~Ella Windsor POV~
Year: 1999. Location: Crownstone City.
I remember the sound first, not a howl, not thunder, it was the thin, ugly squeal of our office fax machine spitting out paper that smelled like warm plastic and old toner. That was the sound that changed my life.
I was sweeping the back hall of Ma'am Emilie's martial supply store when the fax shrieked. We hardly used it. Everyone said email was the future, but our dial‑up line screamed louder than wolves in rut, so Ma'am still trusted paper. I set the broom aside, wiped dust on my jeans, and went to look.
The sheet curled out slow... red wax print. A crest I knew from bedtime stories: Moonsteel Sword over a split full moon. My dead mother's clan mark.
My hands shook, as the page was half glyphs, half English, dated July 3, 1999. At the bottom, in block type:
SUMMONING OF BLOOD DAUGHTER: ELLA WINDSOR.
ACTIVATION OF TRI‑PACK BOND ACCORD, 20TH YEAR.
ALPHAS PRESENT: LEONARD DE SANTOS (URBAN), EDWARD (RIDGE), MARKUS (UNCLAIMED).
I did not breathe, I did not blink, I just read it three times.
Meanwhile, I was nineteen, not twenty! Meaning... someone counted wrong. Or the law counted conception, not birth, pack law loved strange math though.
"Ma'am?" I called, my voice broke. "You need to see this."
She came out wiping her hands on a cloth that used to be white, her hair was wrapped in a scarf, tight coil at the nape. She took one glance and sat down hard on the packing crate.
"So they found you," she said.
"Found me? You hid me!"
"I hid you from people who would use you, not from your blood." She looked up, and her eyes were wet but clear. "Listen well, child. Your mother signed a three‑Way Blade Accord before you were born. Our Moonsteel line forges the only blades that can cut spirit hide without silver burn, and three packs wanted alliance, so she proposed a bond through her first daughter."
"Bond? Like trade?"
Ma'am shook her head. "Mate bond! Something like chosen. Not forced, but... arranged. You would meet all three heirs when you came of age and your wolf would decide. The others would still hold treaty with you as Blade Sister."
"Three alphas?" I laughed, sharp. "That was a joke, right?"
"Your mother was never a funny woman."
The fax fluttered in the warm fan air: ALPHAS PRESENT; Three names. I stared at them.
Leonard De Santos, The urban pack head, Crownstone Empire security division, rumored to own half the river docks. Edward Moon, Mountain ridge pack, steel miners, old blood, strict Moon rites.
Markus, no surname, unclaimed, rogue line, and I had only heard that name in the wild rumors younger wolves tell to scare each other.
The fax number printed at the bottom of the page was real, and I punched it into the store phone with my thumb. Dial‑up static, clicks, then a voice like cold espresso.
"De Santos Holdings."
"I need to speak with Leonard," I said.
Pause. "Who is calling?"
"Ella Windsor, blood daughter of...." I could not finish.
The line changed tone, a deeper male voice came on fast. "Ella? You're early."
"The Accord summons me at twenty, but I am nineteen right now."
"Conception count, your mother set it that way to keep you safe. It shortened the hunt." His laugh was soft, close to my ear, even through the line. "I am in Crownstone Tower until sundown. Come, and we will talk without the mountain wolf."
"And Markus?" I asked.
"If the rogue shows, he dies." The line went dead.
I stared at the receiver, my wolf...quiet all my life...lifted her head in the dark corner of my mind and growled.
Suddenly, Sara burst through the back door right then, arms full of practice staffs. She saw my face and dropped everything.
"Who died?" she asked.
"Maybe me."
I showed her the fax and she read fast, lips moving.
"Three mates?" She whistled. "Girl, you will not survive one! Leonard De Santos eats girls like candy. Edward will make you pray to the moon six times a day. And Markus... no one has even seen Markus and come back happy."
"You forgot the part where I get to choose," I said.
"Do you? Do you really?" She jabbed my arm. "Run away with me! Vegas has clubs, nobody shifts under strobe lights."
I smiled but did not answer, as the wolf inside me paced. That night, after we closed, Ma'am Emilie dragged an old pine crate from storage, it was sealed with iron nails shaped like crescent moons and she pried them out with a screwdriver, cursing under her breath.
Inside lay a wrapped bundle, oil‑cloth gone stiff with time, she unfolded layer after layer until moonlight hit polished steel.
The sword was long, single edged, with a spine of black meteoric iron and a river‑silver edge. The guard was carved like a howling wolf biting the moon, and the runes ran the fuller. I touched them and felt heat.
"Moon-steel," Ma'am said. "Your mother's. When you first bleed on it, it sings to your wolf, that is why we waited."
"If I bleed, the Accord locks?" I asked.
"It wakes the bond sense and you will smell them, know them." Her mouth twisted. "They will know you too."
I thought of Leonard's voice, of Edward, whom I had never heard, and of Markus, whose name looked wrong in print.
"What if I refuse?" I asked.
"Then three packs may go to war over you, over the blades, and over old insults." She closed my fingers over the hilt. "Better you choose than be fought over."
I took the sword upstairs to my small room above the shop. Posters of rock bands, a cracked CRT TV, a stack of floppy disks with my half‑written college essays...my human life stared back at me while I held a weapon from a hidden war.
The moon outside the window was just past full, silver light painted the blade.
"If I am a wolf," I whispered, "show me."
I drew the edge across my palm, not deep, but enough.
Blood welled, bright, it slid along the rune line and flared like molten wire. The room filled with a scent blast that hit like lightning....cedar smoke, hot metal, and city rain...and layered under it, cold stone, pine sap, and high air... thin but sharp, wild pepper and burned sugar.
Three scents! Three alphas! My knees buckled, and my wolf roared awake.
The blade light washed the room white, in that glare I saw three flashes.
Cedar smoke & city rain: Leonard standing on a rooftop helipad, suit jacket off, throat bared, eyes gold.
Pine & high air: Edward at a mountain altar, blood on snow, moon behind him like a crown.
Pepper & burnt sugar: A shadowed man in a long coat, hands in pockets, street dogs circling. He turned, one eye pale. Markus.
Their voices overlapped.
"Claim you!"
"Keep you!"
"Free you!"
The sword rang like struck bell metal, my window blew open though the night was still.
Instantly, a car engine roared in the alley, another from the street. Tires, then doors slam.
Below, Ma'am shouted, "Ella! The city wolf is here...and the mountain truck!" Her voice rose. "There is a third....I don't know..."
Three howls cut the air at once, and one smooth and rich, one deep and old. the other broken and wild.
My palm burned, and the sword lifted in my grip like it weighed nothing.
"Choose," my wolf said.
The lights in the whole block went out. 1999's last summer storm cracked open the sky, and in the lightning I saw three shadows stepping through my door.