Prologue - Found
She carried the burden of knowing, bound by bloodlines and secrets
CAMILA
Camila, only five years old, crouched in the back of the dark closet, knees pulled to her chest.
Her mother had tucked her behind old blankets and winter coats, whispering for her to stay silent no matter what.
The air was thick with dust and lavender, the scent of her mother’s cloak, yet none of it softened the cold dread settling in her tiny bones.
Voices drifted from the hallway, hushed but sharp enough to cut clean through the wooden door.
“It’s time,” the man said. His tone was controlled, almost gentle, but beneath it curled something dangerous. “You can’t keep her from him forever.”
“You knew this day would come.”
There was a long pause, filled only by the pounding of Camila’s tiny heartbeat. When her mother finally spoke again, her voice trembled, the sound barely holding itself together.
“She belongs with us,” the man continued, his calmness somehow worse than shouting. “This is her birthright.”
“Leave,” her mother demanded. “My mate will be home soon with my son. You don’t want him to find you here.”
Silence followed, dense and suffocating, before the man answered, almost with pity.
“You can’t hide her forever. She’ll come to us eventually.”
The front door slammed. The house fell eerily still.
Soft footsteps padded toward the closet, then the door flew open. Warm arms scooped her up, and her mother held her close, tucking Camila’s head beneath her chin.
“You’re okay, sweetie. Mummy’s got you.”
“Who was that bad man?” Camila whispered, her voice wobbling. “Is he gonna take me away?”
Her mother forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “He had the wrong house, that’s all. No one is taking you anywhere.”
But when she said anywhere, her gaze wavered—sliding away just long enough for Camila to feel it.
The lie beneath the truth.
Games were easy, rock, paper, scissors, guessing stones under cups. Too easy.
By eight, she already knew she had to hide it. People whispered about intuition like hers. Gift. Curse. Omen.
Only Mateo, her brother, and Isabella, his closest friend, knew even fragments of her truth.
And Camila saw Mateo’s truth long before he did:
the way his wolf stirred whenever Isa entered a room,
the way his voice softened around her,
the way something in him cracked whenever she walked away.
Then came the morning that changed everything, she wished she’d screamed instead of whispered.
She begged her father not to hold the pack celebration.
“Please,” she whispered, clutching his hand. “Something’s wrong.”
But he insisted the pack needed unity. Needed reassurance. Needed to be reminded they were safe.
She said nothing more.
And for her silence….they died.
She had felt exactly what would happen.
Exactly when.
She prayed she was wrong.
She wasn’t.
In the aftermath, surrounded by smoke and grief, Camila made a vow that would shape the rest of her life:
Truth was protection. Secrets were fatal. Silence was unforgivable.
Her bluntness became her armor.
Her intuition, her warning bell, became the one thing she trusted without hesitation.
There was only one time her intuition had ever failed her.
The moment she met Alex.
She was seven. He was ten.
She felt something she couldn’t name then, familiarity, a pull, the shadow of something destined.
She waited for the mate bond to awaken.
For wolves, seventeen was the age of certainty.
When Alex turned seventeen… nothing happened.
No spark. No recognition.
He looked at her the way he always had…kind, distant, unchanged.
To her fourteen-year-old heart, the silence was unbearable.
Hope twisted into something reckless.
She thought if she made the first move, he’d finally feel it.
Sneaking into his tent became the worst mistake of her life. A painful, humiliating one. After that night, Alex could barely look at her.
His stunned silence afterward cut deeper than rejection ever could.
Then everything collapsed at once.
During that time, her heat came early, dangerously early, just as her mother had warned.
If Isa’s came soon after, it could endanger both Alex and Mateo. Both girls would be vulnerable and they would attract unmated wolves.
A passing pack offered them a week’s refuge.
It was there they met a resident witch who admitted her limits… but claimed to know someone stronger.
That was when Celeste appeared.
Her presence unsettled Camila immediately, though she couldn’t explain why.
Celeste offered solutions they desperately needed, answers they were too young and frightened to question.
And that was the beginning.
The moment everything shifted…quietly, subtly….long before Camila understood the darkness threading its way into their lives.
