My Sister Stole My Mate, And I Let Her

Chapter 303: Chapter 303 IN MY OWN SKIN

KIERAN’S POV

The moment Sera’s hand closed around mine, my heart stuttered so hard it hurt.

Not because of the danger—we were long past that—but because I knew.

I knew exactly what was happening to her body, to her blood, to the ancient, primal machinery awakening under her skin as bone and muscle and instinct tried to adjust to something they’d never experienced before.

I was an Alpha. I had guided countless young wolves through their first Shift. I had stood steady through screams, broken bones, bloodied hands clutching at me in terror.

And yet I had never been this afraid.

“It hurts,” she gasped, her fingernails digging moon-shaped crescents into my skin. “Kieran…it hurts. I think…it’s starting—”

“I know,” I said softly, keeping my voice low and anchored. “I know. Breathe with me.”

She tried. Failed. Tried again.

“I—I can’t,” she choked out, her entire body trembling as if something inside her was trying to tear free and she was fighting it with everything she had. “It hurts—Kieran, it feels like I’m breaking apart—”

“You’re not,” I said immediately, firm but gentle. “You’re changing. There’s a difference.”

Ashar stirred restlessly inside me, his presence a low, steady weight beneath my rampaging thoughts.

‘She’s terrified,’ he murmured.

‘Yeah, no shit,’ I replied.

‘You cannot be terrified as well. You have to anchor her through this storm.’

He was right. I couldn’t afford to lose myself to the debilitating panic of seeing her in pain. Not when I was the only one strong enough to help her through her first Shift and power void.

Another agonizing howl tore out of her, and her back bowed, eyes rolling back in her head.

I clenched my jaw, wrestling down the rising panic, and pulled her closer.

Despite the severed bond, despite the clean, absolute silence where it had once existed, I could still feel her struggle in a way that went beyond sight or sound.

It wove through me, raw and visceral, as if my body still remembered what my soul was no longer allowed to claim.

‘It shouldn’t be this bad,’ I told Ashar. ‘Why is it this bad?’

‘She’s lived thirty years locked in human form,’ he replied, ‘and her body and mind accepted it, learnt to survive without us. Now it thinks this is an invasion and is resisting it.’

I swallowed hard.

‘What do I do?’

A preternatural calm settled over me, muffling the panic and sweeping the fog from my mind.

‘You already know.’

“This isn’t like the others,” Sera whispered, panic threading her voice. “I’ve seen first Shifts. They’re not—this—”

“I know,” I said, my voice soothing. “This is different. Your body is afraid.”

She let out a strangled laugh that bordered on a sob, and a tear slid down her cheek, splashing onto the back of my palm. “That’s an understatement.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not fear like panic. Fear like instinct. You’ve lived a long time without a wolf. Without this vital part of you. All the rules your body has learnt are now being broken.”

Her eyes flickered toward me, glassy and unfocused, her fear naked and unguarded.

“H-how do I…how—”

“You can do this, Sera,” I continued, making sure my voice and expression stayed calm. “Your body just needs to learn.” I pressed a hand gently over her sternum, where her heart beat a rapid, staccato rhythm against my palm. “The same way you learnt to walk and talk.”

“How?” she repeated.

I didn’t hesitate.

Pulling away from her was the hardest thing ever, but I forced myself to let go.

I stood and stepped away, peeling off my jacket, then my shirt, then my boots. The night air swept over me, cold enough to raise goosebumps.

Sera’s eyes widened despite the pain, and her already shallow breaths seized altogether.

“Kieran…what are you—”

“Watch,” I said simply. “Learn.”

Ashar surged forward, ready, eager, but I held him back with practiced control.

Slowly. Deliberately.

I relaxed my shoulders, loosened my spine, shifted my weight until my balance changed.

I didn’t rush the pull of muscle or the stretch of bone; I let each transformation ripple outward visibly, step by step—hands lengthening, fingers thickening, nails sharpening into claws.

I kept my eyes on Sera the entire time.

“This isn’t something done to you,” I said through clenched teeth as my jaw reshaped, my senses sharpening. “It’s something you embrace.”

Golden fur spread across my skin in a gradual wave. My bones realigned with dull, familiar pressure, pain I welcomed like an old companion.

“This form isn’t an enemy,” I told her, my voice roughening but still steady. “It’s not replacing you. It’s revealing you.”

I dropped to all fours, only halfway through the Shift, and a shudder ran through me as I battled the urge to let instinct take over and finish the transformation in a heartbeat.

When I lifted my head and met Sera’s gaze again, I let her see that control was possible, that the line between forms wasn’t a cliff, it was a threshold.

“This has always been a part of you,” I said, my voice halfway between a growl. “Trust yourself. Trust your wolf.”

Sera’s eyes burned with tears as she watched me, chest heaving.

“I don’t know if I can,” she admitted.

“Yes,” I said without hesitation, “you can.”

***

SERAPHINA’S POV

Watching Kieran Shift changed something inside me.

He didn’t rush. Didn’t brace himself against the transformation like it was something to endure. He welcomed it. Let it unfold as naturally as breathing.

Every movement was intentional, almost reverent, as if he were surrendering to something sacred instead of being bent to its will. Gradually, my terror began to loosen its hold.

‘There you go, Sera,’ Alina said softly inside me.

Her voice was clearer than it had ever been, closer than it had ever been.

‘This is what we are,’ she continued. ‘You are not losing yourself. You’re becoming whole.’

‘I’m scared.’

‘I know,’ Alina replied gently. ‘But I would never harm you. You and I are one.’

I squeezed my eyes shut and made a choice.

Instead of fighting the pain, I turned inward. Focused.

Not on the tearing sensation in my muscles or the fire racing through my veins.

But on her.

On the way Alina felt—warm and steady and innately familiar. On the sense of alignment I felt during training, those moments where body and will moved as one.

‘Together,’ she assured me. ‘We do this together.’

I reached for my psychic power—not as a weapon, not as control, but as connection. I wrapped it around the transformation like a steadying hand, guiding instead of resisting.

The pain shifted.

Not gone—but transformed.

It became pressure instead of agony. Warmth instead of searing. Transformation instead of destruction.

My breath evened out.

My body followed.

When I opened my eyes again, the world was…different.

Deep sounds rumbled with new richness. Scents stacked in thick, dizzying layers. The night glowed brighter, sharper, alive in a way I’d never known.

And I was taller.

Drawn by something I didn’t yet understand, I moved—unsteady at first, then surer—toward the cool pull of water nearby.

I blinked, disoriented, then froze as I caught my reflection in the still surface at the lake’s edge.

A wolf stared back at me.

Silver fur caught the moonlight, streaked with brighter undertones that shimmered with every movement.

Amethyst eyes met my gaze from the water’s surface, gleaming with pride.

Emotion surged so fiercely it nearly knocked me off balance.

For thirty years, I had believed this part of me didn’t exist.

I had carried the awful certainty that something vital was stolen from me before I could ever know it, mourning a wolf I was told would never exist, settling for a life shaped by emptiness.

Now the reflection stared back, undeniable.

Real. Alive.

Alina dipped her head, and the motion rippled through me with astonishing ease. The truth struck me in a single, blinding moment—this was me.

‘I did it,’ I breathed, the words breaking loose from somewhere deep and fragile inside me.

The sound came out wrong, a rough and resonant growl, shaped by a throat that was no longer human.

‘We did,’ Alina corrected gently, warmth curling through me like a steady embrace rather than a voice.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t standing on the outside of the world I belonged to.

For the first time in my life, I knew—truly knew—what it meant to belong in my own skin.

Then another shape slid into the reflection beside us.

Larger. Broader. Golden fur cutting a solid line through the moonlit water.

I looked up, and for a heartbeat, I couldn’t breathe.

Ashar.