Page 105 of The Hyena’s Guardian

Matt leaned one shoulder against the cold stone wall and flexed his hands carefully. The claws had mostly retracted.

His fingers still ached where the shift had forced its way through. Every so often, something moved beneath the bones, as though the hyena had not fully settled back into place.

It should have frightened him more than it did. Instead, all he could think about was the bond. Since the fight on the bridge, it had sharpened into something impossible to ignore.

Matt could feel Theron’s presence without seeing him, as though the battle had pulled an invisible thread taut between them. He could not hear Theron’s thoughts, but awareness of him lingered at the edge of every sense.

He always knew where Theron was now. Close enough to reach.

Matt rubbed a hand across his mouth before glancing farther down the corridor, where Vale and Baptiste argued over maps and old carvings scratched into the stone.

Then he felt Theron approaching before he heard him.

Theron stopped directly in front of him. Neither spoke.

Theron’s eyes dropped to Matt’s hands. “You shifted.”

Matt opened and closed his hand. “Apparently.”

Theron did not smile. That alone made Matt straighten.

The concern in his expression was too serious to dismiss. “You’re in control?” Theron asked.

Matt blinked once. “Yeah.”

Theron studied him carefully, and Matt realized this was not casual curiosity. Theron was watching him the same way someone checked a wound for signs of infection.

Matt exhaled. “Hey.” He waited until Theron met his eyes again. “I’m okay.”

Theron’s expression remained tight. “I need to be certain.”

The bluntness in the answer caught Matt off guard.

Theron stepped closer before lowering his voice further. “The mountain pushes hardest during moments of violence and fear, especially when instinct takes control before conscious thought.”

“That sounds ominous.” Matt replied.

“It is ominous.”

Theron’s gaze remained fixed on him. “Most shifters struggle the first time the change answers instinct before conscious thought. The First King uses that opening against them, especially when violence draws the predator closer to the surface. Hunger. Rage. Territoriality. He turns those things into doors.”

Matt fell silent because he had felt it. Not corruption exactly, but the pull.

On the bridge, the hyena had surged beneath his skin with a violent instinct that had felt far older than Matt himself. It had not wanted slaughter for the sake of bloodshed. It had wanted Theron protected at any cost.

The realization still unsettled him precisely because it had felt completely natural.

Matt flexed his aching fingers. “For a second, it felt like something inside me took over.”

Theron’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “How?”

Matt considered the question carefully before answering. “Stronger. Faster.” He hesitated. “But mostly I felt…” He exhaled once through his nose. “Possessive.”

Theron’s eyes narrowed.

Matt laughed without humor. “Yeah. That reaction isn’t helping.”

“What did you feel possessive over?”