Sophia's POV
The rogue's jaws close down on my shoulder and the pain is everything.
It's bright and burning and all-consuming. I scream. The sound echoes through the empty road. No one's coming. No one ever comes for me.
My body is pinned to the ground. I try to shift but fear is holding me down harder than any wolf could. I'm weak. I'm nothing. I'm about to die and the last thing I'll remember is that I was right about myself all along.
The other two rogues circle closer. I can smell their hunger. Smell the coordination in the way they move. This isn't random. They know exactly what they're doing. They know exactly what they want.
They want me.
The rogue on top of me shakes his head violently, tearing at my shoulder. More pain. More blood. I'm going to die here in this parking lot at the edge of the forest and no one will care.
Then something shifts.
It starts in my chest, this heat that doesn't come from fear. It spreads down my arms and legs like lightning spreading through my whole body all at once. My bones feel like they're cracking and reforming. My muscles burn like fire. My teeth sharpen into fangs I've never had before. Longer. Older. Sharper.
And my eyes.
I can feel them changing. The familiar gold of my omega eyes burning away into something else. Something ancient. Something that shouldn't exist.
Silver.
The rogue freezes. His jaws release me and he yelps, scrambling backward. The sound he makes is fear. Pure terror. He's looking at me like I'm death itself.
The other two don't even hesitate. They turn and run back into the forest like their lives depend on it. They don't look back. They don't slow down. They just run and run and run until the sound of their paws on the earth disappears completely.
I stand in the parking lot covered in blood, shaking, staring at my reflection in the dark window of my car.
The face staring back isn't mine.
It's someone powerful. Someone ancient. Someone with silver eyes that glow in the darkness like liquid metal. Like something from the old stories. Like something that shouldn't be real.
My reflection has eyes like a predator. Eyes like a queen.
I shift back to human form slowly. My body aches everywhere. My shoulder is torn and bleeding but even as I watch the wound starts healing. Faster than any omega should heal. Faster than any regular wolf should heal.
Something inside me is different now.
Something inside me is awake.
I stumble to my car and sit in the driver's seat without turning the engine on. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold the steering wheel. Blood drips onto my jeans. Blood that isn't entirely mine anymore.
What was that?
The power I felt was ancient. Old. Like something that's been sleeping inside me my entire life just woke up and took over my body. Like I'm not the same person I was ten minutes ago.
I am not Sophia Park the weak omega waitress anymore.
I don't know what I am but I know it's something that scared three coordinated rogues enough to make them run for their lives.
I start the car and drive. I don't go home. I can't face my parents right now. I don't go to the pack compound. I'm not ready to face that either.
I drive toward the human side of town. Toward the only person in this world who has ever looked at me and seen someone worth caring about.
Maya.
The drive takes fifteen minutes but it feels like hours. Every red light feels like the universe telling me to stop. Every shadow feels like those rogues coming back. My mind keeps replaying the moment my eyes changed. The moment that rogue looked at me with pure fear.
What was that power?
I pull into Maya's apartment complex and sit in the car for a long moment. The sun is completely down now. The sky is black. I'm alone in the darkness just like I've always been.
Except now I'm not alone. Now something ancient is living inside me.
I knock on her door and she opens it immediately like she was expecting me, even though I didn't call. Her dark hair is pulled into a messy bun and she's wearing the old university sweatshirt that she sleeps in.
"Sophia?" She takes one look at me and her whole body goes alert. "Oh my god, what happened?"
She pulls me inside and locks the door behind me. The apartment smells like her. Like cinnamon tea and lavender candles. Safe. This place is safe.
"I'm okay," I say but my voice doesn't sound okay. My voice sounds like someone who just survived something that shouldn't be survivable.
"You're covered in blood." Maya steers me toward her bathroom and sits me down on the edge of the tub. She wets a cloth and starts cleaning my shoulder. "Talk to me. What happened?"
I don't even know where to start. How do you explain something that doesn't make sense? How do you tell your best friend that you just discovered you have a power that shouldn't exist?
"The delivery," I say slowly. "On Ridgeline Road. There were rogues."
Maya's hands freeze on my shoulder. "Rogues? Like actual rogue wolves?"
"They attacked me. They were coordinated. Like someone sent them specifically for me." I watch her face as the words come out. "And Maya, when the first one grabbed me something happened inside me. Something changed."
"What do you mean changed?" She's asking but I can hear the edge in her voice. Like she already knows something is very wrong.
I turn and look at her. I take a breath and tell her the truth.
"My eyes changed. When I transformed my eyes were silver. Not gold. Not regular. Silver like liquid metal. And I was strong. So strong. The rogues scattered when they saw me. They ran away from me."
Maya stands up slowly. She walks to her bookshelf and pulls down an old book that's falling apart at the spine. The cover is faded and worn. She opens it to a specific page and shows me the picture.
The eyes in the picture are the same as mine now.
Liquid silver. Ancient. Powerful.
"That's an Alpha Queen," Maya says quietly. Her voice is shaking. "Sophia, I don't know how this is possible, but those are an Alpha Queen's eyes."