Victor's POV
I dropped my coffee mug when Elena said those words.
The mug broke on the porch steps, sending pieces everywhere. But I didn't care about the mess. I only cared about what Elena had just said.
"That's impossible," I said, my voice shaking. "This is my kid. Look at her!"
Elena stepped closer, her face pale and serious. "Victor, I know this is hard to hear. But I was the doctor who inspected Aria's body seven years ago. She drowned in that river."
"No!" Rose shouted, grabbing the girl's arm. "This is Aria! I know my own sister!"
But I saw doubt creeping into Rose's eyes. And the girl - the one I thought was my Aria - looked like she might throw up.
"There has to be some mistake," I said desperately. "Elena, you were upset that night. Maybe you made a mistake."
Elena shook her head sadly. "I've been a doctor for twenty years, Victor. I don't make mistakes about things like this."
Alpha Dante stepped forward. "Then who is she? If she's not Aria Nightwood, who is she?"
Everyone looked at the girl. She was shaking now, tears running down her face.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I remember being Aria. I remember this house, and Daddy, and Rose. I remember the river..."
"What do you remember about the river?" Elena asked sharply.
The girl closed her eyes. "I remember falling in. The water was so cold and dark. I tried to swim, but the wind was too strong. Then everything went black."
Elena's face went totally white. "Oh my god."
"What?" I asked. "Elena, what is it?"
"There were two bodies that night," Elena said slowly. "Two little girls drowned in the river during the wild attack. We only identified one of them - your daughter Aria. The other girl... we never found out who she was."
My heart stopped beating. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying maybe this girl didn't die that night. Maybe she lived somehow, and her memories got mixed up with Aria's because of the trauma."
Rose let go of the girl's arm. "So she's not my sister?"
"I don't think so," Elena said gently.
The girl made a sound like a hurt animal. "But I remember everything! I remember Rose's laugh, and Daddy reading me goodnight stories, and the way Mama used to braid my hair!"
"Those might be Aria's memories," Elena stated. "Sometimes when wolves go through terrible trauma, especially as children, their minds can absorb memories from other wolves who died near them."
I felt like someone had hit me in the stomach. "So my real daughter is still dead?"
"I'm afraid so."
Rose started crying. Big, ugly tears that broke my heart all over again.
But the girl - whoever she was - looked even more broken. "If I'm not Aria, then who am I? Where is my real family?"
"I don't know," Elena said softly. "But we can try to figure it out."
Alpha Dante moved closer to the girl. I could see him fighting the desire to comfort her. "What's the last thing you remember before waking up after the accident?"
The girl thought hard. "I remember being scared. There were men with red eyes chasing us through the forest. They were trying to catch the children."
Elena gasped. "Red eyes. Those were the Shadow Pack rogues. They use a drug that turns their eyes red and makes them stronger."
"The Shadow Pack," I replied. "They're the ones who attacked us that night."
"And they took several children," Elena added. "We never found all the bodies."
Alpha Dante's face went dark. "So she's been their prisoner this whole time. They probably told her she was Aria to keep her confused and easier to control."
The girl was crying harder now. "So everything I know is a lie? My whole life is a lie?"
I wanted to comfort her, but how could I? She wasn't my kid. My real daughter was dead and had been dead for seven years.
But looking at her standing there, lost and broken, I felt my heart breaking anyway. This girl had suffered just as much as Aria would have. Maybe more.
"It doesn't matter who you used to be," I said, moving toward her. "You're here now, and you're safe. That's what matters."
She looked at me with those green eyes - eyes that looked so much like Aria's but weren't. "But I'm nobody. I don't have a family or a name or anything."
"You have us," Rose said suddenly. "Maybe you're not my actual sister, but you feel like my sister. Isn't that enough?"
Hope sparked in the girl's eyes. "Really?"
Before Rose could answer, Elena's phone rang. She answered it quickly.
"What? Are you sure?" Elena's face went pale. "How many? Okay, don't do anything. We'll be right there."
She hung up and looked at all of us with fear in her eyes.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"That was the border patrol," Elena said. "The Shadow Pack rogues are collecting at our territory line. All of them. And they have someone with them."
"Who?" Alpha Dante demanded.
Elena swallowed hard. "A little girl with brown hair. She looks about ten years old, and she's calling for her daddy. She says her name is Aria Nightwood."
The world stopped.
Rose grabbed my arm. "Daddy, what does that mean?"
I stared at Elena, my mind running. "It means the real Aria might still be alive."
The girl beside us made a coughing sound. "But that's impossible. I'm Aria. I have to be Aria."
Alpha Dante was already moving toward his car. "There's only one way to find out."
"Wait," I called after him. "If the real Aria is out there, why did the Shadow Pack keep her for seven years? Why bring her back now?"
Elena's face went even paler. "Because today is her eighteenth birthday. In rogue society, they can't force a child to mate. But once she turns eighteen..."
She didn't need to finish. We all understood.
The Shadow Pack had kept my real daughter living for seven years, waiting until she was old enough to mate with their leader.
And now they were using her as bait to get the other girl back.
"We have to save her," I said, running toward Alpha Dante's car.
But as we drove toward the border, one terrible thought kept spinning in my head.
If the real Aria was living, what did that mean for the girl we'd just found?
And which kid was I supposed to choose?