•Amara's POV

(Six years later)

The smell of pancakes filled our small kitchen as I flipped the last one.

"Mommy why is it that I am different from the other kids in my class?".

I kept my face calm even though my heart skipped a beat.

I turned to my son who was cutting his pancakes into perfect squares.

This conversation had been coming for months and I still wasn't ready for it.

"What do you mean, honey?" I asked while pouring orange juice into his glass.

My son, Milo looked up at me with bright eyes that were so much like Kade's.

"Tommy pushed me during recess. I nudged him a bit but he flew across the room."

I swallowed softly.

"Tommy doesn't eat enough, that's why he flew though you barely touched him."

Milo gave me a dirty look.

"But mom, what about that thing my eyes does always?" he pressed on.

He was not fooled by my deflection.

"When I get really mad, they feel hot and Jimmy said they flash gold."

My stomach clenched.

"It's not normal, is it?" He demanded from me with quirked brows.

Milo was already too smart and too observant at five years old.

The wolf blood in him was stirring and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I sat down across from him and spoke, choosing my words carefully.

"Eyes play tricks in the light," I lied.

I forced a smile.

"Now eat your breakfast or you will be late for school again, today."

"But Mom-"

"Milo." I used my firm voice, the one that usually ended arguments. "Eat."

He sighed and took a big bite.

His questions were getting more specific and deflecting wouldn't work soon.

"If daddy was here, he wouldn't tell me to eat?" he mumured between bites.

And there it was, the words that always made my chest feel hollow.

"He wouldn't," I answered carefully.

His eyes lit up.

"Is daddy strong like me? Did he have gold eyes too?" He bombarded me.

My throat tightened.

I wanted to say.

I wanted to say that Kade was the strongest man that I ever knew.

I wanted to tell him that Kade's eyes could go from green to gold in a heartbeat.

I wanted to tell him that Kade would have loved you more than life itself.

That is if he had known of him existed.

But, I couldn't.

So I said only one word: "Yes."

"Why isn't daddy here with us?" He said with sad eyes and a pouting look.

Milo's innocent question hit me hard like a wicked punch straight to the gut.

How do I explain to a five year old that his father had rejected his mother?

How do you tell him that his father had chosen pack politics over love?

"Sometimes adults decide to make choices that will hurt people," I said softly.

He made a huh sound.

"Your father made a choice that meant he couldn't be a part of our family."

Milo nodded seriously as if he understood every word I had just said.

But I knew that more questions would be coming later-they always did.

My mind drifted back to that night six years ago that changed everything.

That night when I had walked out of that hall and Kade didn't follow me.

He didn't stop me when I had packed my few belongings that night.

He didn't come after me when I left pack lands at dawn with nothing.

I did take the silver knife and the braid he gave me during our mating ceremony.

And I took the most important thing,the secret growing deep in my stomach.

My exile wasn't chosen.

It was survived.

And survival meant raising Milo far from the man that had mercilessly burned me.

I needed my child far from the world where strength was measured in clans.

"Mom, you are spacing out again," Milo said, pulling me back to the present.

I blinked and realized then that I had been staring out of the window.

My coffee had grown cold in my hands.

"Sorry, baby. I was just thinking."

"About my daddy?" He asked just as he finished his last bite of pancake.

I laughed, grateful for his ability to pull me out of my dark memories.

He was always too smart.

"Tell me mommy," he pressed.

I ignored him and simply checked the clock on the microwave.

"We need to leave now or we will both be late for work and school."

He made a sound of horror.

"I don't want to be late or the classroom teacher will get cranky again."

I laughed as he jumped up from the table and ran to get his backpack.

I watched him go, so full to the brim with that soothing face year old energy.

My heart began to ache with how much he looked like Kade when he moved.

They had the same confident stride and the same way of holding their shoulders.

Like father, like son.

"Ready, Mom!" he called from the hallway as I grabbed my purse and keys.

I pushed the memories back into the locked box in my mind where they belonged.

Today was about getting Milo to school and myself to work at the diner.

Today was about the normal and almost human life I had created for us.

But as we headed toward the door, I could not shake that uneasy feeling.

I felt like our carefully constructed normalcy was about to come to an end.

"Come on, little wolf," I said, using his nickname. "Let's go face the world."

If only I had known how prophetic those words would turn out to be.

•Amara's POV

When I went to pick up Milo from school that afternoon I got a shocker.

My heart raced as his teacher told me that Milo had spoken a strange language.

"Well, it wasn't English. It sounded almost like Latin, but different," he explained.

My blood had congealed.

The old tongue-Milo must have been speaking the old tongue.

I had composed myself and quickly told him Milo must have picked it up in TV.

And I had excused myself and Milo when he had tried to argue and pry more.

Milo bounced around me all the way to the car, unaware of what was happening.

His Alpha bloodline was awakening and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

My enhanced senses picked up something as we left the school parking lot.

It was something that caused my wolf to stir for the first time in six years.

It was the smell of death and decay mixed with something ancient and unnatural.

It was the scent of predators.

"Mommy, you okay?" Milo asked from his car seat. "You look really worried."

I forced a smile.

"I'm fine, baby."

But I wasn't fine.

In my rearview mirror, I caught sight of a black SUV that had been following us.

I had noticed it for three days now.

This time, I got a clear look at the driver's eyes through his sunglasses.

It was an naturally bright silver.

My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I realized we were being hunted.

And that night, everything fell apart.

I was washing the dishes when I heard Milo crying from his bedroom.

It was not his usual tired whimper but a sound of pain that had me racing.

I found him thrashing in his bed and his small body moving restlessly.

"Milo," I said as I reached out to shake him and instantly jerked it back.

He was burning up with a fever that it almost hurt to even touch him.

His eyes flew open.

But instead of the normal bright green, they were glowing a pure Alpha gold.

"Mom," he whimpered.

But his voice sounded strange.

It sounded older.

"The shadows are calling," he told me. "I know they want me to come home."

My eyes widened and my blood froze, for he was speaking the old tongue.

It was the ancient language of our kind, words he had never heard in his life.

"The bloodline calls," he whispered in that ancient voice. "I must return."

Milo fell unconscious as strange glowing runes began appearing on his skin.

Fear gripped me.

I reached out to shake him just as the bedroom window exploded.

Three figures crashed in through the glass, moving with inhuman speed.

I screamed in panic and fear as I realized that these were my species.

There was something wrong with the way they moved, circling I and Milo.

These were wolves with silver eyes and fluid movements as if their joints were bent

And the smelt of rotting flesh and dark magic which filled the room.

"Get away from us!" I screamed.

"The little prince has awakened, what perfect timing," One of them laughed.

I hadn't shifted in five years.

I had buried my wolf so deep I wasn't sure she would answer my call.

But when these things threatened my son's safety, she exploded to the surface.

And she came forth with a fury that left even me completely surprised.

I howled as my bones cracked and moved with the reforming of the shift.

And suddenly I was standing on four legs with my fangs bared, ready to kill.

I was rusty, slower than I used to be, but desperation made me vicious.

The first rogue lunged at Milo and I easily caught the wolf mid-leap.

My teeth sank into his throat.

His blood tasted wrong, tainted with something dark and disgusting.

The second one tried to flank me.

But I spun and caught him with my claws, viciously ripping his chest open.

He fell backwards with wide eyes as black blood began pooling beneath him.

The third rogue was smarter because he stayed back and didn't aproach.

He watched me with those silver eyes.

"You can not stop what is coming," he said in a voice that sounded like an echo.

Then he lunged.

I had expected his attack and was prepared for it as I pushed him to the ground.

I went for the neck and succeeded as he fell to a heap, dying before my eyes.

"The bloodline calls to us. The children will return to their true home," he said.

I shifted back to human form, naked and bloody but not caring.

I grabbed the silver knife I kept hidden in Milo's dresser and lunged forward.

The blade sank into his heart and his eyes went wide with the shock.

"The bloodline calls to us," he whispered for the last time as he finally perished.

But as the life left his eyes, the silver colour was replaced by a solid black.

And underneath his pulsing skin, I could see that something was moving.

It definitely wasn't human.

I pulled the knife out and stepped back from it with my whole body shaking.

What the hell were these things?

Milo was still unconscious and still glowing with all those strange runes.

And I didn't have time to figure it out as more of them might be coming.

I hurriedly put on some clothes.

Then I reached out and grabbed an uncomcoius Milo from the bed.

I strapped him to the unused back carrier as if he weighed absolutely nothing.

It hadn't been used for a while and he had gotten too big for it.

But it would work.

I didn't use the front door and slipped out through the fire escape.

The old survival instincts I had learnt in my first months of self exile kicked in.

I knew every back alley and shadow route to walk the city without being seen.

It took me two hours to reach the cabin, a shelter I had made three years ago.

I had slowly stocked it with emergency supplies-food, clothes, weapons.

It had everything that we might need if we had the need to disappear.

I opened the door and quickly stepped in, shutting the door fight nehind me.

Milo woke up as I was settling him down on the small but soft feather bed.

"Mom?"

His voice was back to normal.

"Where are we?" He demanded as his eyes scanned our surrounding.

"We had to leave, baby. Some bad people were trying to hurt us."

He sat up while rubbing his eyes. Then he looked at his hands and gasped.

His fingernails had extended into small claws, and there was runes on his skin.

Horror filled his eyes as he looked up at me and shirked : "Mom, look at me!"

Byt before I could answer, a howl echoed through the forest outside.

It was long, mournful and definitely not from any normal kind of wolf.

I heard the crunching sound of leaves as they were being crushed under foot.

It was coming from outside our door.

I grabbed my knife and positioned myself between the door and Milo.

Every single maternal muscle in my body was coiled and ready for a fight.

"Stay behind me," I whispered.

We were about to find out whatever awful thing was lurkinh out there.

Or was our nightmare just beginning?

The footsteps stopped just outside our door and I gripped my knife tighter.

I was ready to fight for Milo's life again and again until there was no more threat.

But something happened.

"Amara."

My name.

•Amara's POV

My mouth went dry.

I stilled, the knife in my hands almost dropping at the familiar voice.

"It is Rowan. I am here to help."

My heart nearly stopped.

Rowan?

Kade's beta, and the man who had stood beside us at the mating ceremony.

The same one who had watched as Kade had destroyed me five years ago?

Or do those monsters I had fought have powers to mimick voices?

"How do I know it is really you?" I called out without breaking my protective stance.

"You used to sneak into the kitchen at night to steal honey cakes," he said.

Despite everything, I almost smiled because that was definitely Rowan.

"I always pretended not to notice."

"What are you-"

The sound of a piercing scream stopped me short and I heard something lunge.

Rowan grunted and I realized he was the one who was being attacked outside.

I heard the sounds of the fight.

There were snarls and the sound of claws on flesh, also bodies hitting the ground.

Then there was silence.

"It is safe now, Amara," Rowan said with a breathless voice. "May I come in?"

I looked back at Milo.

He was staring between me and the door with those flickering gold eyes.

Then I slowly opened it.

Rowan stepped inside from the darkness and I had to bite back a gasp.

He looked like he had fought an army.

And behind him, I could see eleven other wolves cleaning blood off their claws.

"Hello, Amara," he said gently. "You look good."

I laughed.

"I look like hell and we both know it. What are you doing here, Rowan?"

His looked at Milo and I saw the recognition that instantly flickered across his face.

But, he said nothing.

"We have been tracking the rogues that attacked you back home," he said.

That explained his appearance.

"What are those rogues?" I asked, flipping my hair over my shoulders.

"Amara, those are not rogue wolves."

I had noticed that.

"They are being controlled by something and being used to hunt specific targets."

"What kind of targets?" I demanded with brows quirked in confusion.

"They hunt children."

"Children?"

"Yes, those with Alpha bloodlines."

My blood turned cold.

"They are hunting Alpha children?" I asked him with wide eyes.

He nodded.

"Seven packs in total have lost children from alpha families between the ages of four and eight in the past month."

I gaped, unsure wether to scream or collapse from the shock.

"Their trail led us to your apartment. But you attacked quickly. And then here."

His gaze moved back to Milo.

"I think we both know why they came for him," he said as he looked at me.

My heart began to pound in my chest.

It was obvious.

The palpable tension was unbearable and almost insurmountable at this point.

The silence was thick and suffocating and I knew that I needed to say something.

But before I could respond to Rowan, Milo suddenly began to convulse.

His small body shook violently.

His eyes rolled back, showing only white before he collapsed onto the cot.

"Milo!" I rushed to him. "What is happening to you?" I cried out in anguish.

Rowan knelt beside us and studied the rune that were shining on the child's skin.

"The same thing had happened to the other children before they disappeared."

Fear gripped me.

"Something was calling to them like this and vehemently trying to take control."

Milo's eyes suddenly snapped open, but they weren't gold this time.

They were a solid black just like the rogues who had attacked us earlier.

I gasped in astonishment.

"The children hear the call," he began to say in the old language.

The voice wasn't his own.

"Soon we will all be together."

"No," I whispered, shaking him gently. "Milo fight it please, stay with me."

I embraced him tightly, tears rushing down my cheeks and I held unto him.

"Mom?" he whispered weakly.

I instantly drew back to look at him.

He was normal again.

"Mom I feel strange."

"You'll be fine Milo. Mommy will protect you," I assured him softly.

Rowan placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Amara, you need to bring him home to Silvergrove. It is his only chance."

"No!" I spat out my disagreement in a sharp voice. "I will never go back there."

Roman sighed.

"You have to Amara."

"And face Kade?" I snapped. "The mate who rejected me and called me worthless?"

He shook his head.

"I know how you feel Amara. But only the pack healers know how to fight against this ancient kind of dark magic."

"I will not," I said as I hugged Milo tighter.

Rowan's expression softened. "Kade doesn't know about the boy, does he?"

I looked down at Milo and realized that he had fallen unconscious again.

"No, and I plan to keep it that way."

"Amara, look at me."

I did.

"The child is innocent in what happened between you and Kade. He needs the help that only the pack can provide."

His voice was gentle.

"Don't deny him that because his father decided to be a fool," he added.

I closed my eyes in a bid to stop the tears that threatened to spill over.

Going back to Silvergrove meant facing everything I had run away from.

It meant seeing Kade and explaining why I had hidden his son from him.

But one look at Milo's pale face and I knew that I didn't really have a choice.

I had to do this.

"Fine, for Milo," I whispered. "But if Kade tries to take him away from me-"

"He won't," Rowan assured me in a firm voice. "I will make sure of that."