Three days had passed since Maria's rage-fueled transformation. Three days since she had destroyed her room, attacked Gabriel, and experienced conscious awareness in her wolf form for the first time. The initial shock had faded, repced by a strange calm that felt almost like acceptance.

  Dr. Eliana had called it a breakthrough. "Many wereanimals spend years trying to achieve what you experienced naturally," she had said during their emergency session the morning after. "Consciousness during transformation is a significant step in integrating your dual nature."

  For a brief time, Maria had felt something close to euphoria. The wolf wasn't a curse or a punishment—it was simply another aspect of herself. She hadn't lost herself during the transformation; she had found a new way to exist. The relief had been overwhelming.

  But as the days passed, the euphoria faded. In its pce crept something darker, heavier. Something that made her chest ache and her throat tighten. Something that kept her in bed long after the sun had risen, staring at the ceiling of her new room.

  It was Gabriel who named it, during a quiet breakfast she barely touched.

  "You're grieving," he said gently, watching her push eggs around her pte. "It's a natural response."

  Maria looked up, startled by the observation. "Grieving what? I haven't lost anything."

  "Haven't you?" Gabriel set aside his cup of tea—he took his meals with her despite not needing human food, a courtesy she had come to appreciate. "You've lost eighteen years of knowing yourself. Of experiencing your transformations consciously. Of understanding your nature."

  The words struck with unexpected force. Maria felt her eyes burn with sudden tears.

  "I could have known," she whispered. "All this time, I could have known what I was. Could have remembered. Could have..."

  She couldn't continue. The weight of what might have been pressed down on her chest until she could hardly breathe. Eighteen years of fearing the darkness that overtook her during full moons. Eighteen years of shame and terror and isotion. Eighteen years of believing herself cursed by the Light for sins she couldn't remember committing.

  All unnecessary. All based on lies and misunderstanding.

  "This, too, is part of healing," Gabriel said softly. "Acknowledging what was taken from you. What you lost. What might have been."

  Maria pushed her pte away and stood abruptly. "I need to be alone."

  Gabriel didn't try to stop her as she left the dining room. He understood, perhaps better than she did, that some pain needed to be experienced privately.

  She spent the day wandering the estate grounds, moving between periods of numb emptiness and waves of grief so acute they left her gasping. The gardens that had once brought her joy now seemed to mock her with their beauty. The books she had been so proud to learn to read now reminded her of all the knowledge that had been kept from her.

  But it wasn't just her own loss that haunted her. As the day wore on, her thoughts returned again and again to Blood Farm #17. To the faces of those she had left behind. To her "congregation" who had found comfort in her teachings about divine punishment and eventual redemption.

  What were they doing now? Did they still gather in secret to pray? Did they still believe the lies she had taught them? Or had they abandoned hope entirely without her there to fan its fmes?

  The thought of them continuing to suffer while she walked freely in a vampire's garden was unbearable. The knowledge that they still clung to false hope—hope she had given them—was even worse.

  "They were my pack," she whispered to herself, the wereanimal terminology feeling strange but right on her tongue. "My responsibility. And I left them."

  By evening, grief had hardened into something sharper. She skipped dinner, ignored Gabriel's gentle knock on her door, and spent the night staring out the window at the moon—not full, but waxing toward it. In the moonlight, she could feel the wolf stirring within her, responding to her emotions.

  The next morning brought no relief. If anything, the grief had deepened, sharpened. She moved through her daily routine like a ghost, present in body but absent in spirit. When Gabriel suggested postponing her therapy session with Dr. Eliana, she agreed without argument.

  "You need to talk about this, Maria," he said gently. "If not with me, then with Dr. Eliana when you're ready."

  "Talk won't change anything," Maria replied ftly. "They're still there. Still suffering. Still believing the lies I taught them."

  Gabriel's expression was troubled. "The blood farm system is deeply entrenched in vampire society. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but major change comes slowly, if at all."

  "So they suffer forever? While I live here in comfort?"

  "Not forever. Baron Cassian and others like him are working to improve conditions within the system. My own territory operates on a different model entirely. Change is happening, but—"

  "But not fast enough for them," Maria said, turning away. "Not fast enough for my pack."

  The word slipped out again, and this time Gabriel noticed. "Your pack," he repeated thoughtfully. "You see them that way now? As your responsibility?"

  Maria didn't answer. She didn't need to. They both knew the truth.

  Days blurred together as Maria retreated further into herself. She went through the motions—eating enough to avoid Gabriel's concern, bathing, changing clothes—but her mind remained fixed on the blood farm. On the faces of those she had left behind. On their continued suffering.

  At night, she dreamed of them. Sometimes they were calling her name, begging for help she couldn't provide. Other times they were transformed into wolves alongside her, running free under the moon. She would wake from these dreams with tears on her face, the grief raw and fresh.

  One afternoon, a week after her transformation, Maria was sitting in the garden when the rage returned without warning. One moment she was staring emptily at a flowering bush, the next she was on her feet, hands clenched into fists, a growl rising in her throat.

  The memory that triggered it was simple: meal distribution at the blood farm. The precise measurements of gruel that kept resources alive but perpetually hungry. The overseers checking each bowl to ensure no one received an extra scrape of food. The hollow-eyed children waiting silently for their meager portions.

  Maria grabbed the nearest object—a ceramic flowerpot—and hurled it at the garden wall. It shattered satisfyingly, soil and pnt fragments exploding outward. She seized another, then another, destruction momentarily easing the pressure of rage in her chest.

  When no more pots were within reach, she turned to the garden itself, tearing up pnts, ripping flowers from stems, digging her fingers into the earth and flinging it in all directions. Her breath came in ragged gasps that were closer to sobs than growls.

  "Maria."

  Gabriel's voice cut through her fury. He stood at the garden entrance, watching her with concern rather than judgment.

  "They're starving them," she said, soil crumbling between her clenched fingers. "Feeding them just enough to keep them alive for bleeding. Nothing more."

  Gabriel approached slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements. "I know."

  "The children never get enough. They're always hungry." Her voice broke. "I was always hungry."

  "I know," Gabriel repeated, stopping a few feet away. "The system is cruel by design."

  "And they're still there!" The words tore from her throat in a howl of rage and despair. "Still suffering! While I'm here eating three meals a day and sleeping in a comfortable bed!"

  "Yes," Gabriel agreed, refusing to offer empty comfort. "They are."

  Maria lunged at him then, not transforming but striking with human fists against his chest. "Why? Why do they have to suffer? Why does anyone? What kind of world is this?"

  She punctuated each question with another blow. Gabriel stood immobile, accepting her rage without restraint or judgment.

  "It's a broken world," he said quietly when her blows weakened. "Made by broken beings driven by fear and power and hunger."

  Maria's legs gave out then. She sank to the ground, grief overwhelming rage, sobs repcing growls. Gabriel knelt beside her but didn't touch her, respecting the boundary of her pain.

  "I abandoned them," she whispered between sobs. "I gave them hope and then I left them."

  "You didn't choose to leave," Gabriel reminded her. "You were sent away."

  "But I haven't tried to help them. I haven't even thought about them until now." The admission burned like acid. "I've been so focused on myself. On my own healing."

  "Because you needed to heal first," Gabriel said. "You can't help others if you're broken yourself."

  Maria looked up at him, tears streaking her dirt-smudged face. "But what can I do? How can I help them? Lord Constantine would never listen to me. The system won't change fast enough to save them."

  Gabriel was quiet for a long moment. "I don't have an easy answer for you, Maria. The blood farm system is deeply entrenched. Those in power have little incentive to change it."

  "So they suffer, and I just... accept that? Like I accepted everything else?"

  "No," Gabriel said firmly. "You find ways to help within the constraints that exist. Small actions that make real differences to real lives."

  "How?" The question held all her desperation, all her grief.

  "That's something you need to decide for yourself," Gabriel said. "But you don't have to decide today, or tomorrow, or even next month. Healing takes time, Maria. And you're still healing."

  Maria wiped her face, smearing dirt across her cheeks. "I feel like I'm being torn apart. The grief, the rage—it's too much."

  "Dr. Eliana warned this might happen," Gabriel said. "After the breakthrough with your transformation. She called it the 'grief stage' of recovery. When you truly begin to understand what was taken from you, and what can never be regained."

  "How do I get through it?"

  "By feeling it," Gabriel said simply. "By acknowledging the loss, the pain, the rage. By allowing yourself to grieve for the years you can't recim and the suffering you can't immediately end."

  Maria looked around at the destruction she had wrought in the garden. Pnts uprooted, soil scattered, pottery shattered. "I keep breaking things."

  "Things can be repced," Gabriel said, echoing his words from the night of her transformation. "Sometimes destruction is necessary before rebuilding can begin."

  That evening, Maria finally agreed to resume her sessions with Dr. Eliana. The therapy screen was set up in Gabriel's study rather than her own room, which still held too many memories of her rage-fueled transformation.

  "What you're experiencing is not just normal but necessary," Dr. Eliana expined after Maria described her emotional state. "Grief for what you've lost. Rage at those who took it from you. Guilt about those still suffering. These are all natural responses to trauma when you begin to process it."

  "It feels like it will never end," Maria admitted.

  "It will," Dr. Eliana assured her. "Not completely—some grief always remains—but it will become manageable. And eventually, it will transform into something else."

  "Into what?"

  "That depends on you," Dr. Eliana said. "For some, grief becomes a driving force for change. For others, it becomes wisdom to be shared. For others still, it becomes compassion for those suffering simir pain."

  Maria considered this. "I want to help them. The people still in the blood farms. My pa—" She stopped herself.

  "Your pack," Dr. Eliana finished for her. "It's all right to use that word, Maria. It's a natural way for wereanimals to think about those they feel responsible for."

  "But they're not wereanimals. They're humans."

  "Pack isn't always about species," Dr. Eliana expined. "It's about connection, protection, responsibility. Many wereanimals form packs that include humans they feel bound to protect."

  Something shifted in Maria's chest at these words—not the crushing weight lifting, but perhaps redistributing. Becoming more bearable.

  "How do I help them?" she asked, the question that had been haunting her for days.

  "That's something we can explore together," Dr. Eliana said. "But first, you need to continue your own healing. You need to understand yourself, your capabilities, your limitations, before you can effectively help others."

  "They don't have time for me to figure everything out," Maria protested. "They're suffering now."

  "And they have been for years," Dr. Eliana pointed out gently. "A few more weeks or months while you develop the skills and knowledge to help them effectively won't change that. But rushing in unprepared might make their situation worse, not better."

  Maria wanted to argue, but the logic was undeniable. What could she do now, half-trained in her wereanimal abilities, still learning to read, still processing her own trauma? How could she help anyone when she barely understood herself?

  "What do I do with the grief until then?" she asked instead. "With the rage? It feels like it's eating me alive."

  "Express it," Dr. Eliana advised. "Through words, through physical activity, through transformation if that helps. Don't push it down or try to ignore it. Acknowledge it, feel it, let it move through you."

  "I've been destroying things," Maria admitted.

  "Better things than people," Dr. Eliana said pragmatically. "Though perhaps Viscount Gabriel could set up a more appropriate space for such expressions. Some wereanimals find combat training helps channel rage productively."

  After the session ended, Maria sat quietly in Gabriel's study, absorbing everything Dr. Eliana had said. The grief still weighed on her, the rage still burned, but perhaps there was a path forward through them rather than around them.

  Gabriel, who had been working at his desk across the room during her session, looked up suddenly, his expression changing to one of subtle recognition.

  "What?" Maria asked, noticing his intense gaze.

  "Your scent has changed," he said carefully. "It's... stronger. More distinct."

  "Is that bad?" Maria felt a flicker of arm.

  Gabriel shook his head. "No. It's your alpha nature awakening."

  "Alpha?" The word felt strange on her tongue. "Like a pack leader?"

  "Yes," Gabriel said. "Dr. Eliana mentioned it might happen. Your emotional breakthrough, your conscious transformation, your intense feeling of responsibility for those in the blood farm—they're all signs of an alpha awakening. Your wolf recognizes those people as your pack, and your instinct to protect and lead them is emerging."

  Maria considered this. It made a strange kind of sense—the fierce protectiveness she felt, the way she thought of the blood farm residents as "her pack" despite them being human.

  "What does that mean? For me?"

  "It means you'll likely develop stronger leadership instincts," Gabriel expined. "Greater protective drives. A more powerful presence that others—especially other wereanimals—will instinctively respond to. It's rare in one so young, and especially rare in a born wereanimal with no formal pack training."

  For the first time in days, Maria felt a flicker of something other than grief or rage—a spark of purpose, strengthened by this new understanding of herself. "Would you teach me to fight?" she asked suddenly.

  Gabriel's eyes widened slightly in surprise, then he nodded. "Yes," he said. "I would be honored to teach an alpha to protect her pack."

  That night, Maria dreamed again of the blood farm. But this time, instead of helplessly watching her pack suffer, she was leading them to freedom. The dream wasn't a pn—it was far too simple, too straightforward for the complex reality of vampire society—but it was something many of her previous dreams had cked.

  Hope.

  Not the false hope of divine redemption she had once preached, but something more tangible. Hope based on action rather than acceptance. Hope that perhaps, someday, she might find a way to help those she had left behind.

  The grief didn't disappear. The rage didn't fade. But alongside them grew something new—a quiet determination that would, in time, become the foundation for everything that followed.