Sophie.
My heart slams so hard it feels like it might tear free from my chest. The fear jolts me into human form, my arm reaching out toward her. “Sophie!” I call out, but no sound comes out.
When she looks at me, she’s not afraid, not surprised. Instead, a wistful smile lifts her lips, and something soft flickers in her chocolate-brown eyes. Acceptance. Resolve. And something else that shreds me from the inside out.
Faith.
Then she steps backward.
“No!” I surge forward, terror detonating through me as she falls. Without thinking, without making a conscious choice, I leap after her. There’s no questioning it. A leap of faith, after the woman who appeared to me like a Goddess in human form. The fall is endless, and Sophie is still ahead of me. Wind screams past me, tearing at my body, my mind fracturing as gravity drags me down into nothingness.
And then, I slam back into my body.
I gasp violently, sucking in air as pain explodes through my veins. My wolf snaps back, bones cracking as I shift violently into human form, collapsing onto the earth beside the dying fire. Hands grab my shoulders, and voices shout my name.
I barely hear them, still reeling from the discovery I just made. I know with a certainty that’s so brutal, it steals my breath away.
My fated mate isn’t in the valley.
She isn’t a wolf.
She’s human.
From Hamilton.
I push myself up onto my elbows, chest heaving, vision still swimming as the poison burns out of my system. Amos is kneeling in front of me, awe and fear battling in his expression.
“Alpha Damian…” he whispers. “Did you see her? Do you have a name?”
I lift my head, giving him a gentle nod. “Yes.” The word is hoarse. Final.
“Who is she?” Elder Bernard demands from behind, and I lift my hand to stop them from their impatience. Silence presses down on the clearing, heavy and suffocating, and I swallow, my throat raw, my heart splintering open as I speak the truth aloud for the first time.
“Sophie Torres.”
The reaction is immediate. Shock. Gasps flow through the members of the pack that had gathered here tonight to watch the ritual take place, joining with the surprise of the council members.
“This is good,” Amos nods as he helps me to my feet. “You have her name. Did you see her face?”
I nod slowly as we turn to the elders, and Elder Bernard remains skeptical, his brow raised.
“So, the ritual worked…” he says thoughtfully. “How did you hear her name? Was it whispered?”
I shake my head, to which Bernard frowns. “It wasn’t whispered to me. I just knew.”
“Interesting. So now that we have a name and a face, we can track her pack,” Amos says, but I stop him with a raised hand.
“That won’t be necessary, Amos. There’s a reason I didn’t hear her name being whispered. There’s a reason I knew her name.” I take a deep breath, still reeling from what I saw, what my inner wolf now knows to be true, and what this means for the pack.
“How, Damian?” Uncle Joel steps forward, placing his hand on my shoulder as if he can sense my own shock. I look up and meet his eyes, and there’s something in his eyes that’s warm and familiar, and allows me to say what is most startling, even to me.
“I know the woman I saw because I’ve met her. I know where she lives.” I pause to take another breath before going on, “She’s from Hamilton. She’s not a werewolf. She’s human.”
The air shifts again, and a heaviness sets in.
“A human?” someone snarls.
“This is impossible,” another voice spits.
