Sophie's POV
Her mom lied.
That was the first thing Sophie thought when Helen Wells walked through the apartment door at dawn with red eyes and shaking hands and a face that looked ten years older than it had at the birthday dinner last night.
Not confused. Not worried. Not coming to help.
Guilty.
Sophie was sitting on the couch with Grace's blanket around her shoulders and three cold cups of tea on the table that neither of them had drunk. Grace was in the kitchen pretending not to listen. Sophie watched her mother close the door, scan the apartment, and then look at her daughter with the expression of someone about to confess something they'd been holding for twenty-one years.
Sophie spoke first. "Start talking."
Her mother sat down across from her and pressed both hands flat against her knees to stop them from trembling. It didn't work. "Sophie, I need you to stay calm."
"Mom." Sophie's voice came out very quiet. "My bones moved last night. My eyes turned gold. I heard howling from three different directions at two in the morning and I felt it in my chest like someone was pulling strings attached to my heart. I am way past calm. Start talking."
Helen closed her eyes. One breath in. One breath out.
Then she said it. "You're a werewolf."
The kitchen went completely silent. Sophie heard Grace stop moving.
"Specifically," her mother continued, "you're an omega. The rarest kind. We hid it from you your entire life. Your father and I made that choice the day we found you and we never stopped believing it was the right one." Helen opened her eyes and they were full of tears that hadn't fallen yet. "Until last night."
Sophie stared at her. The woman who taught her to read. Who drove her to school every morning. Who made chicken soup every time Sophie got sick and stayed up late helping with homework and cried at her high school graduation. This woman was sitting across from her telling her that twenty-one years of her life had been built on a secret.
"You found me." Sophie repeated the two words slowly. "What does that mean, you found me."
Helen's hands pressed harder against her knees. "You were left at the edge of the forest. You were four days old. Wrapped in a cloth with nothing except a small mark behind your left ear." She reached forward and gently touched the spot just behind Sophie's ear. Sophie had always thought it was a birthmark. A small crescent shape. Brown against her skin. "Your birth mother was an omega. A very powerful one. She left you with us because she was being hunted and she couldn't keep you safe."
The blanket felt suddenly too warm but Sophie didn't move. "Hunted."
"Omegas are rare." Helen's voice dropped even lower. "When one awakens, every pack in the territory feels it. They come. They claim. An omega has no choice in that world. Your birth mother chose to give you a different life rather than watch you become property."
Sophie thought about the howling she'd heard three hours ago. The three separate threads of heat still glowing faintly inside her chest even now. She pressed her hand flat against her sternum.
"How long do I have before they find me."
Helen's face tightened. "Less time than I'd like."
"How long Mom."
"By tonight your scent will have traveled far enough for the nearest pack to trace it. By tomorrow night all three pack territories will have felt the pull." She paused. "And Sophie, it's not just one pack this time. There are three territories surrounding Clearwater. The Cascade Pack to the north. The Crimson Pack to the east. Silverwood to the west."
Three packs. Three separate threads of heat in Sophie's chest. Sophie thought about that for one long moment and her stomach dropped straight through the floor.
"The howling last night." Sophie said it quietly. "That was already them."
Her mother said nothing. Which was its own kind of answer.
Grace appeared in the kitchen doorway. She'd clearly given up pretending not to listen about ten minutes ago. "Okay. Wait." She held up one hand. "So Sophie is a werewolf. And werewolf men from three different places are already hunting for her. And we have until tonight to do what exactly."
Helen looked at Grace with an expression that was almost apologetic. "That's why I came."
She reached into her bag and pulled out a small wooden box. Old. The wood was dark with age and the edges were worn smooth. She set it on the table between them and didn't open it.
"I need to tell you something about your father."
Sophie went still. "What about Dad."
Helen opened the box. Inside was a folded piece of paper, a photograph, and a ring. The ring was silver with a small stone in it that caught the early morning light and threw small flecks of color across the ceiling. Helen picked up the photograph and held it out.
Sophie took it.
The man in the photograph was tall with dark eyes and a serious face. He was standing at the edge of a forest with three other men. All four of them had the same straight posture and watchful eyes. The kind of men who always seemed to be waiting for something.
"Your father," Helen said carefully, "is not fully human."
Sophie looked up from the photograph.
Her mother's voice didn't waver this time. "David is a retired pack wolf. He left his pack before you were born. He gave up his alpha standing to live quietly with me. We built a human life intentionally. We chose it completely. But his blood is in you too and that is part of why you're what you are." Helen touched the ring in the box but didn't pick it up. "He's on his way here. He'll explain the rest. But Sophie, I need you to understand something before he arrives."
Sophie was still holding the photograph. Her hands were very steady considering everything inside her felt like it was falling. "What."
"The three alphas who will come for you." Helen met her daughter's eyes. "They're not regular wolves. Each one leads a full pack territory. Hundreds of wolves answering to one man. The reason an omega causes this much reaction is because a fated bond doesn't ask permission. It just happens. And when those three men feel you through the bond tonight, nothing in this world will stop them from coming."
Sophie set the photograph down on the table. She looked at her mother. At Grace standing in the doorway with wide eyes. At the wooden box with the old ring and the folded paper.
"You said three alphas." She heard her own voice come out flat and careful. "Each one leading their own pack."
Helen nodded.
"And they'll all feel the same bond at the same time."
Her mother's face went through something complicated. "Yes. Which is why this situation is unlike anything the pack world has seen in two hundred years. One omega bonding with three separate alphas simultaneously is not supposed to be possible." She stopped. "It's also not supposed to be survivable. The pull between three competing bonds can tear an omega apart if she's not strong enough to hold them."
The apartment was very quiet.
Sophie sat with that information for ten seconds. Then she said, "And you think I'm strong enough."
Helen looked at her daughter for a long moment. The tears she'd been holding finally fell. "I think you're something the pack world has never seen before. And I think that terrifies every powerful man in three territories." She reached forward and took Sophie's hand in both of hers. "But yes. I think you're strong enough. I've always known you were."
Sophie squeezed her mother's hand once.
Then the front door of the apartment opened.
Her father walked in.
David Wells was a quiet man. He fixed things around the house and made pancakes on Sundays and never raised his voice. Sophie had known him her entire life as the gentlest person she'd ever met.
But the man who walked through the door right now moved differently. His shoulders were back. His eyes were scanning the room. He looked at Sophie and something in his face shifted in a way she'd never seen before.
He looked afraid.
Not of her. For her.
He crossed the room and pulled her into a hug that was tighter than any hug she could remember from him. He held on for a long moment.
Then he let go and held her face in his hands and looked at her with the eyes of a man who had spent twenty-one years hoping this moment would never come.
"They already know," he said. Not to Helen. To Sophie. "I drove past the edge of the forest on the way here."
Sophie's chest went cold. "How close."
Her father's jaw tightened. "The Silverwood alpha crossed the territory border an hour ago. He's moving fast." He looked at his wife. "Helen, we're out of time."
Outside the apartment window, somewhere in the distance, a howl cut through the morning air.
Closer than last night. Much closer.
And this time, Sophie felt it like a hand closing around her heart.