Chapter Five- Amelia

By the time I reached the house, my chest ached from running.

The market’s noise still rang in my ears, but it was the memory of them that had me off-balance.

Three strangers. Three… whatever they were. And the way they’d looked at me — like they already owned pieces of me I’d never given.

I shoved the thought down before I could feel that strange, magnetic pull again.

The front door creaked as I stepped inside. The air was thick with the scent of burnt coffee and damp wood.

He was on the couch, boots kicked up, a beer in his hand. His gaze slid to me immediately.

“You’re late,” he said.

The woman — her — stepped out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Her eyes swept over me in a way that made my skin itch. “Something’s different,” she said, voice low.

My pulse jumped. “Nothing’s different. The market was crowded.”

She stepped closer, tilting her head like a bird sizing up prey. “Your eyes…” She narrowed them, and I realized too late that I was breathing too hard, my hands still trembling.

He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You use it?”

My throat went dry. “Use what?”

He smiled — slow, ugly. “Don’t play dumb, girl. That little trick of yours. The thing you think we don’t know about.”

Ice crawled down my spine.

They had noticed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He stood, and the beer bottle clinked on the table. “Don’t lie to me. I can smell it on you. Power.”

Her smile was sharper. “If she’s finally tapping into it, we might be able to—” She cut herself off, glancing at him.

I took a step back, heart hammering.

Whatever they wanted with my powers, it wasn’t for me.

The attic had never felt so far away.

Mateo pov:

Her scent was a trail of fire in my lungs.

I’d followed it from the market, through twisting streets and alleys, each step pulling me deeper into a part of town that stank of rust and rot. Jason and Dimitri flanked me, silent but coiled tight — we didn’t need words to know what we were all thinking.

She hadn’t just been running from us.

She’d been running home.

The scent grew sharper the closer we got, but so did something else — fear. It clung to the air around the narrow, peeling house at the end of the street, sinking into the wood like it had been there for years.

I stopped at the edge of the cracked sidewalk, my hands curling into fists. “This is it.”

Jason’s eyes swept the place, taking in every window, every shadow. “Two heartbeats inside. Male and female. Not hers.”

Dimitri’s gaze was locked on the second-floor window, jaw tight. “She’s in there. And she’s not safe.”

The wolf in me wanted to go in now — break the door, drag her out, deal with anyone stupid enough to get in our way. But Dimitri’s voice cut through the urge like steel.

“We do this smart,” he said. “We don’t know how they’ll react, or what they’ve told her. If she sees us hurt them, she might see us as the enemy.”

“She already sees us as a threat,” Jason muttered.

“Not for long,” I said. My voice came out lower than I meant, full of the promise I’d been carrying since the second I saw her.

From inside, a sharp sound cracked through the air — a raised voice. Male. Angry. My entire body went rigid.

Dimitri met my eyes. “If they touch her—”

“They won’t,” I growled.

Because if they did, I’d tear this whole damn house apart.