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CALLUM

I can tell by the way Vann’s smirking before he even opens his mouth that today’s about to go sideways.

He leans in the doorway of my room like he owns the place, arms crossed and smug as hell. “Father’s got a job for you.”

I don’t look up from the boot I’m lacing. “Let me guess—another late patrol? Cleaning up your half-assed intel?”

“Nope,” he says, grinning. “He wants you to investigate werewolf activity. Southside.”

I pause. “You’re kidding.”

“Oh, I wish I were. He wants you sniffing around that trigger zone—said something about your empathy making you the best candidate.”

I stand slowly, meeting his eyes. “You mean this is punishment.”

“Call it a learning opportunity.”

“I’ll call it bullshit.”

“Whatever you call it, better get moving. Daylight’s burning.” He walks off with that lazy swagger that makes me want to put a fist through drywall.

Elias shows up not five minutes later, already geared up.

“Heard the news,” he says, throwing me an energy bar. “Congrats on being demoted to PEACE lapdog.”

“You don’t have to come,” I mutter.

He shrugs. “Someone’s gotta keep you from throwing Vann into traffic.”

I grin, despite myself. “Tempting, though.”

“Oh, wildly.”

We head out, slipping into the old maintenance tunnels that snake under the city. It's faster than street travel, and most humans avoid them—claim they’re haunted or full of plague rats. Not entirely untrue.

We don’t talk much. The tension’s baked in.

Above us, the world buzzes. Streets, cars, sirens. Down here, it’s just echoes and damp concrete and the occasional shiver of something old brushing against your senses.

“She’s still close,” Elias says after a while. “Whoever she is.”

I nod. I’ve felt it all day—like a wire stretched tight under my skin, humming with a frequency I don’t understand. Something’s pulling me. Not a scent. Not a sound. A presence .

“She’s masking well,” I say. “Better than most rookies.”

“Maybe she’s not new-new.”

“She’s not registered. That makes her rogue.”

“Or smart,” Elias says.

“She was awakened.”

“Still, she could have known beforehand and has been trained.”

“Not with how she changed. If she knew, she would have stayed locked up.”

We surface near the cemetery district, a few blocks from where Devon marked the bloodline alert. I crouch, fingers brushing a smear of dirt across the sidewalk. Scattered footprints. One set barefoot. The other—heavier. Larger.

“Two people,” I murmur.

Elias hums. “Think the second one’s the dad?”

“Possibly. The spacing’s weird though. Not a chase. A meeting.”

We follow the trail around the block. It cuts through a chain-link gap, into the edge of the underpass. The scent’s stronger here—more heat, more blood.

I crouch again and breathe deep.

That’s when it hits me.

Her.

Everything else disappears. The city, the street, Elias, the sound of tires on asphalt above our heads—all of it gone .

Her scent is wildfire and cold steel and the sting of fresh lightning. My mouth goes dry. My pulse spikes.

I stumble back a step.

“Callum?” Elias asks, frowning.

I don’t answer.

Because I feel her.

I feel her.

Every nerve in my body sings with something older and much more stronger than lust. My beast claws up my throat like it’s trying to get out.

Suddenly, there’s movement. I sense it before I see it.

She steps out of the shadowed mouth of the underpass like something half-born of smoke and moonlight. Hoodie up. Face partially hidden. But I see her.

Silver-streaked hair, wild around her shoulders. Lips parted, breath sharp. Her eyes meet mine and time breaks.

There’s a moment—just a second —where I feel it snap into place.

Fated.

I don’t breathe. I don’t move.

Neither does she.

Her gaze catches with intense blue eyes, holds, then flinches away. Not recognition. Not fear. Just... hesitation. Like something in her felt it too but didn’t have the words for it.

Then she bolts.

Fast and clean. Faster than any of us shifters could move. Or any werewolf I’ve had the misfortune of seeing bolt.

Elias curses. “Shit. She saw us.”

“No,” I mutter. “She felt me.”

We race after her, but by the time we reach the mouth of the tunnel, she’s gone. No scent trail. No sound. Just an echo of heartbeats in my skull and a tight ache in my chest that feels like missing someone I haven’t even met yet.

Elias catches up beside me, breathing hard.

“Okay,” he says, wheezing. “So that was different.”

“Yeah.”

“She didn’t look feral.”

“No.”

“She looked like she knew exactly what she was doing.”

“She’s being trained,” I say, mind racing.

He shoots me a look. “You think the father’s prepping her for something?”

“Has to be.”

Elias whistles low. “Damn. She was beautiful, though.”

I give him a sharp glance.

“ Objectively ,” he adds quickly, smirking.

I try to hide the twist in my gut, but I know he sees it. He always does.

“You okay?” he asks.

“No.”

I stare at the shadows where she disappeared.

“I think she’s mine.”

The words fall out of me like a confession I didn’t know I was holding back.

Elias stares at me, his expression shifting—less teasing now. More careful.

He doesn’t speak. Just waits.

“But…” I swallow hard, the weight of it catching in my throat. “How can that be… if she’s one of them ?”

It doesn’t make sense. The bond—the pull—I know what it means. I’ve felt the legends come to life under my skin. There’s no mistaking it.

But she’s a werewolf.

A fucking werewolf .

The kind we’re warned about. The kind who burn hot, fast, and out of control. The kind Mathis says are little more than walking disasters waiting to happen. The kind who gave us all a bad name when the Veil dropped and the world finally saw what monsters could really do.

She didn’t look like a monster.

She looked raw and alive. Terrified and focused , all at once.

She looked like mine .

Elias shifts beside me, rubbing the back of his neck. “Fated bonds don’t lie, man.”

“Yeah, well… maybe this one’s broken.”

He gives me a long look. “You don’t believe that.”

I press my hand to my chest, where my heartbeat hasn’t settled since I saw her. “No,” I admit quietly. “I don’t.”

“But you wish you did,” he says, not unkindly.

I nod once.

Because this can’t be right. It shouldn’t be right. Not when it’s her. Not when the whole damn pack is ready to tear her apart for what she is.

For what she might become.

I’m already halfway gone, chasing the scent of a girl I’m not supposed to want… but somehow, already feel like I can’t live without.