Sophia's POV
The apartment tilts and the words don't make sense.
Alpha Queens are myths. Stories. They're not real. They're not me.
"That's impossible," I whisper.
Maya is still holding the book. Her hands are shaking. She sits back down next to me and takes my hand. Her palm is sweating.
"Tell me about your family," Maya says carefully. "Your parents. Their families. Has anyone ever mentioned anything about your bloodline? Anything about where your family comes from?"
I think about my mom's face when she saw me at the compound last month. When she looked at me like she was seeing something she didn't expect. When she said something strange.
We kept you safe by keeping you hidden.
My dad got angry. He told her to stop talking. He told me not to tell anyone anything about my past.
Why would they say that?
"They know something," I tell Maya. "My parents know something about where this power comes from."
Maya nods slowly. "If you're descended from an Alpha Queen bloodline, that changes everything. The pack doesn't have those bloodlines anymore. They thought they were all dead."
"Why would they think that?"
"Because someone made them dead," Maya says quietly. "Sophia, in the old days Alpha Queens ruled differently than Alphas do now. They had power that came from something deeper. Something spiritual. Something that scared people who wanted to control everything with force."
She turns the pages in the book slowly. Each page shows wolves with silver eyes throughout history. Different time periods. Different art styles. But all the same eyes.
"The last Alpha Queen died three hundred years ago," Maya continues. "After that the records get fuzzy. But there are stories about people trying to eliminate the bloodline entirely. About making sure no Alpha Queen would ever be born again."
I look at the pictures of wolves staring back at me from the pages. Silver eyes. Powerful. Alone.
"So what am I?" I ask.
"You're proof that they failed," Maya says. She closes the book gently. "You're proof that the bloodline survived."
My phone buzzes on the coffee table. Both of us jump.
I pick it up and see seventeen missed calls. All from the pack compound. All in the last hour. Messages are flooding in now. Pack members asking if I'm alive. Guards saying they're searching for me. Orders to return immediately.
Someone knows what happened.
Someone knows what I am.
Then one message stands out. It's from an unknown number but the words are clear and sharp.
"Don't come back tonight. Go somewhere safe. Trust no one in the pack. I'm watching you."
My blood goes cold.
"Maya, we need to understand what's happening," I say. "Someone sent those rogues. Someone planned this. And now someone is telling me not to go home."
Maya grabs my phone and scrolls through the messages that keep coming. Her face gets paler with each one.
"There's something else," she says quietly. She pulls up a news alert on her phone. "There was an incident at Ridgeline Road around four o'clock. Rogue wolves attacking. Official pack response. Three rogues neutralized."
Neutralized.
That's what they're calling it. Like those wolves were machines. Like they weren't coordinated. Like nobody sent them.
"Someone is controlling the story," I say. Understanding hits me like cold water. "Someone is making sure the pack thinks this was random."
My phone buzzes again. This time it's a video file from the unknown number.
With trembling hands I press play.
The video shows the forest near Ridgeline Road. And the rogues attacking. But there's someone standing in the shadows watching them. Someone giving them orders. Someone I shouldn't be able to recognize but somehow do.
The silhouette is familiar. The walk is familiar. The voice is familiar.
I can only see them in shadow but I know who it is.
And that knowledge makes my entire body go numb.
"Sophia, what is it?" Maya leans over trying to see the screen but I pull it away. "What's in the video?"
"Someone I know sent those rogues," I say slowly. The words feel like poison. "Someone I've known my whole life sent them to trigger my power."
"Who?" Maya's voice is sharp with fear.
I think about that shadow. About the walk. About the voice giving orders. About someone who would coordinate an attack to awaken something inside me.
"Someone who had to know exactly what I was," I say. "Someone in my family. Someone with access to the pack. Someone with enough power to give orders to rogues."
My phone buzzes one more time.
Another text from the unknown number.
"Your father sent them. He's been planning this for years. The council wants you dead. The only person who can protect you right now is Logan Cross. Meet him tomorrow at the compound. Come alone. Trust no one else."
I stare at those words and feel my entire world collapse.
My father.
My father sent rogues to attack me. My father planned my transformation. My father has known all along what I was and he orchestrated this moment.
"We need to go," Maya says. She grabs my arm. "Sophia, if this is real, if your own father is involved, we can't stay here. We can't trust anyone."
She's right.
I'm standing in her apartment looking at evidence that my own family betrayed me. Evidence that my transformation wasn't random. Evidence that everything I thought I knew about my parents was a lie.
And the only person who might be able to help me is the Alpha who barely knows I exist.
Logan Cross.
The man who's never noticed me. The man who's always been too far above me to even see. The man who now seems to be my only option for survival.
But why would Logan protect me?
And more importantly, what does he want in return?