I woke to the sound of my daughter crying and the smell of something wrong.
Not dangerous. Just wrong. The air in the safe house carried a faint metallic edge that hadn't been there when I fell asleep, and my body registered it before my mind could catch up. I sat up too fast, felt the pull in my abdomen, and ignored it.
She was hungry. That was all. I lifted her from the crib and carried her to the kitchen, where Damon had left another bottle warming in a bowl of hot water. The routine was becoming familiar. Feed her. Burp her. Change her. Count her breaths until she settled.
But when I picked up the bottle, I stopped.
The scent hit me like a wall. Wolfsbane. Faint, barely there, but unmistakable. I set the bottle down and stepped back, my daughter against my chest, my heart suddenly loud in my ears.
Damon appeared in the doorway within seconds. He must have heard my breathing change.
"What is it?"
I pointed at the bottle. "Wolfsbane."
He crossed the room in two strides, picked up the bottle, and sniffed. His expression didn't change, but I saw his shoulders tighten.
"There's nothing in this," he said carefully.
"I can smell it."
"Aileen—"
"I can smell it, Damon."
He set the bottle down and looked at me. Really looked. The warrior's assessment was back, but this time it was different. This time he was seeing something he recognized.
"The kit," he said. "Under the sink. Get it."
I shifted my daughter to one arm and pulled out the wolfsbane-detection kit with the other. It was a standard pack safety measure—chemical strips that changed color in the presence of toxins. I'd never used one before. I didn't need to. I already knew.
Damon took the kit from me, opened it, and dipped one of the strips into the formula.
It stayed white.
We both stared at it.
"There's no wolfsbane in this bottle," he said quietly.
I looked at the strip. Then at the bottle. Then at Damon.
"I smelled it," I said.
He didn't argue. He just nodded slowly, like I'd confirmed something he'd been waiting for.
"What's happening to me?"
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "Wait here."
He left the room. I heard him on the phone again, his voice too low to make out the words. My daughter started fussing against my shoulder. I swayed, automatic, and pressed my thumb to my neck. The skin was still bare. Still cold.
But something else was happening. I could feel it in my bones—a deep ache that had started two days ago and hadn't stopped. Like my skeleton was too small. Like something inside me was trying to grow and couldn't.
Damon came back with a fresh bottle from a sealed container he'd pulled from the back of the fridge. He tested it with the strip first. White. Then he handed it to me.
"Feed her," he said. "Then we need to talk."
I fed her. She drank without complaint, her small hand curled against the bottle. When she was done, I burped her and laid her back in the crib. She was asleep before I left the room.
Damon was waiting in the kitchen. He'd made coffee. Two mugs, both black. He slid one across the counter toward me.
"You're changing," he said.
I wrapped my hands around the mug. The heat felt good. Grounding.
"Into what?"
"I don't know yet." He paused. "But your senses are sharper than they should be. You're smelling things a normal she-wolf wouldn't catch. And the way you're moving—" He stopped.
"What?"
"You're favoring your left side. Your ribs. Like something's shifting underneath."
I pressed my hand against my ribs without thinking. He was right. There was a tenderness there that felt like bruising, but deeper. Internal.
"My wolf's gone," I said. "She's been silent since the rejection. There's nothing left to shift."
"Maybe," Damon said. "Or maybe what's coming isn't what was there before."
I stared at him.
He took a breath. "There's something you need to know about our mother."
Our mother. The words felt strange. I'd spent my whole life not knowing her, not knowing I had a brother, not knowing any of this.
"She was Lycan," he said. "Royal bloodline. Silvercrest. She fled the court before you were born. Our father—" He paused. "The Lycan King. He's been searching for you for years."
The mug was warm in my hands. I focused on that. On the heat. On the ceramic edge pressing into my palms.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you weren't ready," he said simply. "And because I didn't know if it would matter. Some bloodlines stay dormant forever. Some never wake up at all."
"But mine is."
"Yes."
I set the mug down. My hands were shaking.
"What does that mean?"
"It means," Damon said slowly, "that when you shift—if you shift—it won't be a normal wolf. It'll be something bigger. Something the Ironridge Pack has never seen."
I thought about the ache in my bones. The sharpening senses. The scent of wolfsbane in a bottle that had none.
"When?" I asked.
"I don't know. Trauma can trigger it. Or proximity to other Lycans. Or—" He stopped.
"Or what?"
"Or the right kind of threat."
We sat in silence. Outside, I heard the Silvercrest patrol change shifts. I knew their voices now, even without seeing them. Knew who was anxious and who was calm. Knew the sound of their boots on gravel and the way they moved around the perimeter.
I shouldn't have been able to know any of that.
"There's something else," Damon said.
I looked up.
He pulled out a tablet and set it on the counter between us. The screen showed financial records—columns of numbers, dates, transfer codes.
"Skye's been embezzling from Ironridge for years," he said. "Pack funds, trade agreements, resource allocations. She built an entire shadow network. Wesley had no idea."
I scanned the records. The amounts were staggering.
"Why are you showing me this?"
"Because," Damon said, "she wasn't just waiting for Wesley to choose her. She was making sure she'd have power whether he did or not."
I thought about the white roses. The Luna Ceremony. Skye's triumphant howl through the mind-link.
"She's dangerous," I said.
"Yes."
"And she knows I'm alive."
"Yes."
I looked at the closed door of the bedroom where my daughter slept. The ache in my ribs deepened.
"What do we do?"
Damon's expression was steady. "We wait. The Luna Ceremony is in two days. Our father will be there. And when the time comes—" He paused. "You'll know."
I pressed my thumb to my neck again. The bare skin. The empty mark.
Something was growing inside me. Something silver and cold and waiting.
I just didn't know what it would cost to let it out.
