Sage's POV
The blood hit the floor before I saw the wolf.
I froze mid-swipe, the industrial mop suspended in my hands like I'd forgotten how to move. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting harsh shadows across the white tile floor of the Millbrook Veterinary Clinic. I'd been working late again not because Dr. Harrison asked me to, but because my tiny apartment above Emma's bookstore felt too empty, too quiet. Here, at least, the soft breathing of recovering animals in the kennels kept the silence at bay.
But now, as I stared at those crimson drops spreading across the floor I'd just cleaned, every instinct in my body went rigid with alarm.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I traced the trail of blood backward. It led directly to the clinic's back door the one that opened to the employee parking lot and the dense pine forest beyond.
It was open. A crack of darkness visible where there should have been solid wood and a locked deadbolt.
I knew I'd locked it. I always locked it. Living alone as a twenty-six-year-old woman who worked late shifts had taught me to be careful, to triple-check locks, to trust my paranoia.
Hello? My voice came out shaky, barely above a whisper.
The wind answered first, carrying the scent of rain and something metallic. Then, cutting through the storm: a low, pained whimper that made my chest tighten.
Every rational part of me screamed to run. To grab my phone, call 911, lock myself in the supply closet until help arrived. But I'd been a vet tech for five years five years of holding down frightened dogs during vaccinations, of bottle-feeding abandoned kittens at 3 AM, of staying calm when panicked owners brought in pets hit by cars. I knew the sound of animal pain, the desperate edge of a creature fighting to survive.
And I couldn't ignore it. No matter how much my hands shook.
I gripped the mop tighter, holding it like the world's most pathetic weapon, and stepped toward the open door. Rain lashed my face the moment I crossed the threshold, soaking through my scrubs in seconds. The parking lot was empty except for my beat-up Honda Civic, its paint faded and one taillight held on with duct tape.
Then I saw the wolf.
Massive didn't begin to describe it. This creature was bigger than any wolf I'd seen in documentaries or textbooks easily two hundred pounds of muscle and fur, sprawled across the wet pavement like a fallen monument. Rain plastered its midnight-black coat to powerful shoulders and a broad chest that heaved with labored breathing.
Blood pooled beneath it, mixing with rainwater to create dark rivers that snaked toward the storm drains.
Three holes gaped in its chest. Bullet wounds. The distinctive silver sheen at the edges told me exactly what kind.
Silver bullets. The kind hunters used when they wanted to make absolutely sure something stayed down.
My medical training kicked in automatically, cataloging injuries: pneumothorax probable, massive blood loss, shock setting in. This wolf was dying. Minutes, maybe less.
But it was the wolf's eyes that froze me in place.
They found mine across the rain-soaked distance, and they weren't the yellow-amber of a normal predator. These eyes blazed pure gold molten, luminous, impossibly aware. They tracked me with an intelligence that sent ice down my spine.
Human eyes. In a wolf's face.
Impossible.
Easy, boy, I heard myself whisper, my voice carried away by wind and rain as I took a step closer. Then another. My sneakers splashed through puddles; my scrubs plastered to my skin. I'm not going to hurt you.
I should run. I should be screaming, calling for help, doing literally anything except approaching a massive wounded predator with intelligent eyes and silver bullets in its chest.
Instead, I knelt beside it in the freezing rain.
The wolf's breath came in rattling gasps. Up close, I could see the damage was worse than I'd thought. The bullets had gone deep, probably pierced a lung. Without immediate surgery the kind that cost thousands of dollars and required equipment I didn't have access to at midnight this beautiful creature would die in minutes.
I don't know if I can help, I admitted, reaching out with trembling fingers. My hand hovered over its blood-matted fur. But I'll try. I have to try.
The moment my fingertips made contact with its rain-slicked coat, heat exploded through my palms.
I gasped, trying to jerk back, but my hands were locked in place. It felt like grabbing a live wire electricity racing up my arms, flooding my chest, igniting something deep in my core that I'd never felt before. Golden light poured from my palms, spilling across the wolf's midnight fur in waves of impossible radiance.
The burn scars on my shoulder blade the crescent moon pattern I'd carried since the fire that killed my parents ten years ago suddenly flared to life. Fresh pain seared across my back like the fire was happening all over again, like someone had pressed a branding iron against my skin.
No, no, no, I chanted, the words spilling out in panic. The light grew brighter, turning the rain-soaked parking lot into something from a dream.
The bullet wounds began to close.
I watched, frozen in horror and awe, as torn flesh knit itself back together. Muscle fibres reconnected. Skin sealed over damage that should have been fatal. The silver-tinged edges of the wounds pushed the bullets out with soft plinks against the pavement. The wolf's breathing evened out, deepened, strengthened.
The golden glow faded slowly, leaving me dizzy and gasping. My hands felt like they'd been dipped in fire, tingling with residual energy that made my fingers twitch.
The wolf stood up.
I fell backward, my tailbone hitting wet pavement hard enough to send pain shooting up my spine. I scrambled away, sneakers slipping on rain-slicked asphalt, my heart threatening to burst from my chest.
It should be dead. Three silver bullets to the chest. Massive blood loss. Respiratory failure.
It should be dead, but instead it stood before me, midnight coat steaming slightly in the rain, those impossible gold eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that stole my breath.
Those golden eyes pinned me in place. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't look away.
The wolf took a step toward me. Then another. Each massive paw splashed in puddles, bringing it closer despite every instinct screaming at me to run.
It lowered its great head, bringing that intelligent gaze level with mine. I pressed my back against my car's tire, nowhere left to retreat, certain this was the moment it would attack
The wolf's nose touched my trembling hand.
Warm breath ghosted across my skin, impossibly gentle. The contact sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with the freezing rain. For three heartbeats, we stayed frozen like that: woman and beast, healer and healed, connected by something I couldn't name.
Then the wolf turned and vanished into the forest like smoke, leaving only paw prints in the mud and blood on the pavement to prove it had ever been there at all.
I sat in the rain, back against my car, shaking so hard my teeth chattered.
My hands still tingled with residual heat. I held them up in the light spilling from the clinic's back door, expecting to see burns, blisters, some physical proof of what had just happened.
They looked completely normal. Wet, cold, ordinary hands. The same hands that had checked vitals on Mrs. Patterson's diabetic cat this afternoon, that had reorganized the supply closet, that had mopped floors.
But they'd glowed with impossible light. They'd healed wounds that should have been fatal. They'd done something that couldn't be real except I'd seen it happen, felt the power coursing through me like lightning.
This wasn't the first time.
The memory hit me like a punch to the gut: last month, the wolf with the shattered hind leg, bone jutting through muscle. I'd found it whimpering behind the clinic's dumpster at closing time. When I'd touched it to assess the damage, that same golden light had poured from my palms. The bone had straightened, the flesh had sealed, and the wolf had limped away on a perfectly healed leg.
Two weeks ago, another one. This wolf had been poisoned I'd seen the foam at its mouth, recognized the symptoms of antifreeze ingestion. Fatal. Irreversible. Except when I'd cradled its head in my lap and begged it to hold on, my hands had glowed and the poison had somehow burned away.
Three wolves in four weeks. All healed by me. All impossible.
I stumbled to my feet, my legs unsteady, and lurched back into the clinic. My fingers fumbled with the deadbolt three times before I managed to lock it. Like metal and wood could protect me from whatever I was becoming.
The kennels were quiet except for the soft snores of a golden retriever recovering from a tooth extraction. Everything looked so normal. So mundane. The industrial mop still stood where I'd dropped it, its head saturated with cleaning solution. The blood trail on the floor remained, evidence that I hadn't imagined it.
I grabbed paper towels and bleach spray, working on autopilot, scrubbing away the blood until the tiles gleamed white again. Erasing the proof.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, making me jump so hard I knocked over the spray bottle.
Unknown number. My thumb hovered over the decline button.
I should've ignored it. Every horror movie I'd ever seen, every true crime podcast I'd listened to while cleaning kennels, screamed at me to let it go to voicemail.
Instead, with shaking fingers, I answered.
Hello?
Silence greeted me. But not empty silence I could hear someone breathing on the other end. Deep, controlled breaths. Waiting.
I saw what you did. The voice was male, deep and rough like gravel scraping over stone. I saw you heal him.
Ice flooded my veins, turning my blood to slush. My free hand gripped the edge of the reception desk so hard my knuckles went white.
I don't know what you're talking about. The lie felt brittle on my tongue.
Yes, you do. There was certainty in that rough voice, absolute and unshakeable. You've been healing them for weeks. Three wolves, three miracles. We've been watching you, Sage Winters. Every single time.
He knew my name. This stranger who'd watched me use impossible power knew exactly who I was.
The clinic suddenly felt too small, too exposed. All those windows facing the dark forest, the back door I'd just locked, the front entrance with its glass panels they were all just barriers made of hope and delusion.
Leave me alone, I whispered, hating how small my voice sounded.
I can't. The roughness in his voice softened, taking on an edge of something that might have been desperation. My Alpha is dying, and you're the only one who can save him. We've tried everything else. Every healer, every doctor, every cure we could find. Nothing worked. You're our last hope.
I don't I started to say I don't know what you're talking about, but the words died in my throat. He'd seen. They'd been watching. Lying was pointless.
You have until midnight tomorrow, he continued, and now his voice went hard as iron. We'll come for you then. You can come willingly, help save a life, and we'll make sure you're protected. Compensated. Safe.
And if I refuse? I already knew the answer, but I had to hear him say it.
Then we'll take you anyway. One way or another, Sage Winters, you're coming with us. The only choice you have is whether it's easy or hard.
The line went dead.
I stood there in the empty clinic, phone pressed to my ear long after the call ended, rain drumming against the windows like fingers tapping to get in. My wet scrubs clung to my skin, making me shiver.
The wolves I'd been healing weren't just wolves. They were something else something that had people, watchers, an Alpha who was dying.
Someone had been tracking me. Studying me. Documenting my impossible gift.
And in less than twenty-four hours, they were coming to collect.
I looked down at my hands ordinary hands that could do extraordinary, terrifying things and wished with everything in me that I was anyone else. Anyone normal. Anyone safe. Anyone who didn't glow gold and heal the dying with a touch.
The burn scars on my shoulder blade throbbed like a second heartbeat, like a warning I'd been too blind to see.
Like a mark I'd been carrying my whole life, waiting for the moment someone would finally recognize what it meant.
I grabbed my jacket from the break room, turned off all the lights except the security lamp, and locked the clinic behind me. My hands were still shaking as I climbed into my Honda, as I started the engine, as I drove through rain-soaked streets toward my apartment.
But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched. That somewhere in the darkness between the trees, golden eyes followed my taillights until I disappeared around the corner.
That the countdown had already started, and there was nowhere left to run.