Chapter 3

Calla's Perspective

The path through Moonveil wound between buildings that seemed to grow from the landscape itself, all natural stone and weathered wood, with gardens that looked wild but were clearly tended with careful expertise. As we walked, I became acutely aware of the attention we were drawing.

People paused in their activities to watch us pass. But it wasn't simple curiosity. Several of them seemed to be... sniffing the air? Their expressions shifted from mild interest to confusion to something approaching concern.

"They can smell that I don't belong here," I realized aloud, the words slipping out before I could stop them.

Thorne glanced at me, surprise flickering across his features. "How did you...?" He shook his head. "You're more perceptive than I expected. Yes, they can sense you're different. But not that you don't belong—they're confused because your scent is... familiar, but they can't place it."

"Home," whispered the voice in my mind, stronger now than it had been all day. "This place knows us."

The building we approached defied every expectation I had formed. Rather than the rustic cabin I'd imagined, it was a sprawling modern structure that managed to look both imposing and welcoming. Floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the surrounding forest, and the broad front steps were worn smooth by countless feet.

"What is this place?" I asked, though part of me already suspected the answer would be impossible to believe.

"Home," Thorne said simply. "For people like... for family and our some of the members of our community."

The front door opened before we could knock, revealing a woman who made my breath catch. She was strikingly beautiful in a way that seemed effortless—long brown hair that caught gold highlights in the afternoon sun, hazel eyes that held depths of warmth and wisdom, and an indefinable quality of strength that seemed to radiate from her very core.

But it was her reaction to me that stopped time.

The woman's eyes widened, her hand flying to her mouth as if to contain a gasp. A dozen emotions flickered across her face in rapid succession—shock, recognition, hope, and an overwhelming sadness that brought tears to her eyes.

For a long moment, she simply stared at me, tears rolling down her cheeks. When she finally spoke, her voice was thick with emotion.

"You have her eyes," she whispered. "And her spirit. I can see it in the way you hold yourself."

"I'm sorry," I said, confusion and concern warring in my chest. "I think you might have me confused with someone else. My name is Calla. Calla Merrin."

The woman seemed to struggle for composure. When she spoke again, her voice was thick with emotion. "Of course. Forgive me. I'm Anya, Thorne's mother. Please, both of you, come in."

"She grieves," the voice in my head observed quietly. "She grieves for someone we remind her of."

The interior of the house was as impressive as the exterior—an open-concept space with soaring ceilings, comfortable furniture arranged in conversational clusters, and artwork that seemed to celebrate both human creativity and natural beauty. But I barely registered my surroundings, too focused on the way Anya couldn't seem to stop looking at me.

Anya led us to a more intimate sitting room off the main space, gesturing for us to take seats on a plush sectional. She remained standing, her hands clasped in front of her as if she was afraid they might shake if she let them go.

"Mom," Thorne began gently, "Calla's been experiencing some unusual things. I thought you might be able to help."

Anya nodded, but her gaze never left my face. "Before we discuss your experiences, dear one, I need to ask you something. What do you know about your birth parents?"

I felt the ground shift beneath me, the question hitting me in a place that had always been tender. "My birth parents? I... I don't understand. I mean, I've always wondered why I look so different from them, but..." My voice trailed off as the implications of her question began to sink in.

The sadness in Anya's eyes deepened. "I’m sorry, I didn’t realized you didn’t know that you were adopted. The people who raised you, I’m sure they're wonderful people, but they're not your biological parents."

The words hit me like a physical blow. "How could you possibly know that?"

"Because," Anya said, moving to sit across from me, her voice gentle but firm, "you look exactly like someone I knew and loved very much. Someone who... who died eighteen years ago."

The room seemed to spin around me. Eighteen years ago. The same time I would have been born.

"Who?" I whispered.

"My sister," Anya said, tears spilling down her cheeks. "Her name was Isolde."

"Sister," the voice in my mind breathed with something like recognition. "Family. Blood family."

"Your sister was my... my birth mother?" The words felt foreign on my tongue.

Anya nodded. "I believe so. The resemblance is too strong to be coincidental. The way you move, your expressions, even the color of your eyes—they're identical to hers."

I struggled to process what she was telling me. The revelation that my parents weren't my biological parents explained so much—why I looked nothing like them, why I'd always felt different, why I'd never quite belonged. But it also opened up a dozen new questions I wasn't sure I was ready to have answered.

Thorne leaned forward, his expression serious but supportive. "Calla, there are things about this world—about people like us—that most humans never learn. Communities and... abilities that exist alongside the ordinary world, but separate from it."

"People like us," I repeated, remembering his careful phrasing from earlier. "What exactly are you talking about?"

Anya and Thorne exchanged a meaningful look. "Perhaps," Anya said carefully, "it would be easier to show you rather than tell you."

"Show me what?"

"What you are," Thorne said gently. "What we all are."

Before I could ask what he meant, Thorne's amber eyes began to glow with an inner light that was definitely not human. The warm brown shifted to a brilliant gold, and for a moment I could have sworn I saw something wild and predatory looking back at me through his gaze.

I should have been frightened. Should have backed away or demanded an explanation. Instead, I found myself leaning forward, fascinated.

"Pack," the voice in my mind said with satisfaction. "Wolf pack. We are home."

Thorne's eyes slowly returned to their normal amber, and he watched my face carefully for signs of panic or disbelief.

"Werewolves," I said quietly, the word feeling natural despite its impossibility.

"Yes," Anya confirmed. "And Calla... so are you."

The revelation should have been earth-shattering. Instead, it felt like the final piece of a puzzle I'd been trying to solve my entire life just simply clicked into place.

"That's why I've been hearing the voice," I said, understanding dawning. "That's why everything feels different today."

"Your wolf is awakening," Anya confirmed. "Usually it happens on your 18th birthday but for some reason yours seems to be a bit early. Perhaps she was eager to come about and offer her protection."

"Protection from what?"

The sadness returned to Anya's eyes. "From the people who killed your parents. From the enemies who destroyed their pack and everyone in it."

The weight of that statement settled over me like a suffocating blanket. My birth parents weren't just absent—they were dead. Had been dead my entire life. And I was apparently the last survivor of something terrible I'd never even known had happened.

"I don't understand," I whispered. "If they were killed, how am I here? How did I survive?"

Anya's tears flowed freely now. "I don't know," she admitted, her voice breaking slightly. "We thought... we all thought you died with them. For eighteen years, I've mourned you along with your parents. When Thorne brought you here, when I saw your face..." She paused, struggling with her emotions. "I couldn't believe it was possible. But you're here. You're alive. Somehow, your parents managed to save you, to get you to safety before..."

She couldn't finish the sentence, but I understood. Before they died. Before their world ended. Before I became an orphan I never knew I was.

"Mom and Dad," I said quietly. "They saved me. Raised me. Kept me safe without even knowing what they were protecting me from."

"They gave you the greatest gift possible," Anya said, reaching across to take my hands in hers. "A normal childhood. A loving family. The chance to grow up safe and happy while the people who killed your parents believed you didn’t exist."

I looked between Anya and Thorne—my aunt and cousin, family I'd never known. The weight of revelation was crushing, but beneath it, I felt something else: belonging. For the first time in my life, I wasn't an outsider looking in. I was home.

"We are where we belong," the voice—my wolf—said with quiet contentment. "Finally."

"What happens now?" I asked, surprised by how steady my voice sounded despite the chaos in my heart.

"Now," Anya said with the first smile I'd seen from her, "we begin to teach you who you really are. And we make sure you're never alone in this world again."

As I sat in that warm room with people who understood what I was, who could explain the voice in my head and the changes in my body, I realized that my old life—the life where I was just Calla Merrin, ordinary teenager with ordinary problems—was over.

I was a werewolf. I was the daughter of people I'd never known, the survivor of a massacre I'd never heard of, and the newest member of a community I was only beginning to understand.

But for the first time in eighteen years, I finally knew why I'd always felt like I was waiting for something.

I'd been waiting to come home.