Sera's POV
The baker's hand wrapped around my wrist like iron.
"Thief!" he shouted, and my heart dropped to my stomach.
I yanked my arm hard, twisting the way I'd learned in six months of surviving on the streets. The bread fell from my other hand, and I wanted to cry. That was supposed to be my dinner. My only meal today.
"Please," I gasped. "I'm hungry—"
"Should've thought about that before stealing!" The baker raised his other hand to hit me.
I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain. But someone grabbed the baker's arm.
"How much for the bread?" a rough voice asked.
I opened my eyes. A sailor with a grey beard held the baker's wrist, stopping him. He tossed a coin on the counter, picked up the bread, and handed it to me.
"Go on, girl," he said quietly.
I ran before the baker could change his mind. My hands shook as I ducked into an alley, my heart still racing. I slid down against a wall and finally looked at the bread. It was small and hard, probably a day old. But it was food.
My stomach growled so loud it echoed.
I was seventeen years old, and this was my life now. Stealing food. Running from angry shopkeepers. Sleeping in alleys.
Six months ago, I had a home. I had parents who loved me. I had a warm bed and three meals every day. My father was the village blacksmith in Thornwick, and my mother made the best apple pie in town. We weren't rich, but we were happy.
Then the fire came.
I still saw it every time I closed my eyes. Orange flames eating our house. My mother screaming. My father pushing me out the window before the roof collapsed. The heat on my skin. The smoke choking me.
Everyone said it was an accident. A lantern knocked over. Bad luck.
But I knew better.
I touched the golden pendant hanging around my neck—the only thing I had left. My mother had pressed it into my hands before... before everything ended. "Remember who you are," she'd whispered, her face covered in ash.
I didn't understand what she meant. I was just Sera. A blacksmith's daughter. Nobody special.
"Hey, girl."
I jumped. The sailor from before stood at the alley entrance.
"Easy," he said, holding up his hands. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Just wanted to make sure you ate."
I bit into the bread, watching him carefully. People didn't help for free. Everyone wanted something.
"You're that girl from Thornwick, aren't you?" the sailor said. "The one asking about the fire?"
My heart beat faster. "Maybe."
"I got information. Saw something at the docks yesterday that might interest you."
I stood up quickly. "What did you see?"
The sailor looked around, then lowered his voice. "You said your Uncle Damien died five years back, right?"
"Yes." My uncle had drowned at sea. Or that's what we were told.
"Well, I saw a man who looked just like him. Same face, same walk. He was going into the old warehouses by the water. Meeting with some dangerous types."
My blood turned cold. "That's impossible. He's dead."
"Maybe. Maybe not." The sailor shrugged. "But if you want answers about that fire, I'd check the warehouses at sunset. That's when I saw him."
He walked away before I could ask more questions.
I stood there, my mind spinning. Uncle Damien was dead. Everyone said so. But what if he wasn't? What if he was alive this whole time and never came looking for me after the fire?
What if he knew something about the fire?
I had to know.
The sun was setting when I reached the warehouse district. The old buildings loomed like dark giants against the orange sky. My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
This was stupid. Dangerous. If the sailor was wrong, I was wasting my time. If he was right...
I didn't know which scared me more.
I crept between the warehouses, staying in the shadows. Voices drifted from somewhere ahead. I pressed myself against a wall and peeked around the corner.
Three men stood near a warehouse door. Two were big and mean-looking, with scars and weapons. But the third man...
My breath stopped.
Uncle Damien. It was really him. Older than I remembered, but definitely him. His face was exactly like the painting my father kept—same sharp nose, same dark eyes.
He was alive.
"The job needs to be done quietly," Damien said, his voice cold. "No witnesses this time."
"Like the Thornwick fire?" one of the men asked.
My heart stopped beating. Everything went silent except for the blood rushing in my ears.
"Exactly like Thornwick," Damien replied. "Quick and clean. Make it look like an accident."
No. No, no, no.
My uncle. My own uncle had... he killed them. He killed my parents. He burned down our home.
"What about the girl?" the scarred man asked. "You said she survived."
"I'm handling her," Damien said. "She's been asking questions around the city. Too many questions. We need to eliminate the last one before she becomes a problem."
They were talking about me. They wanted to kill me.
My chest felt too tight. I couldn't breathe. I needed to run, to get far away—
My foot kicked a loose stone.
The tiny sound echoed like thunder.
All three men turned toward my hiding spot.
"Someone's there," the scarred man growled.
I ran.
My feet pounded against the ground as I sprinted between the warehouses. Behind me, I heard shouting and heavy footsteps chasing me.
"Get her!" Damien's voice roared. "Don't let her escape!"
I pushed my legs harder, faster. My lungs burned. The burn scars on my left arm ached where flames had touched me six months ago.
I burst out of the warehouse district into the crowded streets. People shouted as I shoved past them. I didn't look back. Couldn't look back.
There—an alley to my left. I ducked into it, my heart hammering so hard I thought it would break through my ribs.
I pressed against the wall, trying not to make any sound. Footsteps ran past the alley entrance. They were still looking for me.
My whole body shook. Uncle Damien murdered my parents. He tried to kill me. And now he wanted to finish the job.
I was completely alone, with no one to help me and nowhere to go.
The footsteps came back, slower this time. Searching.
I looked around desperately. The alley was a dead end. Walls on three sides. No escape.
"Check every alley," I heard Damien's voice say. "She couldn't have gone far."
I pressed harder against the wall, my hand gripping my mother's pendant. Please, I thought. Please help me.
The pendant suddenly felt warm against my skin. Really warm, almost hot. It started glowing with a soft golden light.
What—
A shadow fell across the alley entrance. The scarred man stepped in, blocking my only exit. His smile was ugly and cruel.
"Found you," he said, pulling out a knife.
I had nowhere to run. No way to fight. This was how I was going to die—alone in a dirty alley, killed by my uncle's murderer, just like my parents.
The man walked toward me, raising his knife.
Then something impossible happened.
A massive black shape dropped from the roof above, landing between me and the attacker. At first, I thought it was a shadow. Then I realized—it was a wolf. The biggest wolf I'd ever seen, with fur as dark as midnight.
But wolves didn't live in cities. And wolves didn't have eyes that glowed silver like moonlight.
The scarred man stumbled backward, terror on his face. "What the—"
The black wolf snarled, showing teeth as long as my fingers.
Then it looked back at me, and those impossible silver eyes met mine. For one crazy second, I felt like it was trying to tell me something.
Like it was saying: Run.
But I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
The wolf turned back to the attacker and lunged.
Everything exploded into chaos—snarling, screaming, the sound of tearing. I pressed against the wall, frozen in shock.
When the wolf finished, the scarred man wasn't moving. The wolf turned those silver eyes to me again. Blood dripped from its mouth, but somehow, I wasn't afraid.
It moved closer. I should have run. Should have screamed. Instead, I just stared as it approached me carefully, like it didn't want to scare me.
The wolf lowered its head and... sniffed my mother's pendant?
My pendant was glowing brighter now, pulsing with warm light.
The wolf made a soft sound, almost like recognition. Then it did something that made my brain stop working completely.
It started to change.
Bones cracked and shifted. Black fur melted away. The wolf's body twisted and reformed, growing taller, more human. I watched, unable to look away, as the creature transformed into a man.
A very tall, very handsome man with silver-grey eyes, wearing an expensive black suit that somehow appeared perfectly neat despite the fact that he'd just been a wolf.
He looked at me, his expression unreadable.
"You're bleeding," he said, his voice deep and surprisingly gentle.
I looked down. My arm was bleeding where I'd scraped it running. I hadn't even noticed.
"Who..." My voice came out as a whisper. "What are you?"
Before he could answer, shouts echoed from the street. Damien's other men were coming.
The man's eyes narrowed. He moved fast, pulling me behind him protectively.
"More of them," he muttered. Then he looked at me over his shoulder. "Can you run?"
I nodded, still too shocked to speak properly.
"Good. When I say run, you run and don't stop. Understand?"
"But—"
Three more men appeared at the alley entrance, all armed with weapons. Behind them, I saw Uncle Damien's face.
Our eyes met.
His expression changed from anger to shock. He stared at the man protecting me, and his face went white.
"You," Damien breathed, taking a step back. "That's impossible. You're supposed to be"
"Run!" the man shouted at me. "NOW!"
He pushed me toward the back wall, which suddenly wasn't a wall anymore—a hidden door had opened, showing a dark passage.
I ran through it without thinking.
Behind me, I heard fighting. Snarling. Screaming. The sounds got quieter as I ran through the dark tunnel, my hands touching cold stone walls to guide me.
Finally, I burst out into another street, gasping for air.
I was safe. For now.
But nothing made sense. My uncle was alive and wanted me dead. A wolf that turned into a man had saved my life. And my mother's pendant was still glowing softly against my chest.
I touched it with shaking fingers. "Remember who you are," my mother had said.
Who was I? What was happening?
And most importantly—who was the man with silver eyes, and how did my dead uncle know him?