5 years

5 years later….

The warehouse smelled of rust, gun oil, and wolf blood.

Aria moved like smoke through the dim emergency lights, twin curved blades strapped to her thighs, black tactical gear hugging every curve her body had earned through five brutal years. At twenty four she was no longer the soft, hopeful girl who had spread her legs on a moonlit altar. She was a blade. A ghost. A mother who had learned that mercy got you killed.

“Again,” she commanded, voice low and sharp.

Luka and Lila dropped into fighting stances on the cracked concrete floor. Five years old and already lethal. Luka,dark hair like his father’s, golden eyes that sometimes bled into shadow,summoned tendrils of darkness that coiled around his small fists. Lila, with her mother’s fierce green eyes and a wild streak of silver in her hair, bared tiny fangs, claws extending with a soft snick.

“Target,” Aria said.

A rogue wolf they’d captured earlier snarled from the center of the circle, chained and muzzled. He’d been selling pups to humans for fight rings. Aria had no patience for his kind.

Luka struck first. Shadows whipped forward like living whips, slamming the rogue against the wall. Lila followed with a snarl, leaping onto his chest and sinking her teeth into his shoulder. The male howled in pain.

“Good,” Aria praised, circling them. “Now finish it clean. No playing.”

Lila looked up at her mother, blood on her chin, and grinned. “He tastes like fear, Mommy.”

Aria’s heart clenched with dark pride. “Fear keeps you alive. Mercy gets you rejected.”

She nodded once. Luka drove a shadow spike through the rogue’s heart. The body jerked, then stilled. Aria stepped forward and severed the head with one clean swing,insurance against any healing. She wiped the blade on the dead wolf’s shirt and turned to her children.

“Bath time. Then story time. No arguments.”

The twins groaned but obeyed, their small hands finding hers as they walked toward the converted living quarters at the back of the warehouse. This was their world now: an abandoned industrial block on the edge of Seattle’s underbelly that Aria had claimed three years ago. Reinforced walls, silver traps, motion sensors, and enough weapons to arm a small pack. No one came here unless she allowed it.

While the twins splashed in the oversized tub she’d stolen from a hotel renovation, Aria leaned against the doorframe, watching them. Luka was already trying to make shadow ducks float in the water. Lila was singing an off key version of an old Shadowthorn lullaby she’d somehow learned from a forbidden storybook.

They looked so much like him.

The thought made her stomach twist. Kael’s sharp jaw on Luka. That same intense stare. Lila had inherited the alpha presence that made lesser wolves drop their eyes. Every day Aria saw the man who had knotted her, filled her, then thrown her away like garbage. And every day she pushed the memory down with violence and training.

“Mommy?” Lila asked, bubbles on her nose. “When are we going to meet our daddy?”

Aria froze. She had prepared for this question, but it still cut like silver.

“You don’t have a daddy,” she said quietly. “You have me. That’s enough.”

Luka splashed harder. “But the other wolves say we smell like alpha. Strong alpha.”

“They’re right to be afraid.” Aria knelt beside the tub and wiped Luka’s face with a towel. “The man who gave you that blood rejected us before you were even born. He chose power over his own mate. Over you. Never forget that.”

The twins nodded solemnly, but she saw the questions burning in their eyes. She hated that she couldn’t give them normal. Couldn’t give them safety. But she could give them strength.

After baths and a simple dinner of rare steak and rice, she tucked them into the reinforced bunk beds. Story time was always the same request now.

“Tell us about the bad alpha again,” Luka whispered.

Aria sat between their beds, voice low. “Once there was a cruel alpha who knotted a girl under the blood moon. He made the whole pack watch while he took her. Then he called her weak and threw her into the night like trash. But the girl didn’t die. She grew claws. She grew shadows. And she raised two little wolves who would one day make him kneel.”

Lila’s eyes glowed. “And then what?”

“And then,” Aria said, kissing each forehead, “Mommy made sure no one ever hurt her babies again.”

She waited until their breathing evened out before slipping out. In the main room she poured herself a glass of cheap whiskey and checked the security feeds. Another night, another contract. A rival rogue alpha had put a bounty on her head last week,ten grand for the “shadow bitch and her freak pups.” She’d already collected three of his enforcers.

Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. She answered with a blade already in hand.

“Aria Kane.” The voice was male, rough, familiar in a way that made her wolf stir. “Or should I say Aria Voss?”

Her blood turned to ice. “Who the fuck is this?”

“Beta Ronan. Shadowthorn sends its regards. The Alpha requires your presence. War is coming with Crimsonfang. He knows about the twins.”

Aria laughed coldly. “Tell Kael he can choke on his own knot. I’m not his anymore.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Ronan said. “Blood summons. Refuse and every rogue in the city gets paid triple to bring your pups in pieces.”

The line went dead.