SEREN POV
The mop hits the floor with a wet slap, and I'm so tired I almost fall with it.
My hands are shaking. They've been shaking for three hours now, ever since I started my shift at the Moonlight Diner. It's two in the morning, and I'm the only person here except for the cook who left an hour ago without saying goodbye. Nobody ever says goodbye to me.
I press my fingers against my ribs and wince. The bruise there is three days old, shaped like Melissa Carter's designer boot. She's the most popular girl at Lunar Peak Academy, and her favorite hobby is reminding me that I'm a wolfless freak who doesn't belong.
She's right, though. I don't belong anywhere.
I dip the mop back into the bucket and watch the dirty water swirl. My reflection stares back at me—pale face, silver-white hair that everyone says looks "weird," amber eyes that are too big for my thin face. I look like a ghost. Sometimes I feel like one too.
My phone buzzes in my apron pocket, and my stomach drops.
Mom never calls unless something's wrong. And with Mom, something's always wrong.
I pull out my cracked phone and answer. "Hello?"
"SEREN!" My mother's voice is so loud I have to hold the phone away from my ear. She's drunk. Of course she's drunk. "Pack your STUFF! We're moving tomorrow!"
My heart stops. "What? Mom, what are you talking about?"
"I got MARRIED today!" She's laughing now, that high-pitched crazy laugh that makes my skin crawl. "To someone IMPORTANT! Someone RICH! We're moving into his mansion tomorrow morning, so you better have your trash packed by sunrise!"
The mop falls from my hand. Water spreads across the floor, but I can't move.
"Married?" I whisper. "To who?"
"Caldric Voss!" She shrieks the name like it's supposed to mean something to me. "The Alpha Supreme of the Western Territories! He's LOADED, Seren! We're going to be RICH!"
The Western Territories. The most powerful pack in three states. And Caldric Voss is their leader.
"But Mom, you can't just—"
"I CAN do whatever I WANT!" Her voice turns mean now, the way it always does. "And YOU'RE going to keep your mouth SHUT and act GRATEFUL for once in your useless life! You think I wanted a wolfless MISTAKE like you? This is your chance to be worth SOMETHING!"
The phone goes dead.
I stand there in the empty diner, holding my phone, trying to breathe.
This can't be happening. My mom married a complete stranger? An Alpha Supreme? We're moving tomorrow?
My chest feels tight. Too tight. I can't get enough air.
I stumble to the bathroom and lock the door behind me. The mirror here is even worse than the one in the bucket—it shows everything. The purple bruise on my cheekbone from when Derek Matthews shoved me into a locker. The split lip from when someone threw a rock at me after school. The dark circles under my eyes because I only sleep four hours a night between my three jobs.
I'm nineteen years old, and I'm so tired I want to disappear.
"You're nothing," I whisper to my reflection. My voice cracks. "You'll always be nothing."
A tear rolls down my cheek, then another. Soon I'm sobbing, sliding down the bathroom wall until I'm sitting on the dirty floor. I press my hands over my mouth so nobody can hear me crying, even though there's nobody here. There's never anybody here.
I cry until there's nothing left inside me.
Then I stand up, wash my face, and finish mopping the diner. Because that's what I do. I survive. I keep going even when everything hurts.
At four in the morning, I walk home to our tiny apartment in the worst part of town. My feet ache. My ribs ache. Everything aches.
I pack my stuff like Mom said. It doesn't take long. I own three pairs of jeans, five t-shirts, two hoodies, some underwear, and one pair of shoes that are falling apart. Everything fits in two garbage bags.
I look around the apartment. It's small and dirty and the heat barely works, but it's been home for two years. Before this, we moved six times in three years because Mom kept getting evicted. I'm used to leaving.
I sit on my mattress on the floor and wait for sunrise.
That's when my phone buzzes again.
I almost don't answer it. But something makes me look at the screen.
It's a text from an unknown number.
"Welcome to the family, little wolf. We've been waiting for you."
My blood turns to ice.
Nobody calls me "little wolf." Nobody even knows my number except my boss at the diner and Vesper, my only friend.
I type back with shaking fingers: "Who is this?"
Three dots appear. Someone's typing.
Then the response comes, and my whole world tilts sideways.
"Your new brothers. All five of us. We know what you are, Seren. And we know what you're hiding. See you at breakfast. Don't be late."
I stare at the message, my heart pounding so hard it might break through my chest.
What I'm hiding? I'm not hiding anything. I'm just a wolfless nobody who can't shift, can't fight, can't do anything special.
Aren't I?
I look down at my hands. For just a second—just one tiny second—I swear I see a flicker of silver light dancing across my fingertips.
Then it's gone.
My phone buzzes one more time.
"P.S. We don't like liars. Tell us the truth, or we'll find out ourselves. Trust us—you won't like our methods."
The message deletes itself right before my eyes.
I'm shaking so hard I drop the phone.
What just happened? Who ARE these people? And what do they think I'm hiding?
Outside my window, the sky is turning gray with dawn. In a few hours, Mom will drag me to a mansion full of strangers who already know my secrets.
Secrets I didn't even know I had.
I pull my knees to my chest and stare at my hands, waiting for that silver light to come back.
It doesn't.
But deep inside my chest, something stirs. Something that's been sleeping my whole life.
Something that feels like it's waking up.