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Aiden Blake walked into my coffee shop like he owned the place.
Not the swaggering Alpha walk his brother used to do. This was quieter. Worse. The kind of entrance that said he'd been planning this for weeks and now here he was, standing three feet from me while Rex went still as a knife.
"Ivy." Aiden's voice hadn't changed. Still soft. Still careful. Like I was something fragile he didn't want to break. "We need to talk."
Rex moved between us so fast I didn't see it happen. One second he was next to me, the next he had Aiden by the collar, shoving him back against the door. The glass rattled. "You've got balls showing up here, Blake."
"I'm not him." Aiden didn't fight back. His hands stayed loose at his sides, palms open. His eyes found mine over Rex's shoulder. "I'm not my brother."
"No?" Rex's grip tightened. "Then why the hell are you here?"
"Because she's going to die if we don't fix this."
The words dropped into the room like stones into deep water. My wolf stirred under my skin, restless, curious. Wrong. She'd been asleep for three years and now she wouldn't shut up.
Rex let go. Stepped back but didn't move away from me. "Talk fast."
Aiden straightened his jacket. His gaze stayed on me and I hated how much it felt like being seen. Really seen. Not the broken thing his brother made me. Not the cursed girl everyone whispered about. Just me. "The curse wasn't supposed to work this way. Damian screwed it up."
"Screwed it up how?" I managed to keep my voice steady. Barely.
"He meant to bind you to him. Make it so no other Alpha could touch you without dying." Aiden's jaw worked. "But he rushed the ritual. Used the wrong moon phase. Now it's not just touching you that triggers it—it's the mate bond itself."
Rex swore under his breath.
I wrapped my arms around myself. The shop felt too small. Too bright. The espresso machine hissed behind the counter and I wanted to throw something at it. "So anyone who's my fated mate dies if they try to mark me."
"Not dies." Aiden took a step closer. Rex growled low in his throat but Aiden ignored him. "The curse kills the wolf first. Slowly. Then it takes the human side. You saw what's happening to Cain."
I had. The black lines crawling up his neck. The way his hands shook when he touched me.
"There's more." Aiden's voice dropped. "The curse is feeding on something. Your bloodline. That's why your wolf's been sealed all this time—someone didn't want anyone finding out what you really are."
My stomach dropped. "What I really am?"
"I don't know yet." He sounded frustrated. Genuine. "But Damian does. That's why he cursed you. Not because you rejected him—because he found out what your mother was hiding."
The shop door rattled. Hard.
All three of us turned.
Cain stood outside, one hand pressed flat against the glass. The black lines had spread to his jaw now. His eyes met mine through the window and even from here I could see the fever in them. The determination.
He wasn't leaving. He was waiting.
"Shit." Rex moved toward the door. "He's too far gone. He'll try to mark you tonight."
"Let him try." Aiden's voice went cold. "I'll stop him."
"You?" Rex rounded on him. "You're Blake's little brother. You're nothing."
Something flickered across Aiden's face. Pain, maybe. Or anger buried so deep it had calcified into something harder. "I'm also her mate."
The room went silent.
My wolf slammed against the inside of my ribs. Not angry. Curious. Reaching.
"No." I heard myself say it. "No, that's not possible. I can't have three—"
"You can if your bloodline allows it." Aiden's eyes never left mine. "And yours does. That's what Damian found. That's what he tried to lock away."
Rex was staring at him now. Really looking. "You felt it. The bond."
"The second I walked in." Aiden's hands curled into fists. "But I'm not touching her. I'm not marking her. I'm not doing a damn thing until we break this curse."
"Why?" The word came out sharper than I meant. "Why do you care?"
His smile was sad. Broken around the edges. "Because I loved you before my brother ever saw you. And I watched him destroy you because I was too much of a coward to stop him."
Something cracked open in my chest. Old and buried and I didn't want to look at it.
The door exploded inward.
Not Cain.
Two wolves I'd never seen before—big, scarred, wearing Damian's pack colors on their jackets. Enforcers. The kind he sent when he wanted someone hurt.
The first one grinned at me. "Ivy Gray. You're coming home."
"Like hell." Rex shifted before I could blink. Not full wolf—his control was too good for that—but enough. Claws. Fangs. Eyes gone gold and feral.
The enforcer pulled a knife.
Silver.
Aiden moved faster than either of them. He didn't shift. Didn't need to. One second he was standing next to me, the next he'd disarmed the first enforcer and put him through the front window.
Glass everywhere. The second enforcer lunged for me.
My wolf surged up and this time I couldn't stop her. The seal ripped wider and power flooded through me—hot and wild and so much bigger than it should be. The enforcer flew backward into the counter. The espresso machine shattered. Coffee and blood and I couldn't tell which was which.
Rex caught me before I fell. "Ivy. Ivy, look at me."
I couldn't. My vision was going white at the edges. My wolf was awake and she was angry and she remembered things I didn't. Things the seal had buried.
Aiden was kneeling in the broken glass, breathing hard, blood on his knuckles. The enforcers weren't moving.
Outside, Cain was still watching.
Smiling.
"We need to move." Rex's voice sounded far away. "They'll send more."
"No." Aiden stood slowly. Looked at me. "We need answers first."
He pulled something from his pocket. A photograph. Old. Faded. He held it out and I took it with shaking hands.
A woman. Dark hair like mine. Standing in front of a burned-out building. On the back, someone had written a single word in cramped handwriting.
Lunaris.
My mother's handwriting.
"That's the name she died hiding," Aiden said quietly. "It's the name sealed inside your blood. And every Alpha in three territories is looking for it."
The photograph slipped from my fingers.
Because I knew that name.
I didn't know how. I didn't know why.
But somewhere deep in the place where my wolf lived, in the part of me the seal had locked away—
I knew exactly what it meant.
And it was so much worse than a curse.