Daniel’s hands trembled as he whispered, “I don’t know who you are.”

The words were not meant to wound his mother's heart or cause her pain, but they tore through the air like knives. He had spoken them to his mother, the woman who had raised him, the only person he thought he understood. Yet what he had just witnessed—her shifting, her power, the unearthly presence that radiated from her—was something that defied his entire reality.

His throat burned as he tried to swallow the ...