**Five Years Later.**
The café in the city was busy. Ella tied her apron tighter, wiping down table four.
She looked different. Her hair was cut short. She wore glasses. She looked... normal.
"Mommy!"
A little boy ran in from the back room. Four years old. Messy black hair. Startlingly intelligent eyes.
"Leo, slow down!" Ella scooped him up.
She had named him Leo after her brother, who was now a successful architect across the country—safe. Happy. Far from the shadows of this pack. But her son was a different kind of Leo. A fighter.
"Look!" Little Leo pointed out the window.
A motorcade of black SUVs was passing slowly down the street.
Ella froze.
She knew those cars.
The central car rolled down its window.
Roman sat there. He looked at the street.
His eyes swept over the cafe. He saw Ella.
His gaze didn't pause. It didn't flicker.
He looked at her like a window. A piece of the background.
He rolled the window up. The car drove on.
Ella exhaled, a breath that turned into a sob.
"Mommy, who was that?" Little Leo asked, tilting his head.
"A stranger," Ella kissed his cheek. "Just a man."
She put him down. "Go play. Mommy has to work."
Sometimes, she thought of Ethan. He was out there. Alone.
She touched her collarbone. The skin was smooth. No tattoo.
But then she looked at her son. As he ran back to his toys, his shadow stretched out on the floor.
For a split second, the shadow didn't look like a little boy.
It looked like a wolf.
Ella looked at him.
The magic was gone. But the blood remembered.
**THE END**