Chapter 3

FIA

Kane stood at the edge of my parents' driveway, still in his ceremony clothes, but his tie was gone, top button ripped open, like he hadn't slept a single second since the moment he ruined my life in front of over two hundred people.

"Get back in your car, Kane."

"You're not going anywhere with him." He crossed the driveway in four long strides, faster than I could track, and his hand closed around my wrist way too hard, hard enough that I already knew it would leave a bruise by morning. Behind me, Diego was already moving towards us with a low growl.

"Let go of me!." I yelled.

"You don't understand, Sofia.." Something in his voice cracked, something that almost sounded like grief buried under all that wreckage. "I had to reject you. You don't know what they would've done if my father figured out what you—"

"Don't." Diego's voice cut in from the side. "Whatever you're about to say, Ashford, you don't get to say it now. You had a room full of witnesses this afternoon and you chose to humiliate her instead. You don't get a private explanation twelve hours later like it makes it any better."

Kane's eyes cut to him furiously. "This is none of your business, Alpha Salazar. Back off.”

"She's about to get in my car. That makes it my business." Diego retorted.

"I said let go," I snapped, before either of them would turn this into something between the two of them.

Heat shot up my arm like someone had struck a match against my skin. Kane's breath caught out loud, his grip loosening from pure shock, and when I looked down, the skin along my knuckles was glowing, faint silver, it was impossible to explain.

Kane went pale instantly. "You," he whispered. "You're—"

He never got to finish it before aman stepped out of the mangroves trees behind our house, there wasn’t any pack crest on his jacket. Just a plain black mask, and eyes that landed on me with a calm satisfying look of someone who had been hunting for twenty years and had finally, finally found what he came for.

"Hello, little Moonblood," he said. "We've been looking for you."

My whole body went cold.

"Sofia, get behind me." Diego's voice had lost every trace of the easy, calm stranger from the boathouse earlier.

"There's no need for violence," the masked man said casually like this was just another Tuesday for him. "I'm not here to fight. I'm only here to deliver a message. The Hollow Mother has waited a very long time to meet you properly, Sofia."

"Wait- how do you even know my name?"

"We've known your name since the night your grandmother died refusing to give it to us." His head tilted, studying me like a piece of jewelry behind a glass.

"Your family did an excellent job keeping you like small this all these years. I almost missed you myself. Twenty years, and you were right here in Miami the entire time."

Something in the way he said "small" made my skin crawl, and the glow along my hand flared brighter, hot and bright and furious.

"Kane." My voice shook. "Let go of my hand."

“No! If I let go, you go with him, and I lose you all over again in one night."

"You already lost me the first time," I snapped at him, and yanked my wrist free and the second his skin left mine, the light didn't fade at all. It poured down my whole arm, bright enough that the masked man actually took a step back, bright enough that I heard my father's voice from the front door wrecked and screaming my name into the dark.

"Interesting," the man said, reaching for something clipped to his belt. "You are stronger unbonded than we even projected. The Hollow Mother will want to know that." He raised one hand. "Take her."

Four more men stepped out of the trees behind him, spreading wide, boxing us in against the house.

Diego shifted mid-run, then a blur of black fur came alive where he had been standing half a second before, a snarl ripping out of him that made the whole yard feel much more intense.

Kane tore out of his suit with a sound like fabric tearing straight down the seam, his eyes began turning gold, and for a little moment the Alpha Prince who had humiliated me twelve hours ago and the Alpha who had offered me a job six hours ago moved like they have rehearsed this exact fight a hundred times before , flanking the driveway from opposite sides without a single word between them.

I stood there for a moment, some part of my instinct wanted to scream at both of them, another part of me wanted to let the men handle it in their own way.

Then I looked down at my glowing hands.

“Enough!.” I yelled.