The situation wasn't a case of a battering ex-boyfriend gone mental as Farzan liked to make it out. Benoit had been a hybrid creature—half-human, half-animal—and he had turned Jacks into one as well.

The urge to transform, to roam free, to find higher ground—it flickered inside him at a low burn.

Unleashed from an angry, wound-up place in his gut, a transformation sped through Jacks—spine elongating into a feline curve, limbs drawing into his body, musculature entwining taut, and fur bursting from his skin. Jacks had learned how to do it slowly or how to explode into his cat self when necessary. It was like a thermonuclear reaction with every cell of his body blasting white hot, and then his flesh and bones snapped into shape with an audible, excruciating pop, and a flinty scent filled up his nose.