He smelled her. She knew it the way prey knows predator. His eyes were the color of tarnished coins.
Liya had always hated her feet. Not because they were ugly—they were perfectly fine, if a little small—but because of what they did every night. As soon as the moon rose and the last light bled from the sky, her skin would ripple, shimmer, and turn into liquid silver. Not fake, painted silver. Real. Metal that flowed like mercury, cool and heavy, leaving perfect mirror prints in the dust of her bedroom floor. liya silver feet
The man smiled, showing teeth that were also silver. He smelled her
Liya didn’t laugh. Werewolves got to turn into something powerful. She just got stuck with feet that couldn’t feel grass, couldn’t feel warmth, couldn’t feel anything except the strange, magnetic pull of the earth beneath her. As if the planet wanted to claim her. Liya had always hated her feet
“You’ve been hiding,” he said, his voice soft as rust.
She was fourteen when it started. Now, at seventeen, she had learned to walk silently, to wear thick socks even in summer, to never, ever kick off her blankets in her sleep. The one time she had, she woke to find her little brother’s toy car fused into a grotesque silver lump where her heel had pressed against it overnight.