THEA'S POV
"You're going the wrong way!" I scream as Magnus takes another turn away from town.
"No, I'm not." His voice is terrifyingly calm while bullets are literally punching holes through his car. "Trust me."
"Trust you? I don't even know you!" I twist around to look through the shattered back window. Mr. Rodriguez is following us in his truck, still shooting. "He's gaining on us!"
"He won't catch us." Magnus's eyes flash gold again—that same impossible color I saw before. "Hold on."
The SUV suddenly accelerates so fast I'm thrown back against the seat. The speedometer climbs—sixty, eighty, a hundred miles per hour on a tiny mountain road. Trees blur past. My stomach lurches with every sharp turn.
"You're going to kill us!"
"Better than letting them catch you." He takes a curve so fast the SUV tilts on two wheels. I scream. He doesn't even blink. "And put your seatbelt on."
I scramble to buckle up with shaking hands. Behind us, Mr. Rodriguez's truck is falling back. We're too fast. Way too fast for a normal car.
"What kind of engine does this thing have?" I gasp.
"Custom." Magnus glances at me, and something in his expression makes my skin prickle. "Built to outrun... problems."
"Problems like men with guns trying to kill me?"
"Among other things."
We drive in silence for ten minutes. My heart won't stop racing. My hands won't stop shaking. Every time I close my eyes, I see Mr. Rodriguez pointing that gun at my head.
He's known me since I was fifteen. He taught me how to make tamales. He cried at my high school graduation ceremony—the one Father held at home with just the staff since I wasn't allowed to go to real school.
And tonight he tried to murder me.
"Why?" I whisper. "Why would he do that? We trusted him."
"Money, probably." Magnus's jaw tightens. "Or threats. Whoever's after you knows how to pressure people."
"But who? Who wants me dead so badly they'd—" I stop. Remember the text. "That message. They said something about my mother."
Magnus's hands clench the steering wheel. "What exactly did it say?"
I pull out my phone with trembling fingers and read: "'You can run, little hybrid. But we can smell you. We're already coming. And when we find you, we'll finish what we started with your mother.'"
The car swerves. Magnus recovers quickly, but I saw it—that split second of lost control.
"You know what that means," I accuse. "You know what happened to my mother."
"Your father should have told you himself."
"My father is DEAD!" The words explode out of me. Saying them makes them real. Makes the crushing weight in my chest unbearable. "He's dead and you're all I have and you won't tell me anything!"
Magnus is quiet for a long moment. Then: "Your mother didn't die in childbirth."
The world tilts.
"What?"
"She was murdered. When you were three days old." His voice is flat, emotionless. "Your father told everyone she died giving birth to protect you. To make you seem... less important."
I can't breathe. Can't think. "Why would someone murder my mother?"
"Because of what she was." He glances at me. "Because of what you are."
"Stop talking in riddles!" I'm shouting now, tears streaming down my face. "Just tell me the truth! Tell me why people are trying to kill me! Tell me what that text meant by 'hybrid'! Tell me why your eyes turn GOLD!"
Magnus slams on the brakes.
We skid to a stop in the middle of the dark road. He turns to face me, and his eyes are glowing—actually glowing gold like an animal's.
"You want the truth?" His voice drops to a growl. "Fine. Your father was human. Your mother was a werewolf. Which makes you half-wolf, half-human. A hybrid. The rarest, most powerful type of creature in our world."
I laugh. It's a horrible, broken sound. "Werewolves aren't real."
"Really?" Magnus opens his mouth. His teeth are sharper than they should be. Longer. "Still think I'm crazy?"
I press myself against the car door, as far from him as I can get. "Stay away from me."
"I'm not going to hurt you, Thea." The gold fades from his eyes back to silver. Human silver. "I'm trying to protect you. Your father asked me to keep you safe, and that's exactly what I'm going to do."
"My father lied to me my entire life!"
"He was trying to keep you alive!" Magnus's control cracks. "Do you know what happens to hybrids? They're hunted. Killed. Used for their power. Your mother died protecting you from people who wanted to drain your Alpha bloodline before you were even old enough to walk. Your father spent twenty-three years hiding you, training you, keeping you locked away in that estate because it was the only way to keep you breathing!"
"Alpha bloodline? What does that even—"
"It means you're royalty in the wolf world. It means your blood can make weak wolves stronger. It means a dozen different factions would love to capture you, breed you, or bleed you dry." He leans closer, and I can see the wolf behind his human face. "It means you've been living on borrowed time since the day you were born."
My phone buzzes.
We both look at it.
Another text from the unknown number: "Found you."
Magnus's head snaps up. He sniffs the air like... like an animal.
"Get down," he orders.
"What—"
"GET DOWN!"
He shoves me below the dashboard just as the windshield explodes.
Something huge and dark crashes through where my head was a second ago. The SUV rocks violently. Magnus roars—actually roars—and I hear terrible sounds. Snarling. Growling. Ripping.
I peek up and immediately wish I hadn't.
A massive wolf—bigger than any wolf should be, with red eyes and foam dripping from its jaws—is trying to claw its way through the windshield. Magnus holds it back with inhuman strength, fingers dug into its throat.
"Rogue," he snarls. "Should've known they'd send rogues."
The wolf snaps at his face. Magnus punches it so hard I hear bones crack. The creature yelps and falls back onto the hood.
Two more wolves step out of the forest. Then three more. Then five.
We're surrounded.
"Magnus?" My voice is tiny. Terrified.
"Stay in the car." He opens his door. "No matter what you see, stay in the car."
"What are you going to do?"
He looks back at me, and his eyes are pure gold now. Glowing in the darkness like twin flames.
"What I'm good at."
Then he steps out, and I watch in horror as his body starts to change.
Bones crack and reshape. His spine curves. His jaw extends. Dark fur ripples across his skin. In seconds, the man is gone.
In his place stands a wolf the size of a bear—black fur, silver eyes, radiating power that makes the other wolves back up.
One of the rogues lunges.
Magnus catches it mid-air with his teeth and throws it into a tree. The impact sounds like thunder.
The other wolves attack all at once.
What happens next is terrible and beautiful and completely impossible. Magnus fights like a demon, like a god, like nothing I've ever seen. He's faster than the rogues, stronger, more vicious. Blood sprays across the road. Bodies hit the ground.
I should be terrified.
I should be screaming.
But something inside me is... singing.
My skin feels too tight. My bones ache. My teeth hurt. And I can smell things I shouldn't be able to smell—blood and earth and fear and power.
Something's wrong with me.
Something's changing.
One of the rogues breaks away from the fight. Heads straight for the car. Straight for me.
Magnus roars and tries to intercept, but two other wolves tackle him.
The rogue reaches my door. Starts clawing at the window. Glass cracks.
I scramble backward, but there's nowhere to go.
The window shatters.
The rogue's red eyes lock on mine. It opens its jaws, showing teeth like knives.
I close my eyes, waiting to die.
Then something inside me snaps.
Heat explodes through my body. My bones crack and reshape. My spine curves. I open my mouth to scream and a howl comes out instead.
When I open my eyes, I'm looking at the world from four feet off the ground.
I have paws.
Fur.
A tail.
I'm a wolf.
The rogue freezes, staring at me. Then it does something I don't expect.
It bows its head.
All the wolves stop fighting. They all turn to look at me.
And one by one, they bow.
Even Magnus, still in wolf form, blood dripping from his jaws, stares at me with something like shock in his silver eyes.
A voice echoes in my head—deep, male, definitely Magnus: "Impossible. You shouldn't be able to shift yet. Not for six more months."
I try to respond and somehow my thoughts project back: "What's happening to me?"
"Your Alpha bloodline is awakening early." His mental voice sounds strained. "Which means they'll know exactly where you are now. Every wolf in a hundred miles just felt that power surge."
"What do we do?"
Before he can answer, headlights flood the road.
A dozen vehicles screech to a stop, surrounding us. Armed men pour out—but these aren't normal men. Their eyes glow different colors. Gold. Green. Amber.
All wolves.
A woman steps forward. Blonde hair, cold blue eyes, expensive business suit completely out of place in the middle of a forest.
She looks at me and smiles.
"Hello, Thea. I'm Dr. Vesper Thornwell." Her voice is ice and venom. "And I'm your father's widow."