5. When the Past Comes Calling

The Continental Pack Council’s formal summons arrived three days later, delivered by a neutral courier with diplomatic immunity and an expression that brooked no argument.

I stared at the seal, three wolves circling a crown, pressed into gold wax, and felt the past reaching out to drag me back.

“Dr. Winters.”

The courier, a severe woman in her fifties with steel-gray hair and harder eyes, kept her posture military-straight. “I’m required to wait for your response. Continental Law, Article Seven, Section Three.”

“Give me a moment.”

I broke the seal with hands that only trembled slightly, unfolding the heavy parchment.

To Dr. Sage Winters, Director of the Sanctuary,

The Continental Pack Council formally requests your immediate presence and expertise regarding a supernatural crisis affecting mate bonds across North America.

As the foremost researcher on severed bonds and their psychological and supernatural effects, your consultation is deemed critical to preventing widespread pack collapse.

Under Article Seven of Continental Law, you are hereby granted:

– Full diplomatic immunity from all pack prosecution

– Safe passage through any territory

– Protection from Alpha claims or challenges

– Suspension of all previous pack conflicts

– Autonomy in your research and recommendations

These protections remain in effect for a period of thirty days from acceptance and may be revoked by majority Council vote in cases of gross misconduct or threat to pack security.

The crisis originated in the Silver Crest pack four months post-initial incident and has spread to seventeen territories in the subsequent period. Without immediate intervention, projections suggest complete mate bond network collapse within six months, affecting an estimated 40,000 bonded pairs.

Your answer is required within twenty-four hours. Failure to respond will result in mandatory summons under Continental Emergency Powers.

Respectfully,

High Chancellor Marcus Stone

Continental Pack Council

Marcus Stone.

Dominic’s uncle.

And he was telling me that if I didn’t come willingly, they’d make me.

“I need time to consider,” I told the courier, my voice steadier than I felt.

“You have twenty-four hours. I’ll return tomorrow at noon.”

She inclined her head with military precision and left, her footsteps echoing down the hallway like a countdown clock.

I sank into my chair, the letter trembling in my hands.

Seventeen territories.

Forty thousand bonded pairs at risk.

And it had started in Silver Crest four months after I left.

My research files were already open on my tablet before I consciously decided to look. Five years of documenting severed bonds, of interviewing wolves who’d survived forced rejections. I’d become the world’s leading expert on bond trauma because I’d lived it.

My rejection: five years ago, during the Blood Moon Festival.

My departure from Silver Crest: three months after that.

The first reported bond severing in Silver Crest: four months after I left.

Then the spreading pattern, radiating out from Silver Crest like ripples in a pond.

My hands stilled on the screen.

This wasn’t coincidence.

“Mama?”

Liam’s voice made me jump. He stood in the doorway, too perceptive for four and a half years old, his amber eyes, Asher’s eyes sharp with concern.

“You’re scared,” he said softly. “I can smell it. You smell like… like thunder before a storm.”

I forced a smile that felt like it might crack my face.

“Just work stuff, sweetheart. Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Is someone trying to take us back to a pack?” His small voice was steady, but I could see the fear beneath it.

“No one is taking you anywhere.”

I pulled him onto my lap, breathing in his familiar scent, honey and old books and something uniquely Liam. “I promise you that. You’re safe here. You’ll always be safe with me.”

“Then why are you looking at pack law?” He pointed to my screen, where I’d pulled up the Continental Council’s charter without thinking.

Too smart. They were all too smart.

“Because sometimes we have to understand pack law to fight it better,” I said carefully. “That’s what we do here, remember? We help people escape bad situations.”

“Like you did.”

It wasn’t a question.

My children knew I’d fled a pack, though they didn’t know which one or why. They knew their fathers had rejected them before they were born, though they didn’t know the full story.

“Like I did,” I agreed quietly.

Liam was silent for a moment, his small fingers tracing patterns on my arm. Then he said, “If you have to go help people, we’ll be okay here. Ms. Jennifer and Mr. Javier can watch us. We know the safety protocols.”

My throat tightened painfully.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“But if you have to,” he persisted, that strategic thinking that was pure Asher, always planning three moves ahead “we’ll understand. You taught us that sometimes we have to do hard things to protect people, even when it scares us.”

I held my son close, breathing in his scent, feeling the weight of impossible choices settling on my shoulders like a physical burden.

The Continental Council was offering immunity. Protection. For thirty days. Thirty days that could be revoked if they decided I was a threat.

Walking into Silver Crest would still be dangerous.

But if the crisis really had started with my rejection, if the unraveling of the mate bond network was somehow connected to what the Alphas had done to me five years ago…

I couldn’t let forty thousand innocent wolves suffer because I wanted to avoid my past.

“Mama?” Liam’s voice was small, uncertain. “You’re crying.”

I wiped my eyes quickly.

“I’m okay, baby. Just thinking.”

“Thinking about our fathers?”

The question was hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to ask.

“Yes,” I admitted, because I’d never lied to my children about the important things, even when the truth hurt both of us.

“Do you think they miss us?”

Emma had appeared in the doorway, Noah right behind her, and I realized all three of them had been listening, pack children and their supernatural hearing. “Even though they didn’t want us?”

The question shattered something in my chest, made the old wound tear open, fresh and bleeding.

“I don’t know what they think,” I said carefully, gathering all three of them close. “But I know that you three are wanted. So wanted. By me. By everyone here in the Sanctuary who loves you. And if your fathers can’t see how incredible you are, that’s their loss, not yours. Do you understand me? Their loss. Not yours.”

“But maybe…”

Emma bit her lip, unusually hesitant. “Maybe they’d change their minds? Maybe they’d want to keep us?”

“Maybe if they met us now?”

The hope in her voice nearly destroyed me.

“Oh, sweetheart.”

I held them tighter, these fierce, brilliant children who carried Alpha blood they’d never be allowed to claim. “Listen to me. All three of you. You are not responsible for earning anyone’s love, including theirs. You exist, and that’s enough. You’re enough. You’ve always been enough.”

But even as I said the words, even as I felt them burrow into my arms, seeking comfort, I knew what I had to do.

The Continental Council was summoning me back to Silver Crest.

Back to the Alphas who’d rejected me.

Back to face the consequences of a bond that should have died but somehow, impossibly was tearing the entire supernatural world apart.

I had twenty-four hours to decide.

But deep down, I already knew my answer.

Some debts demanded payment.

Some wounds needed to be cauterized.

And some bonds, no matter how thoroughly rejected, refused to die quietly.

Tomorrow, I would accept the summons.

Tonight, I would hold my children and pretend that going back wouldn’t destroy everything I’d built.

Even freedom had its price.

And mine, it seemed, was just coming due.