Dr.
Voss let me out of the medical wing three days later, though I’m pretty sure she just got tired of pretending my stitches looked good.
She glared at them, muttered about stubborn wolves who didn’t know how to sit still, and sent me on my way.
Not that sitting still had ever done me any favors.
The Vitale estate was a whole different world compared to Redthorn’s pack house.
At home, everything was rough and wild—timber beams, stone floors, a place built to remind you that you belonged to something old and half-feral.
Here, it was all glass and steel, slick lines trying not to draw too much attention to how expensive everything was—you just had to know.
The halls smelled like leather and gun oil under the cedar; every step I took, I kept scanning for exits out of habit—counting doors, noting guards, mapping escape routes.
I’d been doing that since I was twelve.
Some things never change, no matter whose territory you land in.
“You’re doing the thing again.” I turned around.
There was a young woman, arms crossed, hair falling messily around her face.
Her curiosity was all over her—nothing like Enzo’s suspicion or Adrian’s poker face.
If anything, it threw me for a second.
“What thing?” “Counting exits.” She grinned, stepping beside me like we’d spent years together instead of seconds.
“You’ve done it three times since you hit this corner.
Adrian does it, too.
Honestly, it’s exhausting—living with a bunch of paranoid cats.” Despite the pain in my shoulder, despite the raw emptiness where my life used to be, I almost smirked.
“I’m Isabella,” she said, sticking out her hand like it was the most normal thing in the world, even though three days ago I’d been dragged through her family’s door half-conscious.
“Adrian’s sister.
The only one here not primed to pick you apart over dinner.” “Wren.” I shook her hand, surprised by the strength in her grip.
She couldn’t have been much older than Nova, which set a different ache off inside me, one that had nothing to do with bite wounds.
“I know who you are.” Isabella’s expression went softer around the edges.
“Enzo’s made enough noise about it that half the estate knows.
For what it’s worth, I think he’s got it wrong.” “About what?” “Thinking you’re a liability.” She started moving again, expecting me to follow—and, of course, I did.
“Honestly?
You’re the most interesting thing that’s happened here in two years.
Which, considering what usually happens here, says a lot.” I didn’t ask what usually happened.
Couldn’t tell if I wanted to hear it yet, anyway.
She led me outside through glass doors, into a walled garden with actual grass and trees—a little fountain trying to look natural against all the stone.
The late sun hit the water, huge shards of color sparkling on the path.
For half a heartbeat, I let myself forget where I was, what it took to get here.
Then everything shifted.
Not the ground—me.
Deep inside, something jolted, like missing a stair in the dark.
My vision snapped sharp and bright, colors punched up to a fever pitch.
The smells—earth, water, Isabella’s perfume, and under that, something familiar: safety, home, family.
All the things a wolf’s nose finds before your mind catches up.
And threaded through it, faint but real—the moon.
Not moonlight.
The actual moon, pulling at me, stronger than anything I’d felt in two years, not since Ronan’s bond settled in my chest like a borrowed thing.
This wasn’t borrowed.
This was all mine.
“Wren?” Isabella’s voice sounded distant.
“Your eyes—” “What about them?” My own voice sounded off, stranger than usual, with something not-quite-human underneath.
“They’re gold,” Isabella said.
Her hand hovered near my shoulder, stuck between caution and wanting to help.
“Like, really gold.
Not just brown-gold.
Is that normal for—” “No.” The word came out half-laugh, half-panic.
“Not normal at all.
I’m wolfless.
I’ve been wolfless since I was six—” The pull got stronger.
My knees buckled, but Isabella grabbed me before I hit the grass.
She was stronger than she looked, calling for someone with a voice that echoed through the whole stupid garden.
The only clear thought I had before everything spun out was a flash of Ronan’s voice at the altar—Not you, not the weak one—and the dizzy certainty that everyone who’d called me wolfless had been dead wrong.
I woke up on the grass, Adrian’s face close to mine for some reason.
For once, that mask of his wasn’t locked in place.
I actually saw something shift underneath—not concern, exactly.
Something hungrier.
“There she is,” he said quietly.
His hand pressed flat on my sternum, not checking my pulse—holding me down, like he thought whatever I’d let loose was ready to break out again.
“What happened?” My voice was rough.
“You tell me.” Adrian didn’t look away.
“Your eyes went gold.
Isabella says you glowed, right before you fainted.
For a few seconds, every wolf here went silent.
Even mine.” Behind him, I caught Isabella’s pale face, eyes wide.
Farther back, Enzo had stopped in the doorway, expression unreadable.
“That doesn’t happen,” I whispered.
“Wolfless doesn’t just—” “You’re not wolfless.” Adrian said it like it was already settled.
“Whatever Redthorn told you, whatever justified their choices—you aren’t wolfless.
You never were.” “Then what am I?” He paused.
When he answered, his voice dropped so low I don’t think anyone else heard.
“I think you’re the reason a whole pack was scared enough to leave you for dead.” Somewhere outside the garden wall, I heard engines—coming fast.
Not just one.
Enzo turned, suddenly tense.
“That’s not ours.” Adrian was already up, hand on something at his hip, every bit of calmness on his face sharpening into the kind of danger you can feel in your bones.
“Get her inside,” he told Isabella.
He didn’t look away from the gate.
And I knew—whatever had started to wake up inside me, the outside world wasn’t going to give me a quiet minute to understand it.
Not a chance.