•Amara's POV
When I went to pick up Milo from school that afternoon I got a shocker.
My heart raced as his teacher told me that Milo had spoken a strange language.
"Well, it wasn't English. It sounded almost like Latin, but different," he explained.
My blood had congealed.
The old tongue-Milo must have been speaking the old tongue.
I had composed myself and quickly told him Milo must have picked it up in TV.
And I had excused myself and Milo when he had tried to argue and pry more.
Milo bounced around me all the way to the car, unaware of what was happening.
His Alpha bloodline was awakening and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
My enhanced senses picked up something as we left the school parking lot.
It was something that caused my wolf to stir for the first time in six years.
It was the smell of death and decay mixed with something ancient and unnatural.
It was the scent of predators.
"Mommy, you okay?" Milo asked from his car seat. "You look really worried."
I forced a smile.
"I'm fine, baby."
But I wasn't fine.
In my rearview mirror, I caught sight of a black SUV that had been following us.
I had noticed it for three days now.
This time, I got a clear look at the driver's eyes through his sunglasses.
It was an naturally bright silver.
My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I realized we were being hunted.
And that night, everything fell apart.
I was washing the dishes when I heard Milo crying from his bedroom.
It was not his usual tired whimper but a sound of pain that had me racing.
I found him thrashing in his bed and his small body moving restlessly.
"Milo," I said as I reached out to shake him and instantly jerked it back.
He was burning up with a fever that it almost hurt to even touch him.
His eyes flew open.
But instead of the normal bright green, they were glowing a pure Alpha gold.
"Mom," he whimpered.
But his voice sounded strange.
It sounded older.
"The shadows are calling," he told me. "I know they want me to come home."
My eyes widened and my blood froze, for he was speaking the old tongue.
It was the ancient language of our kind, words he had never heard in his life.
"The bloodline calls," he whispered in that ancient voice. "I must return."
Milo fell unconscious as strange glowing runes began appearing on his skin.
Fear gripped me.
I reached out to shake him just as the bedroom window exploded.
Three figures crashed in through the glass, moving with inhuman speed.
I screamed in panic and fear as I realized that these were my species.
There was something wrong with the way they moved, circling I and Milo.
These were wolves with silver eyes and fluid movements as if their joints were bent
And the smelt of rotting flesh and dark magic which filled the room.
"Get away from us!" I screamed.
"The little prince has awakened, what perfect timing," One of them laughed.
I hadn't shifted in five years.
I had buried my wolf so deep I wasn't sure she would answer my call.
But when these things threatened my son's safety, she exploded to the surface.
And she came forth with a fury that left even me completely surprised.
I howled as my bones cracked and moved with the reforming of the shift.
And suddenly I was standing on four legs with my fangs bared, ready to kill.
I was rusty, slower than I used to be, but desperation made me vicious.
The first rogue lunged at Milo and I easily caught the wolf mid-leap.
My teeth sank into his throat.
His blood tasted wrong, tainted with something dark and disgusting.
The second one tried to flank me.
But I spun and caught him with my claws, viciously ripping his chest open.
He fell backwards with wide eyes as black blood began pooling beneath him.
The third rogue was smarter because he stayed back and didn't aproach.
He watched me with those silver eyes.
"You can not stop what is coming," he said in a voice that sounded like an echo.
Then he lunged.
I had expected his attack and was prepared for it as I pushed him to the ground.
I went for the neck and succeeded as he fell to a heap, dying before my eyes.
"The bloodline calls to us. The children will return to their true home," he said.
I shifted back to human form, naked and bloody but not caring.
I grabbed the silver knife I kept hidden in Milo's dresser and lunged forward.
The blade sank into his heart and his eyes went wide with the shock.
"The bloodline calls to us," he whispered for the last time as he finally perished.
But as the life left his eyes, the silver colour was replaced by a solid black.
And underneath his pulsing skin, I could see that something was moving.
It definitely wasn't human.
I pulled the knife out and stepped back from it with my whole body shaking.
What the hell were these things?
Milo was still unconscious and still glowing with all those strange runes.
And I didn't have time to figure it out as more of them might be coming.
I hurriedly put on some clothes.
Then I reached out and grabbed an uncomcoius Milo from the bed.
I strapped him to the unused back carrier as if he weighed absolutely nothing.
It hadn't been used for a while and he had gotten too big for it.
But it would work.
I didn't use the front door and slipped out through the fire escape.
The old survival instincts I had learnt in my first months of self exile kicked in.
I knew every back alley and shadow route to walk the city without being seen.
It took me two hours to reach the cabin, a shelter I had made three years ago.
I had slowly stocked it with emergency supplies-food, clothes, weapons.
It had everything that we might need if we had the need to disappear.
I opened the door and quickly stepped in, shutting the door fight nehind me.
Milo woke up as I was settling him down on the small but soft feather bed.
"Mom?"
His voice was back to normal.
"Where are we?" He demanded as his eyes scanned our surrounding.
"We had to leave, baby. Some bad people were trying to hurt us."
He sat up while rubbing his eyes. Then he looked at his hands and gasped.
His fingernails had extended into small claws, and there was runes on his skin.
Horror filled his eyes as he looked up at me and shirked : "Mom, look at me!"
Byt before I could answer, a howl echoed through the forest outside.
It was long, mournful and definitely not from any normal kind of wolf.
I heard the crunching sound of leaves as they were being crushed under foot.
It was coming from outside our door.
I grabbed my knife and positioned myself between the door and Milo.
Every single maternal muscle in my body was coiled and ready for a fight.
"Stay behind me," I whispered.
We were about to find out whatever awful thing was lurkinh out there.
Or was our nightmare just beginning?
The footsteps stopped just outside our door and I gripped my knife tighter.
I was ready to fight for Milo's life again and again until there was no more threat.
But something happened.
"Amara."
My name.
