I don't remember leaving the dining room.
I remember the taste of blood in the air.
The pressure snapping like glass.
Kieran's mouth on mine…soft, anchoring, devastating.
And then…
Nothing.
My feet carry me through the corridors on instinct alone. Wolves part when I pass, eyes wide, heads bowed, fear and awe and something worse clinging to them like static. No one stops me. No one speaks. They can't. Not after what they felt pouring out of me.
I don't look back.
If I do, I might break.
The door to my room shuts behind me with a heavy click, the lock sliding home like a guillotine. I brace my hands against the wood, breathing hard, chest tight, heart racing like I've just escaped a battlefield.
What did I do?
The image slams into me without mercy.
Roxy, crumpled on the marble. Bones bent wrong. Blood smeared where pristine white stone should have been.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
Goddess.
I hurt her.
I didn't mean to. I hadn't even realized my body was moving until it was already done—until the power surged out of me like a living thing with claws and teeth. It hadn't asked for permission. It hadn't needed to.
It had wanted.
I stagger away from the door and into the room, fingers curling into my hair as I pace. Back and forth. Back and forth. My pulse won't slow, and my skin still feels too tight, like something is crawling beneath it.
I hurt her.
The guilt coils in my stomach, sharp and nauseating.
Roxy might be a manipulative, power-hungry nightmare of a woman, but she didn't deserve that. Not broken bones. Not terror. Not to be crushed beneath something she couldn't even comprehend.
And Kieran?
The thought of him twists something painful and ugly in my chest.
He helped her.
I know it was the right thing to do. I know that. He's King. He's Alpha. He's responsible for everyone under his rule…even the ones who hate me. Even the ones who want to take him from me.
But knowing doesn't make it hurt less.
Callen had suggested escorting her away. Removing her. Ending the threat cleanly and decisively.
And Kieran chose,... gosh I don't know.
He just chose her.
I stop pacing abruptly, a bitter laugh tearing out of my throat.
Of course he did.
Roxy is everything I'm not.
She's polished. Confident. Beautiful in that sharp, obvious way that commands attention the moment she enters a room. She knows how to wear power like silk, how to smile like she already owns what she wants. She expects people to bend for her ,and they probably usually do.
And me?
I look at my reflection in the tall mirror near the wardrobe and barely recognize the woman staring back.
My hair is a mess, eyes too bright, skin still flushed from power I don't understand. I don't look regal. I don't look untouchable.
I look… afraid.
Small.
I swallow hard.
Why would someone like Kieran…someone who commands entire packs with his presence…choose me over someone like her?
The question digs in deep, scraping on my earlier doubts.
Is he going to wake up one day and realize I'm not enough?
That I'm not confident enough. Not pretty enough. Not Queen enough.
That I'm a liability.
That whatever this thing inside me is, it's too dangerous to keep.
My chest tightens suddenly, sharp enough to steal my breath.
I gasp, stumbling back a step as heat blooms beneath my sternum.
"What—" I whisper.
The sensation spreads, slow and invasive. Not pain exactly. Burning. Like roots pushing through flesh, branching outward from my heart into my ribs, my lungs, I feel it taking shape on my skin. I am too scared to look.
I clutch at my chest, nails biting into fabric.
"No, no, no—"
Fear floods me, icy and immediate.
This isn't normal.
This isn't wolf.
It feels ancient.
Alive.
I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the floor, knees pulled tight to my chest as the heat pulses again, deeper this time. My vision blurs, spots dancing at the edges.
Am I breaking?
Am I turning into something…
Something monstrous?
A memory surfaces unbidden.
The Queen Mother's voice. Hoarse. Urgent.
"Lumera."
I hadn't even known what it meant. Still don't. But the way she said it, like a prayer and a warning all at once, had sent a chill straight through me.
How did she know?
Dad, what does this mean?
I drag in a shaky breath, pressing my forehead to my knees.
"I don't understand," I whisper into the empty room. "I don't understand any of this."
The silence stretches.
Then—
'Sam.'
Emma's voice slips into my mind, softer than I've ever heard it.
Not teasing. Not aggressive. Not feral.
Just… there.
I lift my head slowly.
'You're spiraling.'
A hysterical laugh bubbles up. "No shit," speaking out loud.
She doesn't rise to it.
'You need to sit still.'
"I am sitting still," I snap, then immediately wince. "Sorry. I'm not… I didn't mean—"
'I know.'
That stops me cold.
Emma has never sounded like this.
"What's happening to me?" I ask, voice cracking. "Why did that power come out of nowhere? Why did it feel like it knew what to do when I didn't? Why did she—why did she break like that?"
Emma is quiet for a long moment.
Too quiet.
My heart begins to pound again. "Emma?"
'I hid it,' she says finally.
The words land heavy.
"Hid what?"
'Our strength.'
My breath catches. "What are you talking about?"
She exhales slowly, like she's bracing herself.
'Sam, I'm an alpha wolf. You are a Female Alpha.'
Staring off absorbing her words, "Why hide this? It doesn't make anysense."
She whimpers, 'My fur color is…white.'
Silence.
'You're a White Wolf.'
The room tilts.
"What?"
'A White Wolf,' she repeats, firmer now. 'One of the old bloodlines. The ones everyone thought were gone.'
I shake my head, panic rising fast. "That's not funny. Emma, that's not—"
'It's true.'
My chest burns again, brighter this time, like the words unlocked something that had been waiting.
"No," I whisper. "That's, that's a myth. A legend. White Wolves were royal. They were—"
'Extinct,' Emma finishes. 'That's what they say.'
I push myself to my feet, backing away from nothing, everything. "You can't just tell me something like that. I would know. Someone would have told me. My parents would have—"
'They did', she says quietly, 'or they tried to'.
The world goes silent.
"What?"
'During the fire.'
My blood runs cold.
'Your mother was screaming,' Emma continues, voice trembling now. 'She told us to run. To hide. And she told me—told us—not to let anyone see what we were.'
I swallow hard, throat tight. "That doesn't mean—"
'She said it,' Emma insists. 'She said you were snow. She said not to let the world know.'
The memory crashes back with brutal clarity.
"Run, baby. Don't let anyone see you."
"Like Snow."
"Oh my Goddess," I breathe.
'You have to understand Sam. I was a pup too. I was scared too. I lost my parents too. Your parents' wolves were mine. They were supposed to teach me. You had just shifted for the first time, I never got to meet them. So when your mom told us to hide, I heard her wolf. My mom.' Emma admits, through whines, 'she just said to keep it hidden. I just knew we were… different. Stronger. Too strong. And I was scared. So I did what she told me.'
"You hid us." I whisper, more as a statement.
'I hid us.'
The words feel like betrayal and protection all at once.
'I buried the power as deep as I could. I locked it away. Even from you. Because if you didn't know, you couldn't give it away. You couldn't be hunted for it,' Emma admits, 'There must have been a reason our parents hid who they were. I felt their kinship, they were our parents, butnut they were hiding who they were. I didn't know why.'
My legs give out again, and I sink back onto the bed, hands shaking.
"You knew," I whisper. "All this time… you knew."
'Not everything,' Emma says quickly. 'I don't know why the White Wolves were so powerful. I don't know what Lumera is. I don't know why your power feels… bigger than everyone else's' She rushes out. ' I did not even know about the White wolves and their importance until Kieran told us the story, then you had that memory, and it was before I was with you.'
I laugh weakly. "That's comforting."
'But I do know this,' she says, voice fierce now. 'You are stronger than Kieran. Stronger than Cade.'
My stomach flips.
"That's not possible."
'It is.'
I squeeze my eyes shut. "Then why don't I feel strong? Why do I feel like I'm going to tear myself apart?"
'Because you've been holding back something that was never meant to be caged.'
The words echo back at me.
Caged.
"What if I hurt someone again?" I whisper. "What if I lose control?"
Emma moves closer inside me, wrapping around my fear like a shield.
'Then we learn. Together.'
I drag in a shaky breath.
"And Kieran?" I ask quietly. "What if he decides I'm too much? Too dangerous? Too—"
'He kissed you when the world was breaking,' Emma interrupts. 'He chose you when every instinct told him to kneel.'
I swallow hard.
'And Sam?' she adds softly. 'You are not Roxy. You don't need to be.'
Tears finally spill over, hot and silent.
"I'm scared," I admit.
'So am I,' Emma says.