The humid Los Angeles air felt heavy, a stark contrast to the churning anxiety in my gut. Twenty-five years old, a maid in a crummy condo complex, and utterly adrift. I swore I’d never come back, but here I was, between Xavier’s two loyal brutes, Paul and Dylan, standing outside the very house that shattered my world eight years ago.

I’m a werewolf, by the way. Not that anyone would guess, especially living amongst humans for so long. But these two, they found me. Carried me kicking and screaming, literally, all the way back to the Shadow Pack in Hawaii. The strongest, most respected pack in the US, and the place I once called home.

Home. What a joke. It was where my identical twin, Anna, and I grew up. Where I fell for Xavier, the soon-to-be Alpha, only for him to declare his love for her. And then, on my sixteenth birthday, he rejected me for her. “I just don’t love you, Athena,” he’d said, “I love her. Always have.” He walked away, leaving me broken on a beach, my wolf howling in agony. I watched them build a life, stayed for the Luna announcement, the proposal, the wedding. I was even the maid of honor, a fake smile plastered on my face.

I finally broke the night he marked her. The pain was unbearable. A week later, they announced her pregnancy. He looked at me then, and I thought I saw regret, but it vanished. That was it. I couldn’t stay. On my eighteenth birthday, I severed all ties and vanished into the human world, the last place they’d look.

And now? Now I’m back. Not because I wanted to be, but because I had to be. For my sister’s funeral.