Later that night, I was lying in bed next to Leah, staring at the ceiling while the house finally settled into silence. The wind moved through the trees outside, brushing against the windows in slow, steady strokes. It should've been a normal sound. Comforting, even.
Instead, all I could think about was the moment Seth exploded out of his own skin.
The Quileute secret had been exposed in the worst way possible, in the middle of a birthday party, with pizza boxes still open and cake frosting on everyone's plates. No ceremony. No preparation. No careful explanation about bloodlines or legends passed down through generations.
Just fur. Teeth. And a kid who'd been vibrating with excitement one second and standing there as a giant wolf the next.
Fortunately, and this was the only thing keeping me from spiraling, the only ones present who weren't in the know were Jacob, Quill, and Embry. And they'd grown up on the legends. They'd heard the stories from Billy and the elders their whole lives.
And Seth… well. Seth had just joined the club.
The secret hadn't leaked to any true outsiders. Not really.
Charlie and Bella didn't count. They already knew. Bella especially had seen more supernatural insanity than anyone deserved.
Emily had arrived late, just in time to see Leah in full wolf form trying to coach Seth through shifting back. I still remembered the look on her face: shock first, then understanding, then something softer. Acceptance. Like she'd known this was coming eventually.
Turns out Seth had automatically joined our pack instead of Sam's.
That part fascinated me.
There hadn't been any dramatic pull toward Sam. No invisible leash snapping him into place. He'd just… connected to us.
Which meant the process had to be automatic. Instinctual. Maybe tied to emotional bonds.
Or maybe Seth just preferred our sparkling personalities.
I huffed a quiet laugh at that.
Leah shifted beside me, her head propped on her hand as she looked down at me. "What?"
"I just remembered something."
She narrowed her eyes slightly. "That tone means trouble."
"I remembered Seth trying to mount the bike."
Leah blinked, and then burst into a full-on, shoulders-shaking laughter.
"He was so excited," she said between breaths. "He didn't even notice he didn't have thumbs anymore."
I grinned at the memory. Seth, a wolf the size of a pony, circling the bike, tail wagging so hard it could've powered a small turbine. He'd crouched like he was about to leap onto it, completely convinced physics and anatomy would cooperate.
Then he'd paused, looked down at his paws, looked back at the handlebars… the slow dawning horror had been priceless.
"He tried to grip the handle with his mouth," I added.
Leah covered her face with a pillow, laughing harder. "I forgot about that!"
"And when he realized he couldn't sit properly, he just kind of… stood there. Like the universe had personally betrayed him."
"He sulked for ten full seconds," she said. "That's a record for Seth."
I smiled, but it softened quickly.
Because after the laughter, after the shock, after Harry's near-heart-attack moment and Sue's frantic hovering, there had been something else.
Pride.
Seth had shifted cleanly, completely skipping the whole process of phasing. The growth-spurt, the constant anger, the gradual change of temperature. He'd just directly jumped to the final change.
He'd been terrified for about half a second. Then he'd looked at Leah and followed her lead without hesitation.
That part stuck with me.
"He's going to be a handful," I said quietly.
"As if he wasn't already," she snarked, then fell unexpectedly silent.
There was a long pause.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
She didn't answer immediately. I could feel her thinking, sorting through emotions she didn't always like naming.
"I didn't want it for him," she admitted. "Even knowing it was inevitable… I didn't want it."
I understood that.
Shifting meant responsibility. Patrols. Protecting borders. The constant hum of shared thoughts. The loss of privacy. The weight of knowing things most of the world would never understand.
It meant growing up fast.
"He looked happy," I said gently.
Leah snorted softly. "He looked thrilled."
"He looked proud," I corrected.
That was what mattered.
She turned her head slightly, meeting my eyes in the dim light. "What's going to happen now?"
"I don't know, but we'll handle it together."
"That we will."
I reached for her hand under the blanket and laced our fingers together.
"So," I said lightly, trying to shift the mood before it got too heavy, "we're officially running a three-wolf pack now."
She squeezed my hand. "Four, if you count Seth's ego."
I smirked. "That thing needs its own territory."
Silence settled again, but it wasn't tense.
Outside, the wind moved through the trees, steady and watchful.
The world hadn't ended tonight.
The secret was still contained.
Seth was safe.
Harry was alive.
And somehow, despite everything, the memory of a giant wolf trying to ride a bike still made my chest shake with quiet laughter.
Yeah.
We'd survive this.
…
But once the laughter faded and Leah's breathing evened out beside me, my mind refused to shut up.
Why had Seth shifted so abruptly?
In the original timeline, he hadn't phased until months later. It had taken a perfect storm: Harry's death, the emotional shock, Victoria building her newborn army, the constant threat pressing against La Push like a loaded gun.
Stress had been the trigger.
A mixture of fear, grief, and imminent danger.
But this time?
Victoria was gone. Permanently. No red-haired shadow slipping through the trees. No army forming in Seattle. No escalating tension along the treaty line.
Harry was alive. Snoring in his recliner earlier tonight after eating too much cake.
So what had set Seth off?
I stared into the darkness, the ceiling barely visible in the faint moonlight creeping through the curtains.
The gene was hereditary. That part hadn't changed. But activation required a catalyst, proximity to vampires, heightened emotion, some kind of spike in adrenaline or instability.
The Cullens were not around anymore, so it couldn't be the presence of vampires.
My thoughts suddenly drifted somewhere colder.
To the Volturi.
The name alone felt like ice sliding down my spine.
But that didn't make sense either.
According to Alice, they still didn't know what had happened that day in the clearing. They didn't know who was responsible for Jane, Alec, Felix, and Demetri disappearing from existence. As far as they were concerned, something had gone wrong, but they didn't know who had caused it.
No blame meant no retaliation.
No retaliation meant no immediate threat.
So unless Alice was missing something, which wasn't impossible but was highly unlikely, the Volturi had no reason to mobilize.
And if they weren't moving, then what?
I exhaled slowly.
Maybe I was overthinking it.
Seth had been ridiculously excited all day. Emotional highs could be just as triggering as trauma. His heart rate had probably been through the roof before we even yelled "surprise." Add the adrenaline spike from being startled, the energy in the room, the latent gene waiting for an excuse…
Boom.
Wolf.
Still, something about the timing bothered me.
The transformation hadn't felt random.
It had felt… inevitable.
Like a domino finally tipping.
I shifted onto my side carefully so I wouldn't wake Leah. The moonlight caught the faint curve of her cheekbone, the relaxed line of her mouth. For once, she looked completely at peace.
Seth joining our pack instead of Sam's wasn't random either.
The timeline was already altered beyond recognition. Victoria was gone earlier. Harry was alive. The Volturi were missing four elite members and didn't know why. The pack had formed differently.
Maybe Seth hadn't shifted because of danger.
Maybe he'd shifted because the world itself was correcting course.
Balancing.
Power adjusting to power.
If that was true, then the question wasn't what danger was coming.
It was what force required more wolves now than before.
I didn't like that line of thinking.
Because whether the threat had a name or not, the pattern suggested escalation.
And escalation meant sooner or later, something big would happen.
I closed my eyes, listening to the steady rhythm of Leah's breathing.
As sleep finally began to creep in, one last thought refused to loosen its grip:
Is another war coming?
…