Instinct Unleashed -chapter 9- By Kind Nightmares ✔ <PLUS>

The moon hung low and fractured, as if something had tried to swallow it and thought better of it. Rain fell not in droplets but in sheets—grey, relentless, the kind of rain that washed away footprints and memories in equal measure.

The pack had scattered three nights ago after the incident at the silos. He could still hear the wet snap of Tobias's shoulder dislocating, still see the way Lena had looked at him—not with fear, but with the hollow recognition of someone watching a friend drown in slow motion. She had whispered, "You're still in there, Kael. Fight it."

"You came back," Elias said. His voice was softer than Kael expected. Almost gentle. That was worse than any growl. Instinct Unleashed -Chapter 9- By Kind Nightmares

Chapter 9 ends not with a howl, but with the absence of one. Because the loudest roars are the ones that never leave the chest. And Kael had finally stopped fighting the quiet.

Predator , the eye seemed to say. Not monster. Not yet. The moon hung low and fractured, as if

"Lena thinks I can save you," Elias continued. "Tobias wants to put you down. The others are too afraid to speak their minds. And you? What do you want, Kael?"

The rain had started to fall harder, slicking Kael's hair to his forehead, dripping into his eyes. He blinked slowly. When he looked up, his irises caught the fractured moonlight—amber now, where they had been brown. He could still hear the wet snap of

Elias took a step back. For the first time in thirty years, the alpha smelled afraid.

"You're wrong," Elias said. "Instinct isn't freedom. It's the oldest leash there is."

"I want to stop being kind," he said. "Kindness was the nightmare. This?" He raised a hand, and claws extended not with effort, but with the quiet certainty of a flower opening. "This is waking up."

He stepped into the clearing. The grass flattened beneath his weight as though bowing. In the center lay the carcass of a stag—not killed, but undone . Ribs splayed open like the pages of a forbidden book, organs arranged in a pattern that felt almost ritualistic. His mouth watered. He hated that it watered. He knelt, fingers hovering over the warm ruin, and for a moment, he saw himself reflected in the black pool of the animal's unblinking eye.