Sage's Point of View
Tuesday nights are usually quiet.
I'm wiping down the bar, counting the hours until closing, when the door opens and something shifts inside my chest. Not my heart. Something deeper. My wolf lifts her head like she's sensing something dangerous.
The man who walks in is hard to ignore even though I try.
He's tall and built like someone who fights for a living. His neck has scars that look like claw marks. His arms are covered in tattoos that probably mean something in the werewolf world but I don't want to know what. He's wearing all black like he's trying to disappear into shadows, except nothing about him disappears. He takes up space just by existing.
He sits in the corner booth. The one where nobody sits because it's too far from the action.
I keep my head down. I don't look at him. I don't acknowledge that he exists.
But my wolf is losing her mind.
She's pushing against the walls I built, desperate and clawing and screaming about something I don't want to understand. My skin starts to tingle like electricity running under my surface. My heartbeat picks up. The small hairs on my arms stand straight up.
This man smells like pack. He smells like territory and power and things that belong to the world I'm running from.
"Sophie, table five needs another round," Riley calls out, and I'm grateful for the distraction. I pour drinks and deliver them with my eyes down. I make myself invisible. I do what I've become good at doing. I pretend I'm not here.
But I can feel him watching.
Twenty minutes pass. He doesn't order anything. He just sits there in his dark corner booth, nursing a glass of water like it's the most interesting thing in the world. His eyes never leave the bar. His eyes never leave me.
My wolf is going crazy now. She's scratching inside me like she's trying to break free. She's howling about something that tastes like recognition. She's responding to him like he's important. Like he matters.
I can't breathe.
The storage room is in the back. I tell Riley I need to check inventory and I slip away before anyone can stop me. The moment the door closes behind me, I lean against it and try to slow down my breathing.
In through my nose. Out through my mouth. In through my nose. Out through my mouth.
This doesn't mean anything. One strange man in a bar doesn't mean I've been found. It doesn't mean my hiding place is compromised. It doesn't mean the life I built is about to collapse.
Except my wolf knows something I don't.
"Sophie?" Riley appears in the doorway. Her face is creased with worry. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," I lie. "Just needed a moment."
"That guy in the corner booth is making you nervous," Riley says. It's not a question.
"He didn't bother me."
"No, he didn't approach you. But he's been asking questions." Riley steps into the storage room and closes the door behind her. "When I brought his water, he asked where you're from. I told him I don't know. Then he asked how long you've worked here. Then he asked if you'd ever been in any kind of group before. Like a club or something."
My entire body goes cold.
A club. That's what humans call it when they don't know the real word. A club. A group. A pack.
"What did you tell him?" I ask, and my voice sounds very far away.
"Nothing. I said you were private and didn't like questions. But Soph, something about him felt off. He wasn't being creepy. He was being... strategic. Like he was gathering information."
I sink down onto a box of beer bottles. My hands are shaking so badly I have to sit on them.
Someone found me. Someone who knows what I am came to this bar and is asking questions about me. Someone is looking for information about my past and my pack and my life before I became nobody.
"Did he give a name?" I ask.
"No. He just paid in cash and left a huge tip. But before he left, he said something weird."
I look up at Riley. "What?"
"He said tell Sophie that the Alpha remembers her and patience has limits."
The world stops.
Everything stops. My heart. My breathing. The electricity running under my skin. For a second, I'm not sure I'm still alive.
"Soph, what's going on?" Riley asks. She's scared now too. I can smell it on her. "Who is that guy? What does he want with you?"
I can't tell her the truth. I can't explain that someone from the werewolf world just tracked me down in a basement bar in a human city. I can't explain that the Alpha I ran away from six months ago didn't just let me go. That he's been looking for me. That he sent someone to find me and ask questions and gather intelligence on where I am.
"I need to go," I say, standing up. My legs feel like they might give out.
"Go where? Your shift isn't over for three hours."
"I can't stay here."
"Soph, you're scaring me. What's happening?"
I look at Riley and I realize I can't protect her by keeping secrets from her. The man who came here knows where I work. That means others might know too. That means they might use Riley to get to me.
"If anyone comes in here asking about me, you don't know me," I say. "You've never heard of me. I was a bartender for a few weeks and you don't remember my last name. Understand?"
"No, I don't understand anything right now."
"Just promise me."
Riley promises because she's a good person and she can see how terrified I am. I grab my jacket and I leave through the back door.
Outside, the street is cold and empty. I don't have a plan. I never have a plan. I just run when things get bad and figure out the running later.
I've made it half a block when a black car pulls up beside me.
The window rolls down. It's not the scarred man. It's someone else. Someone built like a soldier with military-short hair and eyes that calculate everything they see.
"Sage Winters," he says. It's not a question. "The Alpha King sent me. Get in the car."
I should run. I should scream. I should do something other than stand here frozen while the life I built gets dismantled in real time.
"If you don't get in," the man continues, "I'll carry you. But I think you'll prefer to get in yourself. Less embarrassing for your human friend in the bar."
He glances back at Rookie's. Riley is visible through the window, watching us with her hand over her mouth.
They'll hurt her if I don't cooperate. They'll use her to get to me. They'll destroy her life the same way they destroyed mine.
I open the car door.
The moment I sit down, the car starts moving. The man driving doesn't say anything. He just puts his hand on a radio on his shoulder and speaks into it.
"Package acquired," he says. "Heading to extraction point."
I'm trapped in a moving car with no windows I can open and no way out. I'm being taken somewhere by people who work for an Alpha King who apparently never stopped looking for me.
And the worst part is that my wolf isn't scared anymore.
She's happy.
She's singing inside me like she's been waiting six months for this moment. Like she never wanted to be hidden in a basement bar. Like she never wanted to be dead inside.
Like she's been waiting for someone to come find her and drag her back into the world she thought she'd escaped.
I close my eyes and stop fighting.
Whatever happens next, my life as Sophie is officially over.