THESSALY POV
I couldn't breathe.
My lungs were changing shape inside my chest. My ribs cracked and reformed. Every bone in my body broke and healed wrong—no, not wrong. Different.
I screamed, but the sound came out as a howl that shook the trees.
White fur covered my arms—no, my front legs. Paws replaced my hands. My face stretched forward into a muzzle. My clothes tore apart as my body grew bigger, stronger, more powerful than anything human.
The pain was everywhere. It was everything.
And then suddenly, it stopped.
I stood on four legs, panting. Rain poured down on fur instead of skin. The world looked different—sharper, brighter, filled with a thousand scents I'd never smelled before.
"There you are," my wolf's voice purred in my mind. "Welcome home, little queen."
Little queen? What did that even mean?
"We are Lunaris," my wolf said, and I felt her pride like sunshine warming my chest. "Ancient bloodline. Royal wolves. The ones who ruled before the common packs forgot their place."
Royal? I was a servant. A nobody. A human who scrubbed floors—
"You were NEVER human," my wolf snapped. "You were sleeping. Hidden. Protected until you were strong enough to wake up. And now..." She laughed, wild and fierce. "Now we show them what happens when you torture a queen."
Before I could process any of that, a scent hit my nose.
Five scents. Five distinct, powerful, intoxicating smells that made my wolf throw her head back and howl.
"MATES!"
No. No, no, no. That was impossible. Wolves only got one mate. One person destined by the Moon Goddess to be their perfect match.
Not FIVE.
"We're special," my wolf said smugly. "Royal wolves get royal privileges. And five gorgeous males are heading straight toward us right now."
I smelled them getting closer. Four of them were moving fast through the forest. The fifth scent was farther away, faint but somehow stronger than the others. All five scents called to something deep in my chest, making me want to run TO them instead of away.
My wolf wanted our mates.
But I knew who those four closer wolves had to be.
Caspian. Lucien. Dax. Kieran.
The four males who'd made my life a living nightmare.
They'd felt my power when I shifted. Every wolf in the territory probably felt it. And now they were coming to investigate.
If they found me, they'd know I wasn't human. They'd know I'd been lying—no, sleeping, whatever—for seventeen years. They'd probably lock me up or kill me or worse.
I had to run.
"We don't run from our mates!" my wolf snarled.
Watch me.
I took off on four legs, crashing through the forest like a drunk deer. I'd never run as a wolf before. My paws kept tangling together. I slammed into trees, stumbled over roots, face-planted into a bush.
Behind me, howls erupted into the night.
They were hunting me.
Terror shot through my chest. I ran faster, but I didn't know where I was going. Everything looked different through wolf eyes. The forest was a maze of trees and shadows and rain.
A massive gray wolf burst through the trees to my left. Then a black wolf appeared on my right. Two more wolves—one dark brown, one reddish—cut off my escape routes.
They were surrounding me.
I put on a burst of speed I didn't know I had, my wolf's power flooding my muscles. For a moment, I pulled ahead. I could smell water nearby—a creek or river. If I could just reach it—
My paw caught on a root.
I went tumbling head over tail, crashing and rolling until I splashed into freezing cold water.
Silverfall Creek. I'd found it by accident.
I scrambled to my feet in the shallow water, spinning around to face my hunters.
Four massive wolves emerged from the tree line.
The gray wolf was HUGE, clearly an Alpha. His ice-blue eyes locked onto me with an intensity that made my knees weak. Caspian.
The black wolf beside him was just as big, with the same blue eyes but meaner somehow. Lucien.
The dark brown wolf moved like a soldier, controlled and dangerous. Dax.
The reddish wolf had scars across his muzzle and murder in his green eyes. Kieran.
All four of them stared at me like I was the most shocking thing they'd ever seen.
Then, in perfect unison, all four wolves shifted back to human.
They stood there in the rain, completely naked, looking at me with identical expressions of shock and something else. Something that made my wolf preen with satisfaction.
Want. Need. Hunger.
"Impossible," Caspian whispered. His voice was hoarse. "You're... you're WHITE."
I'd never seen a white wolf before either. Didn't know what it meant. But from the way they were looking at me, it was important.
Lucien took a step forward into the creek. "Shift back. Let us see your human form."
My wolf wanted to obey. Actually wanted to shift and show ourselves to these males who'd spent years tormenting us.
Are you INSANE? I told her.
"They're our MATES," she argued. "Can't you smell it? Can't you feel the bond?"
I felt something. A pull in my chest toward all four of them. A rightness that terrified me more than anything else tonight.
Because I knew their human faces. Knew their cruelty. Knew exactly what they thought of the servant girl Thessaly.
If I shifted back now, they'd know who I was. And everything would change.
Dax moved closer, his eyes gentle in a way I'd never seen before. "We won't hurt you. I promise. We just want to—"
"Mate," Kieran interrupted, his voice rough. "She's our mate. All of us. I can feel it."
"That's impossible," Caspian said, but he was walking toward me too, like he couldn't help himself. "Wolves don't have four mates. It's never happened before."
"Well, it's happening now," Lucien growled. He was staring at me like I was water and he was dying of thirst. "Shift. Please. Let us see you."
I backed up in the creek. Water splashed around my paws.
All four of them froze.
"She's scared," Dax said quietly. "Look at her. She's terrified of us."
Good. They SHOULD scare me. These were the same males who'd called me worthless, pathetic, a waste of space. Who'd laughed when other pack members pushed me around. Who'd treated me like I was less than nothing.
And now they wanted to claim me as their mate because my wolf was pretty and powerful?
Rage burned through my fear.
"Show them," my wolf urged. "Show them who we are. Make them KNEEL."
I shifted back to human.
The transformation hurt less this time. In seconds, I stood in the creek on two legs, naked and shivering, my long silver-streaked hair plastered to my face.
All four of them went absolutely still.
Caspian's face went white. "Thessaly?"
Lucien looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. "No. No, that's not—"
"The servant girl?" Dax whispered, horror dawning in his eyes.
Kieran just stared, his mouth open in shock.
I lifted my chin, refusing to cover myself or show shame. Let them look. Let them see the girl they'd tortured for seventeen years standing in front of them as their fated mate.
"Surprise," I said coldly.
Then I felt it. The fifth scent. The one that had been far away.
It was getting closer. Fast.
And it was STRONG. Stronger than all four of them combined.
My wolf perked up, excited. "The last one. The best one. He's coming."
The forest behind the four males went silent. Birds stopped singing. The wind stopped blowing. Even the rain seemed to pause.
Someone—something—incredibly powerful was almost here.
All four males felt it too. They spun around, facing the forest, putting themselves between me and whatever was coming.
Protecting me.
A voice echoed through the trees. Male. Ancient. Amused.
"Well, well. The Lunaris bloodline finally awakens."
A figure stepped out of the shadows between the trees.
My wolf howled in recognition.
And I smelled it—the fifth mate bond, stronger and more terrifying than all the others combined.
"Hello, my queen," the stranger said, his silver eyes glowing in the darkness. "I've been waiting three hundred years for you."