Chapter 6

SOPHIA'S POV

Derick had called me into his office without explanation, and the moment the door shut behind me, I understood this wasn't going to be about mop schedules or spilled coffee.

He stood behind his desk rather than sitting, arms crossed, studying me the way a predator studies something it hasn't decided whether to trust yet.

"Tell me. Did the Night Walkers send you here, rejected mate?" Derick stared at me like he was hunting for a lie in my face.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Derick. No one sent me here to spy on your company," I said, holding his gaze even as my pulse quickened.

"Then why work for your pack's biggest rival? Of all the places you could have gone?" he pressed, circling slowly around the desk.

"I needed a job. This was the one I found. I didn't know who owned it until it was too late to matter," I said.

"And why should I believe that?" he asked, stopping a few feet from me.

"I don't know how to prove it to you. But I swear on my life, I wasn't sent here to spy. I just need this job to survive," I said, the words coming out more desperate than I wanted them to.

He studied me a moment longer before finally looking away. "I'll think about it. For now, get back to work," he said.

"That's it? You're just going to think about it?" I asked, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice.

"Would you rather I decide right now?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"No. Thinking is fine," I said quickly, and left before he could change his mind.

I didn't get far before Mia caught up with me in the hallway, stepping directly into my path.

"Don't think you're off the hook. I'm watching you. If I catch you lying, you'll regret it," she said, close enough that I could feel the threat in it.

"I've got nothing to hide," I said.

"We'll see about that," she said, and walked off, leaving the words hanging in the air behind her.

By the time I left for the night, I was seriously considering whether it was worth staying at all. But leaving wouldn't undo the banishment waiting for me everywhere else, and there wasn't a version of my life right now that didn't involve someone looking at me sideways.

I was nearly asleep, curled beneath the blankets with the city noise drifting faintly through the window, when a knock came at my door. Past ten. I lay there for a moment, debating whether to ignore it entirely.

I opened it to a woman I'd never seen before, hand out for a shake, her expression open and unbothered by the late hour. No werewolf scent reached me. Human. I shut the door out of instinct before I'd even fully processed her face.

She knocked again, more insistent this time, the sound sharper against the wood.

"Who are you?" I asked, opening it a second time, keeping my body angled to block the entrance.

"Miranda. I work at Mondragon's," she said, and before I could respond, she walked past me into my apartment as though she'd been invited.

"Excuse me? How do you even know where I live?" I demanded, closing the door behind her since there was little else to do at that point.

"I followed you. Last week," she said, entirely unbothered by how that sounded.

"You followed me? Why would you do that? Do you know how that sounds?" I asked, my arms crossing over my chest.

"I know exactly how it sounds. I'd have done it differently if I'd thought of a better way," she said, at least having the decency to look slightly sheepish about it.

"I wanted to talk to you, somewhere your coworkers couldn't listen in," she added.

"About what?" I asked, still wary, though my curiosity was beginning to outweigh my caution.

"I clean the toilets at Mondragon's. I've seen firsthand how badly the werewolves there treat their human staff. Abused. Dismissed. Worse," she said, sitting herself down on the edge of my couch without waiting for permission.

"I've noticed. I just didn't think anyone else was paying attention to it," I said, surprised to find some relief in the admission.

"I notice everything in that building. It's what happens when nobody thinks you're worth talking to directly," she said, something bitter threading through the words.

"Why do they treat you so badly there?" she asked, tilting her head as she studied me.

"Because I'm not from their pack," I said, catching myself before I said more than I meant to. "It's the same for me. My pack's their biggest rival. They see me as an outsider."

"But you're a werewolf. Like them," she said, clearly puzzled by the distinction.

"It's not enough. They only accept their own," I said.

"That's not fair," she said quietly, and something in her voice told me she meant it.

"It's more than that. I'm a rejected mate, too. My Alpha chose my stepsister instead. My own pack banished me for taking this job," I said, the words easier to say than I expected.

"That's awful. I can't imagine," she said, her expression softening further.

"It's been hard. But I'm not going to let it break me," I said.

"You're strong. And you're not as alone as you think. I'm a forbidden child. Both my parents were wolves, but I never got the power. I know what it's like to not belong anywhere," she said, and for the first time, I saw something raw pass over her face.

"How do people treat you, being a forbidden child?" I asked.

"About the same as they treat you. Like I'm a mistake somebody forgot to correct," she said, the bitterness returning, sharper now.

"That's an awful way to put it," I said.

"It's an awful way to be treated. The words just match," she said, a small, humorless smile pulling at her mouth.

"Thank you," I said. "It means a lot, more than you probably realize, especially today."

"We outcasts have to stick together," she said, and I found myself agreeing without hesitation.

We laughed at that, the sound loosening something in my chest that had been tight for days.

"Come somewhere with me," she said suddenly, standing and reaching for her coat.

"Where?" I asked, caught off guard by the shift.

"You'll see. Do you trust me?" she asked, studying me carefully.

"I don't know you at all," I said honestly.

"That's fair. But I'm asking anyway," she said.

"You know most people just ask 'how was your day' instead of showing up at a stranger's apartment past ten," I said, though I was already reaching for my own coat.

"I'm not most people," she said simply.

"Clearly," I said, unable to help the small laugh that escaped me. "Fine. But if this turns out to be a kidnapping, I'm going to be very disappointed in my own judgment."

"Noted," she said, grinning.

I hesitated a moment longer at my own front door before finally following her out into the cold night air. She led me through streets I didn't recognize until the city thinned out into a forest at its edge, the trees rising dark and dense against the sky.

"I didn't know Canada had anywhere I could run free this close to downtown," I said, looking around in genuine surprise.

"Most people don't. Show me. Whatever it is you do," she said, stepping back to give me room.

"Watch," I said, and let the shift take me. My body twisted and reshaped itself, muscle and bone rearranging in a rush that always felt half like pain and half like relief.

In a few seconds, I stood before her as a wolf, the cold air suddenly sharper, the scents of the forest rushing in all at once.

"You're beautiful," she said, reaching out slowly to run her fingers through my fur, her touch careful, reverent even.

We ran through the trees together after that, chasing shadows and howling at the moon, the two of us moving through the dark like the whole city didn't exist. For the length of that run I forgot everything waiting for me back in the city, Derick's suspicion, Mia's threats, all of it falling away beneath my paws.

When the shift finally caught up with me, I dropped back into human form and sat beside her on a fallen log, catching my breath, the cold air stinging pleasantly against my flushed skin.

"That was amazing," she said, grinning at me. "It's been a long time since I saw anything like that."

"You've never seen a wolf shift before?" I asked, surprised.

"Not up close. Not somebody actually letting me watch, anyway. Usually people hide it," she said.

"I don't know why I didn't. Maybe I just wanted someone to see all of it, for once," I admitted, the honesty of it surprising even me.

"Thank you for bringing me here. I mean that," I added.

"Anytime. Really. Any time at all," she said.

"Anytime. If you ever need to get out of that building and remember you're more than what they call you there, I'm coming with you," she said, the offer sitting warm in my chest.

"Why are you being this kind to me? You barely know me," I asked, unable to stop myself.

"Maybe that's exactly why. Nobody who actually knows me bothers anymore," she said, something flickering across her face too quickly to name.

"That's a sad way to live," I said gently.

"It's the only way I've found that doesn't get me hurt," she said.

I didn't know what to say to that, so I just sat with her under the stars a while longer, the silence between us comfortable rather than heavy. For the first time since Blake had ended everything, I felt something that resembled hope, small, but real, and mine.

"We should head back," Miranda said eventually, glancing toward the faint glow of the city beyond the trees. "Early morning tomorrow."

"Already dreading it," I said, though the dread felt smaller than it had a few hours earlier.

"Don't. Whatever tomorrow brings, you survived today. That's not nothing," she said.

"You keep saying things like that. Like you've had a lot of practice getting through bad days," I said.

"More than I'd like. It gets easier to say out loud, eventually," she said, a faraway look crossing her face.

"I hope you're right," I said.

"Me too," she said, and we walked back toward the city together in the quiet dark.

I didn't know it yet, but tomorrow was going to come to take that hope away again, and it was already waiting for me, right down the hall from my own front door.