Chapter 7

I shifted before Sienna finished the sentence.

The wolf tore through me like a fist through wet paper. Bones cracked, reformed. My father's jacket split at the seams. The alley tilted sideways as my perspective dropped to all fours, and the scents hit me—Dominic's fear-sweat, Sienna's lavender perfume masking something darker, and underneath it all, the copper tang of my own rage.

Sienna didn't flinch. "There she is."

Dominic stepped between us. Stupid. Protective. "Maya, listen—"

I lunged.

He caught my front paws, barely, his hands wrapping around fur and muscle as my momentum drove him back into the brick wall. His head cracked against it. Good. I wanted him to hurt. Wanted him to bleed the way I was bleeding inside, wanted—

"Your mother's journal," Sienna said. "Page forty-seven. The entry from three days before she died."

My jaws were an inch from Dominic's throat. His pulse hammered against my nose, rabbit-fast. He wasn't fighting back. Just holding me, his fingers digging into my shoulders, his eyes locked on mine.

"Maya." His voice was steady. Calm. Like he was talking to a spooked horse instead of a wolf who could rip his windpipe out. "I know you don't remember. But we need to find out what happened."

I didn't remember. That was the problem, wasn't it? Three days of my life, gone. The days leading up to my mother's death, just—blank. I'd always assumed it was trauma. Shock. The mind's way of protecting itself from horror.

What if it was guilt?

I shifted back. The change hurt worse in reverse, like my body was punishing me for the interruption. I ended up on my knees in the alley, naked except for the shredded remains of my jeans, my father's jacket in tatters around me.

Dominic shrugged out of his coat. Draped it over my shoulders without a word.

"I didn't kill her," I said. My voice came out raw. "I wouldn't. I couldn't."

"Then prove it." Sienna was already walking. "Your father's waiting."

---

The address Marcus sent was a storage facility off Route 9, the kind with orange doors and security cameras that hadn't worked since 2015. Sienna's car—a black Lexus that smelled like sage and something chemical I couldn't place—idled in the parking lot while I stared at unit 237.

"This is a trap," Dominic said. He hadn't looked at me since the alley. "Obviously."

"Obviously," Sienna agreed. "But we're going in anyway."

"Why?" I pulled his coat tighter. It smelled like him. Cedar and old books and something underneath that made my wolf want to surface again, want to mark him, claim him, which was insane because I'd just tried to kill him. "If my father wanted to help, he could've done it six years ago. Before Mom died. Before—"

"Before he sold you out?" Sienna's eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. "Yes, dear. That does seem like a pattern with the men in your life, doesn't it?"

Dominic's face hardened. "I was trying to protect her."

"By lying?"

"By not destroying what little faith she had left in her family." He turned to face me, and something in his expression made my chest ache. "Your father was a hero to you. The man who taught you to fight, who told you stories about the old packs, who—"

"Who got my mother killed." The words tasted like ash. "Right? That's what you're saying. That he set us up. That he—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't make myself say it out loud.

Sienna killed the engine. "The storage unit is warded. I can feel it from here. Whoever set this up knew what they were doing."

"Witch wards?" I asked.

"No." She frowned. "Something older. Pack magic, maybe. The kind that died out with the old bloodlines."

My mother's bloodline. The Castellanos line, pure back seven generations, strong enough that other packs had wanted to breed it into their own families. Strong enough that when she'd chosen my father—a nobody from a nothing pack in Nevada—it had caused a minor scandal.

Strong enough to kill?

I got out of the car. Dominic followed, his hand hovering near the small of my back but not quite touching. Like he wanted to but didn't think he had the right anymore.

He didn't.

The storage unit's lock was already open. Inside, the space was bigger than it should've been—magic, stretching the dimensions, making room for the impossible. Boxes lined the walls. A folding table sat in the center, and on it—

My mother's journal. The leather cover was cracked, water-stained, the pages yellowed with age. I'd looked for this after she died. Torn the house apart. My father said it was lost in the attack.

Another lie.

"Page forty-seven," Sienna said softly.

I didn't want to open it. Didn't want to see my mother's handwriting, the careful loops and precise letters that I'd spent hours trying to copy as a kid. Didn't want to know what she'd written three days before someone—

Before I—

No.

I opened the journal.

---

The wolf is getting stronger. Maya doesn't remember the shifts anymore, doesn't remember what she does when she's changed. Last night I found her in the woods, covered in blood. Deer, thank god. Just deer. But the way she looked at me—like she didn't know me. Like I was prey.

Marcus says it's normal. That she's young, that control comes with time. But I've seen young wolves before. I've trained them. This is different. This is—

I'm afraid of my own daughter. God help me, I'm afraid.

The words blurred. I blinked, and something wet hit the page.

"Keep reading," Sienna said.

I found the research Marcus has been hiding. The experiments. He's been dosing her with something, trying to force the bloodline to manifest stronger, faster. He says it's for her protection. That the other packs are circling, that they'll come for her if she's not strong enough to defend herself.

But I think he's making it worse. I think whatever he's giving her is breaking something inside her wolf. Making her—

I have to stop him. I have to—

The entry ended there. The next page was torn out, ragged edges still clinging to the binding.

"Where's the rest?" My voice didn't sound like mine.

"Your father has it." Dominic was reading over my shoulder, his breath warm against my neck. "Or whoever he's working with does."

"He was experimenting on me." The words came out flat. Dead. "He was—what? Trying to make me stronger? Trying to—"

"Trying to create a weapon," Sienna said. "The old bloodlines had abilities the modern packs lost. Healing. Compulsion. Some could even—"

"Kill with a thought," I finished. My grandmother's stories. Bedtime tales about the ancient wolves who could stop a heart with their will alone, who could make enemies tear out their own throats. I'd thought they were just stories.

What if they weren't?

What if my father had tried to force those abilities to surface?

What if it had worked?

"I need to see him," I said. "I need to—"

The lights went out.

Not gradually. Not flickering. Just—gone, like someone had flipped a switch on the world. The storage unit plunged into darkness so complete I couldn't see my own hands.

"Sienna?" Dominic's voice, sharp with alarm.

"Not me." Her voice came from the wrong direction. Too far left. "The wards just activated. Someone's—"

The door slammed shut.

I shifted on instinct, the wolf surging up faster than thought. My vision adjusted, the darkness resolving into shades of gray. Dominic was a warm shape beside me, his heartbeat too fast. Sienna was—

Gone.

"Where is she?" Dominic's hand found my fur, tangled in it. "Maya, where—"

A voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Male. Familiar in a way that made my wolf want to whimper and hide.

"Hello, little moon."

My father.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way," Marcus continued. His voice echoed off the walls, distorted by magic or distance or both. "But you need to understand. Everything I did, I did for you. To protect you. To make you strong enough to survive what's coming."

Dominic pulled a lighter from his pocket. The flame cast wild shadows, turned his face into a stranger's. "Show yourself."

"I can't. Not yet. Not until she remembers."

"Remembers what?" I shifted back, my voice cracking. "What did you do to me?"

"What I had to." My father's voice softened. "Your mother didn't understand. She thought I was hurting you, but I was saving you. The other packs, they were coming. They wanted the bloodline. Wanted to breed you like livestock, or kill you to keep the power from spreading. I had to make you strong enough to fight them."

"By experimenting on me?" The rage was building again, hot and sharp. "By turning me into—what? A monster?"

"A survivor." Pause. "But something went wrong. The night your mother died, you shifted. You didn't remember it after, didn't remember what you'd done, but I saw. I saw you—"

"No." Dominic's voice cut through. "That's not possible. I have proof. Documents. Recordings of my father confessing—"

"Forged," Marcus said. "All of it. I needed you to believe it was him. Needed you to protect Maya, to keep her safe while I figured out how to fix what I'd broken. But now—" His voice changed, went cold. "Now she needs to know the truth. Needs to remember what she is."

The temperature dropped. My breath misted in the air, and the shadows in the corners of the storage unit began to move.

Not shadows.

Wolves.

They materialized out of the darkness, six of them, their eyes reflecting the lighter's flame. Too big to be natural. Too still to be alive.

"What the fuck?" Dominic breathed.

"Memory constructs," Sienna's voice came from behind us. She was back, somehow, her hands already moving in complex patterns. "He's pulling them from Maya's subconscious. Showing her what she doesn't want to see."

The wolves circled. One of them—the largest, with a white blaze across its muzzle—stepped forward. Its eyes were my mother's eyes. Brown. Warm. Terrified.

"No," I whispered. "No, I didn't—"

The wolf lunged.

I met it head-on, shifting mid-leap, and the impact drove us both into the wall. We rolled, snapping and snarling, and I could taste blood—mine or hers or the memory of both. She was fast, faster than she should've been, and strong, and—

And she wasn't fighting back.

She was just—defending. Blocking. Trying to get away.

Like prey.

Like I was the predator.

"Maya, stop!" Dominic's voice, distant. "It's not real. It's just—"

But it felt real. The fur under my claws felt real. The blood felt real. And when my jaws closed around her throat, when I felt the pulse flutter and fade, when—

The memory slammed into me like a freight train.

---

I was fourteen. The shift had come on fast, too fast, and I couldn't control it. Couldn't think past the hunger, the rage, the need to hunt. My mother found me in the woods. Tried to calm me down. Tried to—

She ran.

And I chased.

Because that's what predators do.

I shifted back, gasping, my hands slick with blood that wasn't there. The memory-wolf was gone. They were all gone. Just me and Dominic and Sienna in a storage unit that suddenly felt too small, too close, too—

"I killed her," I said. The words came out broken. "I killed my own mother."

"No." Dominic's hands were on my shoulders, turning me to face him. "Maya, listen to me. That's what he wants you to believe. That's what he's been making you believe for six years. But it's not—"

"I remember it." I shoved him away. "I remember her eyes. I remember the way she—"

"Memories can be implanted," Sienna said. She was pale, shaking. "With the right magic, the right drugs, you can make someone remember anything. Make them believe they did things they never—"

"Then why does it feel so real?" I was screaming now, my voice echoing off the walls. "Why can I taste her blood? Why can I—"

The door opened.

A man stood in the entrance, backlit by the parking lot lights. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Familiar in every line and angle.

My father.

He looked older. Grayer. There was a scar across his left cheek that hadn't been there before, and his eyes—

His eyes were sorry.

"Because I made you remember it," Marcus said quietly. "Because I needed you to believe you were a monster. Needed you to hate yourself enough that you'd never question what really happened that night."

Dominic moved, fast, putting himself between me and my father. "Stay back."

"I'm not here to hurt her." Marcus's gaze shifted to me. "I'm here to tell her the truth. The real truth, not the one I've been feeding her for six years."

"Which is?" My voice was steady. Cold. The wolf was quiet inside me, waiting.

"Your mother didn't die because you lost control." Marcus stepped into the storage unit, and I saw he was holding something. A file folder. Thick. "She died because she found out what I was really doing. What the experiments were really for. And she was going to expose me. Expose all of us."

"Us?" Sienna's voice was sharp.

"The Council." Marcus opened the folder. Inside were photographs. Documents. Emails. "The pack leaders who've been trying to resurrect the old bloodlines. Who've been experimenting on their own children, trying to force the ancient abilities to manifest. Your mother was going to go public. Was going to—"

"So you killed her." The words came out flat. "You killed her and made me think I did it."

"No." Marcus's voice cracked. "I didn't kill her. But I know who did. And I know why. And I know—" He looked at Dominic. "I know your father was part of it. Know he helped cover it up. Know he—"

Dominic lunged.

He moved faster than I'd ever seen him move, faster than should've been possible for someone who wasn't a wolf. His fist connected with Marcus's jaw, and my father went down hard, the folder scattering across the floor.

"You're lying," Dominic snarled. "My father would never—"

"Your father was the one who gave the order." Marcus spat blood. "He was the one who decided Elena Castellanos was too dangerous to live. Who decided that her daughter needed to be broken, controlled, turned into a weapon they could use. And when I refused—" He laughed, bitter. "When I tried to protect Maya, they threatened to kill her. Said if I didn't help them, didn't make her believe she was a monster, they'd hunt her down and—"

A gunshot cracked through the air.

Marcus jerked. Looked down. There was a hole in his chest, right over his heart, and blood was spreading across his shirt in a dark bloom.

He fell.

I spun. Sienna was standing in the doorway, a gun in her hand, her expression calm.

"I'm sorry, dear," she said. "But we can't have him telling you everything. Not yet. Not until—"

Dominic hit her. The gun went flying, and they went down in a tangle of limbs. I ran to my father, dropped to my knees beside him, pressed my hands against the wound even though I could already smell death on him.

"Maya." His voice was fading. "The folder. Page—page twelve. It'll tell you—"

"Don't talk." My hands were shaking. "Just—don't—"

"I'm sorry." His hand found mine, squeezed weakly. "I'm so sorry. I thought I was protecting you. Thought if I made you believe you were broken, you'd never—" He coughed, and blood flecked his lips. "You were never broken. You were perfect. You were—"

His eyes went empty.

I knelt there, my father's blood soaking into Dominic's coat, and felt something inside me crack. Not break. Crack. Like ice under pressure, spreading fractures that would eventually shatter everything.

Behind me, Dominic and Sienna were still fighting. I could hear them, could hear Sienna's honeyed voice saying something about orders and necessity and the greater good.

I reached for the folder. Found page twelve.

It was a photograph. My mother. My father. And a third person, standing between them, smiling.

Dominic's father.

And written across the bottom, in my mother's handwriting: The Council. The ones who want to control the bloodlines. The ones who'll kill anyone who stands in their way.

Below that, a list of names. Pack leaders. Alphas. People I'd heard of, people I'd trusted.

And at the bottom, circled three times: Sienna Castellanos.

I looked up. Sienna had Dominic pinned, her hand around his throat, and she was looking at me with something like pity in her eyes.

"I really am sorry, dear," she said. "But you were never supposed to find that page. You were never supposed to—"

I shifted.

The wolf tore through me, and this time I didn't try to control it. Didn't try to hold back. I let it have everything—the rage, the grief, the betrayal—and I lunged.

Sienna moved, fast, but not fast enough. My jaws closed around her wrist, and I heard bones crack. She screamed, and the sound was—