Chapter 1

Mira's POV

Two months ago, Jason Reed was my boyfriend. Now he had his tongue down my sister's throat, and she wanted me to watch.

I stood in the doorway of the classroom, bag over one shoulder, and waited for the twist in my stomach to pass. It didn't.

Jason saw me and pulled back, and the tips of his ears went red the way they always did when he felt bad about something.

"Mira." He cleared his throat. "Hey."

Alyssa turned slowly, like she was surprised to find me there.

"Oh." She pressed two fingers to her lips. "I'm sorry you had to see that. We just can't help ourselves." Her smile sharpened. "You understand, though. When it's your fated mate, you can't fight the bond."

"I get it. Totally." I walked to my seat three rows back and dropped my bag on the desk. My hands were steady. I made sure of that.

I'd managed to avoid them all day. First day back after winter break, and I'd mapped out every hallway, every stairwell, every route that didn't cross Alyssa's path. Survived the entire day. Then walked straight into her in the last class.

Alyssa had been doing this since the mating ceremony during the winter break. Every corner I turned — there she was, draped over Jason, making sure I knew Jason was fated to her now.

I couldn't really blame anyone.

The last full moon of December is the wolves' mating ceremony. Everyone who turns eighteen that year does their first shift, and somewhere in the howling and the moonlight, they find the fate mate the moongoddess picked for them. Their fated mate. The one your wolf knows before your head does.

I'd waited my whole life for that night. Jason and I had dated for three years. We were so sure we were fated mates. Jason never cared that I was the orphan, the baby found abandoned in the forest and handed to Alyssa's family to raise. He liked that I was a strong girl that didn't feel sorry for myself.

However, I never shifted into my wolf that night.

I stood there in my dress while wolves howled around me. My bones didn't crack. My skin didn't ripple. Nothing happened. I just stood there, human-shaped and wrong, while the world celebrated without me.

And Jason — my Jason — walked past me without a word. Crossed the clearing to where Alyssa stood in her new wolf form, sleek and silver, and when she shifted back, he kissed her. In front of the whole pack. In front of me.

You don't say no to your fated mate. The mate bond was the strongest force among wolf shifters. When you found your fated mate, your wolf chose for you — body, heart, instincts, all of it locked onto one person. Fighting it was pointless.

I had to let him go.

Plus, Alyssa never liked me because I was adopted. And as our beta family's real daughter, she had hated me since the day I started dating Jason. She always thought she was supposed to date the Alpha's son and I stole her thunder.

That was two months ago. I shoved the memory down and did what I always did. Smiled. Breathed. Moved on.

"So." Alyssa dropped into the seat across from mine, Jason trailing after her. "It's Valentine's Day. Last class of the day, then freedom." She tilted her head. "You and your mystery mate have plans tonight?"

My pulse ticked up. "Yep. Big plans."

That was a lie. There was no mystery mate.

After the ceremony, the whispers started — is she human? did she even try to shift?

Humans were known to be extinct for a while. The weakest species of all.

If I was considered a weak human orphan, I would be soon kicked out of my pack the next day.

So I did what I do best under pressure: I lied. I told everyone I'd felt a connection with someone that night. A mate bond, still forming, because I was a late shifter.

Late shifters were rare, but they existed. And a potential mate bond meant I was definitely a wolf, definitely one of them, definitely not a human.

The girl next to Alyssa leaned in. Piper, from one of the southern packs. She collected gossip the way some people collected coins.

"Wait, you found a mate too?" Piper's eyes lit up. "Who was he?"

Alyssa gave me a pointed look. “She’s been very mysterious about him.”

“I'm a late shifter. We just suddenly felt the mate-bond pull after the mating ceremony day and just started dating,” I said, trying to sound casual. “We’ve just started seeing each other, so we’re not really ready to tell everyone yet.”

Piper grinned, like this was the juiciest news she’d heard all week.

“Fine. Then just tell me what pack he’s from. I can figure out the rest myself.” She started counting on her fingers. “Is it Garrett? No, he’s mated. The Hale cousin—the tall one? One of the Voss-pack twins?”

"No," I said. "None of them."

"Huh." Piper frowned. "I thought I knew every unmated wolf nearby. Unless he's not a wolf." She gasped, delighted. "Oh my Goddess. Is he a different kind of shifter? I heard a vixen mated a wolf last year. Or a bear?"

"It's not — " My face was getting hot. "It's nothing like that."

Alyssa hadn't said anything in a while. She was watching me the way she watched me when she thought she'd caught something.

Piper's voice dropped, like she'd just thought of the most dangerous thing in the world.

"Mira." She grinned. "He can't be one of the vampires, is he?"

And that was the exact moment the door opened. The room went dead silent.

The vampires entered.

Damon Voss walked in first. He was tall, almost a full head taller than an Alpha son like Jason. His skin was pale but luminous, like porcelain catching the light, and his dark hair fell just enough across his forehead to look effortless. With his high and precise cheekbones, a strong jaw and a broad shoulder and chest, his presence made the air around him feel heavier.

Two more vampires followed behind him, boots clicking on the tile floor, spreading to their seats without a word.

Everyone knew who Damon Voss was. Son of Lord Alaric Voss, the vampire heir who would rule the world one day. Damon's friends had a reputation for bullying shifters. No one dared to cross them on campus.

Nobody looked at their way. Nobody spoke. Piper pressed her lips shut so fast it was almost funny.

But I looked.

I always looked at Damon Voss, and I never understood why. For some reason, something about him felt familiar. Not safe. Not warm. Just known, in a way I couldn't explain.

His gaze swept the room。

Then they found mine.