Chapter 13
Volik
Orchids.
My eyes snap open.
Orchids of old.
Ones from my childhood.
They fill the air.
I breathe.
That scent. The one I could sense but not smell. This is it.
This. Is. It.
It coats my tongue.
It pours into my lungs.
It thuds through my heart, through my veins.
It’s…
My skull.
That vibration builds inside my bones.
It…
My gravito. The gravity harnessed inside my being pulses.
It swirls and intensifies.
It fills my limbs, daring me to try and control it.
The building trembles.
Screams echo around the room as backpacks and chairs slide across the floor toward me, pulled to me with the force of my swelling power.
My energy pulses again.
The building groans.
I cannot stop it.
Cannot stop the ancient magic from taking over.
I do not even try.
I embrace it.
The noise around me increases.
People run.
Someone is crying.
But I do not care about them.
I only care about this.
The intensity inside me presses against my skin.
I drop my head back.
I hold my arms out.
And my horns… they start to grow.
They lengthen, pulling up and out of my skull.
It’s… ecstasy.
My chest rumbles. The sound so intense it shakes the floor.
My power pulses again.
Tables scrape across the floor.
And the rest of me…
The fabric of my shirt grows taut across my chest.
It tightens around my biceps.
The seams pull. And start to fail.
I expand.
My body. My muscles. My bones.
All of me expands.
My shirt rips. Down the back. Down the sleeves. Across my chest.
A tear sounds from the waist of my pants as the thickness of my body increases.
The fabric over my thighs shreds.
My jaw…
I open my mouth into a vicious smile as my fangs… lengthen. Pulling down from my upper jaw. Extending with the same euphoric feeling as my horns.
Exhilaration flows through my veins as my form shifts.
As I become the new me.
The real me.
The final version.
A deep laugh rolls out of me as I stand up straight.
I roll my shoulders. And the fabric of my shirt rips apart even more.
I kick off my destroyed shoes.
I am… so much bigger.
Thicker. Heavier. Taller.
My clothing clings to me in strips and tatters.
I lift my hands to my head.
My horns have doubled in length. The points are sharper than they were before, and the lower half, the new half, is covered in small ridges.
I drag my tongue over the tip of one fang.
Longer. Sharper.
My gravito pulses once more before it stills, sitting heavy in my chest.
Heavier than before.
Heavier, because it is more powerful than it was before.
Because I am more powerful.
I was not sure it would happen.
Did not know what it would be like.
But this is it.
This is it.
I inhale again. And the enchanting scent of orchids wraps around me.
Pulls me forward.
Toward the exit.
And I let it take me.
Because it’s taking me to her.
It is leading me to my mate.