The Golden Lycans (Ella) novel Chapter 72

Coming of Age

Austin***

+25 Pointé

I dribble the ball, heading toward the hoop at the end of the hall, steering away from Dominic as he moves to intervene. My footwork is quick, and I manage to dodge him, dribbling the ball further toward the hoop.

Ollie is there waiting for me, but I know his tactics, I’d grown up with him after all. I dodge him quickly too, before leaping into the air with the ball, dunking it cleanly through the hoop before landing back on the floor with a loud thud.

“And he dunks it again,” howls our friend Finn, who is visiting over the weekend. He is a year older and at a London university, but he is also attending my party tomorrow night in the hope he might

find his mate too.

“Man, he kicks my butt every time,” Ollie laughs.

“It’s a fair exchange, he absolutely kicks mine in the gym,” I remark back.

We head to the side of the hall for a quick drink of water. I check my watch for the fiftieth time

today, it was eight o’clock. I hadn’t wished for the day before my birthday to go as quickly as I have this year. I needed it to be twenty-four hours from now. I feel,so antsy and full of energy that I just

couldn’t burn through.

“Aus, the day isn’t going to go by any quicker with you checking your watch every ten minutes,” Ollie

mutters.

“I need to shift,” I growl.

“Just like every other night this week,” Ollie comments.

“Wait until it’s the week that you come of age,” I quip, knowing Ollie’s eighteenth was only two

weeks from today.

“So true, I felt the need to shift every night before mine. I felt mental that week before. I ate

everything in sight, the urge to shift was so strong I almost did it in class. How have you been feeling?” asks Finn.

I shrug.

“Fine, I’ve just spent four or five hours in Atlas every night this week. But I’ve been pretty focussed on tomorrow, perhaps that’s helped?” I suggest.

“Dude, you truly are in a league of your own. One of the alphas in my year had to go home for the

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fortnight before he came of age because he just couldn’t handle it,” Finn says, sounding mildly impressed.

“Just call him Mr Control…” Ollie jokes as I leave the guys in the sports hall and head out to the front of the school. I strip down in the twilight, leaving my clothes in the stone gazebo like I have always done.

I shift swiftly into Atlas, feeling immediate relief as he runs off across the grounds.

This week had been uncomfortable in so many ways, and I was more than ready for it to be over so very soon. Had I been any other alpha I would have had no luck staying away from Ella. I have been able to feel her presence at all times, ever since I returned to school after the holidays. But the discomfort I felt in my chest had been building more and more as the week went on, twinned with the horribly familiar feeling of needing to shed my skin. It was the same feeling I’d experienced before in the week leading up the full moon when I’d shifted for the first time.

It was simply a sign, that the next chapter awaited me.

Atlas runs for hours, wild and relentless. He hunts, chasing rabbits through the dense undergrowth, sharpening his claws against the rough bark of trees. He plunges into the freezing river at the northern border, emerging only to shake off the water in a violent spray before sprinting again. Our energy has been mounting all week, surging to impossible heights, and yet, even now as he races along the tracks around the border, it isn’t enough. Nothing is enough.

It is coming.

I can feel it. The biggest shift of my life is mere moments away, looming over me like an approaching storm as midnight draws closer. My pulse quickens as I brace for the inevitable.

And then-it hits.

A tidal wave of change crashes over me as the clock strikes twelve. The shift is instant, brutal and

all-consuming.

Atlas drops to the ground, his head thrown back in a deafening, primal howl that tears through the night. Fire ignites in my veins, burning through every nerve, searing my muscles, carving me into something more. My bones stretch, my spine shifts, my very structure evolves. I feel my limbs lengthen, every tendon reinforcing itself with an unshakable strength.

We are being reborn.

Power ripples through me, stronger than anything I’ve ever known. I clutch at the earth beneath me, grounding myself as my body transforms, reforging itself into what it was always meant to be.

Minutes pass-or maybe an eternity. The fire in my blood settles, and Atlas rises to his feet,

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towering and powerful. We are more now. Bigger. Stronger. Awakened.

And woth it, I am changed forever.

You have now come of age, Atlas declares, his voice a deep rumble of pride.

I exhale, rolling my shoulders, feeling the new strength coursing through me.

I feel… different.

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Austin, you are now a leader. A warrior. A man of absolute integrity, loyalty, and duty. And all that

remains…

… is our mate, I finish, my heart thudding hard in my chest.

There will be no more distance. No more waiting. Tonight, she is ours. And the biggest change of all is

still to come.

More change? I ask warily.

Atlas only chuckles, dark and knowing.

You will find out soon enough.

Then, he retreats into the recesses of my mind as my body shifts back into human form.

I stand there, naked, beneath the vast twilight sky, my breath ragged, my heart hammering. The pull of the bond tightening around me like an unrelenting chain, dragging my attention upward.

And then I sense her.

Ella.

I know she’s there-perched on the flat rooftop by the relay. Her scent, sweet and floral, drifts on the breeze, wrapping around me, teasing me, calling me.

Why isn’t she asleep? Did she feel it too? Did she sense the shift the moment I came of age?

It doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters.

Because in twenty hours, I will stand before her. I will tell her that I am hers-body, soul, everything. And I will pray to the depths of my being that she will be mine.

For now, exhaustion crashes over me. I pull on my clothes with shaky hands, my body aching from the transformation, my mind raw from the weight of what’s to come.

I barely make it to my room before collapsing onto my bed, face-first, slipping instantly into the deepest sleep of my life.

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And when I wake…everything will be different.

+25 Pointe

***Ella***

I can’t sleep.

It is almost midnight, and I am still laying here awake, my mind racing and going over what the next twenty-four hours would bring.

Freya had told me shortly before we went to bed that her mum wanted to take the two of us out tomorrow during the day since ‘the lads have a lot of work to do’. I needed to sleep, or I’d be too tired by tomorrow evening…unless the sun was out, perhaps.

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