." Just barked orders with that cold, commanding voice that could slice through flesh and steel.

We trained in the ruins of the feral dormitory, my home, my graveyard, my battleground. The same place where over thirty of us once lived. Now it was just me. Just my ghosts.

And Astrid.

She made me start each morning before the sun even broke the horizon. No time to think. No time to breathe. Just move.

"Again!" she shouted as I collapsed on the dusty concrete from the fifth round of pushups, my arms shaking violently, blood dripping from my palms where the skin had split. "You fall again and I’ll make you crawl until you bleed out."

I pushed up.

I didn’t have a choice.

The next day, she tied sandbags to my ankles and made me run laps around the dorm courtyard until my knees buckled.

Another day, she made me carry broken metal pipes across the lawn, stack them, unstack them, carry them again, while dodging bricks she threw at me without warning.

"Your reflexes are shit," she hissed as one hit my back and I dropped to my knees.

Pain exploded across my spine, but I gritted my teeth and stood again.

She didn’t stop because I was crying.

She didn’t stop because I was limping.

She didn’t stop at all.

Under the sun that felt like it had turned into fire, I trained until I collapsed on the grass, the heat curling my vision, my body soaking in sweat.

"Get up," she said coldly, arms crossed, standing over me.

"I can’t..."

"If you say ’can’t’ again, I’ll drag you by your hair through hot coals," she snapped. "Do it. Get. Up."

So I did. I got up. And I ran.

Another time it rained. Not soft or kind. But a brutal, thunder-clapping, wind-whipping storm. I thought she’d cancel.

She didn’t.

She stood beneath an umbrella, bone-dry, and made me crawl through mud on my forearms, then run combat drills until my clothes were soaked, clinging to me like skin. I slipped more than I stood. I choked on rain. I couldn’t see.

But she kept yelling, "Fight the elements or die with them."

I fell.

I screamed.

I got up.

I bled.

She watched.

Once, I did thirty rounds of burpees with weights strapped to my back. My shoulder dislocated mid-round. I collapsed with a cry.

Astrid walked over, grabbed my arm, and popped the bone back in without warning. The pain made me nearly black out.

Then she tossed a wet cloth at me. "You’ve got ten seconds. Start again."

I almost broke.

Almost.

But I remembered Felix, still in the hospital. I remembered Elise, still missing.

I remembered the blood I saw on my hands. The voice in that abyss. The words she said: You are not worthy of me.

I would be.

Even if it killed me.

At night, I’d collapse in the corner of the dorm, bruised, torn, broken, barely able to move. My muscles screamed. My bones ached. And my wolf, the one who had grown back my finger for ne, still wouldn’t speak to me.

But I could feel her, silent and watching, somewhere in the back of my mind.

Waiting.

I slept with my body shaking and woke up even worse, only to do it again.

And again.

And again.

One night, Astrid threw a knife at me mid-pushup. It grazed my cheek, cutting clean through.

"What the hell!" I screamed.

She walked over slowly. Calm. Cold. "You’re too slow. That should’ve been caught. The enemy won’t warn you."

I touched the blood trickling down my face and stared at her. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"If that’s what it takes for you to live, yes."

She meant it. Every damn word.

But I didn’t stop.

Because I had one chance.

Because my wolf had given me a second chance, made me whole again.

Because I would never be weak again.

I would train until my fists broke stone. Until my reflexes danced with death. Until no one, Lycans, Elites, nobles, Astrid, even fate, could bring me to my knees again.

I would fight.

I would become the kind of girl who could survive Lunar Crest.

No matter what.

The next morning, my shoulders felt like rusted steel, stiff, sore, ready to crack apart.

But none of that mattered.

Because today, Astrid came armed.

I stood in the middle of the courtyard, barefoot, bruised, breath fogging in the morning chill. The clouds above rolled heavy and gray, promising rain again. Astrid stood across from me with a cold expression on her face.... and a crossbow in her hands.

A leather bag packed with arrows sat at her feet.

"What are we doing today?" I asked cautiously.

She lifted the crossbow and aimed it straight at my chest. "Today’s exercise is called The Phantom Drag."

I blinked. "Sounds friendly."

"It’s not." She walked in slow circles around me. "You’ll do a core-body repetition pattern, five pushups, five side rolls, then a stand-jump and duck. Over and over again. And while you’re doing that, I’ll be shooting at you. Randomly. No patterns. No warnings."

I stared at her. "You’re literally going to shoot me."

"If you’re fast enough, I won’t." Her lips barely twitched. "Begin."

I dropped and started the sequence. One—two—three—four—five pushups. My arms burned already from yesterday’s punishment. I rolled to the left, to the right, grass sticking to my sweat-soaked skin, then jumped to my feet and ducked low.

Thwap!

An arrow pierced the air above my head, missing by inches.

Shit.

I kept goiing.

Another round.

Pushups—rolls—jump—duck.

Thwap!

I saw the second arrow coming and shifted mid-roll. It sliced across my upper arm, drawing a shallow line of blood.

I hissed but didn’t stop.

Pushups—rolls—jump—duck.

Again.

Again.

Again.

My arms were shaking. My legs were jello. The courtyard spun in my vision.

Thwap!

Another arrow, too fast, too soon.

I reacted late.

Pain exploded in my shoulder.

"Agh!" I screamed and hit the ground hard, shoulder-first, the force driving the arrow deeper into muscle. My body sprawled across the courtyard, hot blood quickly soaking my shirt.

I clutched my shoulder, breathing hard. My vision blurred.

I heard her steps before I saw her.

Astrid.

She stood over me, calm, unfazed, as if she hadn’t just shot a metal arrow into my flesh. She knelt down and grabbed the shaft of the arrow.

"Don’t—" I gritted out.

She snapped the arrow clean in half. The pain was blinding. _{fr\eewe.bn(o)v\el.c(o)m}

"You lost focus," she said, tossing the broken piece aside. "That’s the cost."

"I’m bleeding," I growled.

Astrid stood and reloaded the crossbow. "So bleed."

She lifted the weapon again and took aim, her expression blank. "But if you don’t get up now, the next one’s going through your leg."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I gasped.

"I’m training a weapon," she said coldly. "Not babysitting a bleeding girl."

She pulled the string back. "Stand up, Lorraine. Or I’ll make you."

I bit my lip and forced my good arm under me, groaning as I pushed myself upright. My shoulder throbbed. My vision swam.

But I stood.

I raised my chin. "Let’s go again."

Astrid smiled for the first time.

It wasn’t a warm smilw. It was approval.

Kieran’s POV

I knelt at the heart of the sacred grove, a forbidden place deep in the northern mountains, far away from the academy grounds, where the earth thrummed with ancient Lycan magic. No moonlight tonight. Just silence. Cold wind bit at my bare skin, the stone beneath me soaked in dried blood and ash from generations of wolves who had tried and failed.

I inhaled slowly.

Then exhaled.

It was time.

Time to drop the veil.

Every wolf had it, the thin but resilient wall between man and beast. It was what kept our wolves restrained, what allowed us to function in society. A barrier that dulled instincts, softened fury, filtered chaos into something manageable.

But I didn’t want to manage my wolf anymore

I needed to become him.

Not a prince with a beast whispering behind my thoughts.

A god with fangs.

I closed my eyes and reached inward. The long days of physical agony, deprivation, training, and meditation had led to this singular moment. I’d mastered my body. I’d mastered pain.

Now, I had to master him.

A whisper stirred in my mind.

A low growl.

Finally.

He had been waiting.

The veil between us trembled, like glass under strain. I could feel him on the other side, feral, ancient, vast. A violent storm encased in muscle and shadow. My wolf.

I touched the edge of the veil.

And ripped it down.

The effect was immediate.

My lungs seized as raw, primal energy slammed into me like a tsunami. I doubled over, gasping, every cell in my body vibrating with the force of it.

Kieran....

The voice wasn’t just inside my head anymore.

It was everywhere.

He stepped into my mind, no longer a whisper. No longer a shadow. His form towered in the abyss of my consciousness, massive and monstrous. Fur as black as night. Eyes red and deep . Fangs longer than my fingers.

For a Lycan prince, you are weak, you allow yourself to feel emotions and that has made you weak. I should have devoured you long ago.

"No," I gasped. "We’re supposed to merge...."

Merge? he snarled. I am not your pet. I am your evolution. I am everything you fear, and everything you’ve taught yourdelf to suppress. And now, I will unchain myself.

My heart was hammering. I tried to push back, to remember my training, the focus my father drilled into me when I was younger, the balance of discipline and instinct.

But it wasn’t working.

My wolf lunged, an explosion of hatred and freedom, and I felt myself falling backward, being submerged in him.

I will take this body. I will hunt with your name. Rule with your blood. Kill with your face. And that girl you’ve been so careful with, scared you will break her, Lorraine, she is mine, I will take her and I will fuck her, whether she wants it or not

I wanted to talk, to protest, but he was pushing me into the back of my own mind, crushing my presence. My thoughts scattered, like birds in a storm. My fingers twisted unnaturally. My bones cracked. My vision flickered red.

I screamed.

My body convulsed.

Claws ripped through my skin, hair lengthened down my arms, teeth pushed out from my gums with a grotesque snap.

I wasn’t shifting.

I was being devoured.

He was taking me.

And godess, he was winning.