Three

Angela stepped back, fear crawling under her skin.

“I don’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Damian smiled again, and for a fleeting moment she saw—beneath the man—something greater. Something monstrous and beautiful. A power that was anything but human.

He moved closer until the space between them was no more than a breath.

Angela held hers.

Damian raised his hand slowly, deliberately, and placed two fingers beneath her chin, forcing her to lift her face.

His touch was cold, yet her skin burned.

Those crimson eyes locked on hers, and for a moment everything vanished—the village, the rain, the fear.

There was only the connection.

Something snapped in the air between them—like an invisible thread stretched to the breaking point.

Angela felt a surge of emotions rush through her: desire, rage, need. All magnified, as though Damian could tap into her deepest feelings and strip them bare without mercy.

She let out a trembling breath.

“You don’t know who you are yet,” he murmured, his fingers tracing along her jaw in a threatening caress. “But you will. And when you do, little one… it will be too late to run.”

Angela shut her eyes, fighting the storm dragging her under.

But when she opened them again, Damian had stepped back.

He watched her with an unreadable expression, as though deciding whether to devour her or protect her.

“Stay alert, Angela,” he said, her name on his lips sounding like a sentence. “This world… is not made of flesh and bone alone. There are things here you cannot yet see.”

The ground trembled beneath her feet. The whole village seemed to breathe around them, alive, ancient, and hungry.

“Who… who are you?” she whispered.

Damian only smiled—a dark smile, heavy with dangerous promises—before turning his back and melting into the shadows as though he had never been there.

Angela stood in the middle of the street, rain soaking her clothes, her hair, her soul.

She had run from one monster.

But perhaps, without realizing it, she had thrown herself straight into the claws of others far more dangerous.

And the scariest part…

A piece of her wanted it.

A piece of her craved the darkness.

Night fell over Montemori like a thick, suffocating cloak.

Angela curled under the blankets of the old cabin bed, eyes wide open in the dark. The rain had stopped, but the wind still howled through the cracks in the windows, carrying whispers that seemed to call her name.

She couldn’t sleep.

Since meeting Damian, something inside her had shifted. A feverish restlessness vibrated beneath her skin, like invisible electricity aching to be unleashed.

She closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply, but her body wouldn’t obey. It was as if something pulled her out of herself, into a place between dream and waking.

And then, she saw.

Not with her eyes, but with something older, more primal.

A forest bathed in bluish light, black trees whispering in forgotten tongues. In the center, three figures waited for her.

Zane. Theo. Damian.

Each radiated an aura so intense it warped the very air around them.

They watched her in silence, and Angela felt the crushing weight of their gaze—not threatening, but claiming.

She took a hesitant step toward them.

The ground beneath her feet pulsed, alive, connected to her in a way she had never felt before. With every step, a strange sensation grew inside her: power.

Not theirs. Hers.

Angela stopped before them, heart pounding in her chest.

Zane moved first, his golden eyes blazing under the supernatural light. He extended his hand, and without thinking, she placed hers in his.

The touch ignited fire through her veins, awakening something long asleep.

Next came Theo, approaching from the left. His green eyes glowed with tenderness and strength. He laid a hand on her shoulder, and where he touched, Angela felt invisible roots intertwining within her—steadfast, protective.

Finally, Damian.

He didn’t need to touch.

His crimson eyes met hers, and with that single look, Angela felt the darkness inside her—the part of her soul she had always tried to bury—roar in recognition.

She opened her mouth to speak, to ask what it meant.

But before words could form, the earth shook.

The trees bent toward her, as if in reverence.

The wind carried her name—not as a threat, but as a proclamation.

Angela.

She fell to her knees, unable to withstand the force flooding into her.

It was magic.

Raw. Ancient. Wild.

And it was hers.

Angela woke with a jolt, her body slick with sweat, chest heaving as though she had run for miles.

The room was swallowed in shadow, but the feeling lingered: a vibration deep in her bones, her skin, her blood.

She pressed her hands to her face, trying to calm herself.

“What’s happening to me?” she whispered into the dark.

No answer came.

But when she lowered her hands, she noticed something strange.

The tips of her fingers… glowed.

A faint blue shimmer, like the light from her dream.

Angela blinked hard, trying to shake off the illusion. But the glow held for several seconds before fading, as though it had never been.

She staggered to her feet, the floor wavering beneath her. Every cell in her body pulsed with an energy she didn’t know how to contain.

She faced the cracked mirror on the wall.

The reflection that stared back was familiar… and not.

Her eyes seemed sharper, deeper.

Her skin radiated a faint warmth, like embers beneath the surface.

And, most frightening of all, something in her expression—wild, untamed—hadn’t been there before.

Did they do this to me? Or was it always there, waiting to wake?

The memory of the three men surged back: Zane, with his relentless hunger. Theo, with his steady protection. Damian, with his shadowed dominion.

All bound to her in ways she didn’t yet understand.

But one truth was clear.

She was no longer just Angela—the woman who fled a violent past in search of peace.

No.

She was something else.

Something this world—this secret, magical, brutal world—recognized. And wanted.

Angela touched the mirror, the surface cold against her trembling fingers.

“I’m not weak,” she said, her voice growing steadier with every word.

Her eyes in the mirror glimmered for a heartbeat, as though the universe itself acknowledged her vow.

She didn’t know what would come next.

She didn’t know if she could trust the three Alphas—or herself.

But one thing was certain:

She would not run again.

And for the first time in

a long while, a smile curved her lips—fierce, untamed.

Because deep down, in the darkest part of her…

She couldn’t wait to see just how far her shadows could reach.