Chapter 4 A Mirror in Flesh

Sierra Lane's POV

There's something terrifying about seeing your own face in a photograph that doesn't belong to you.

I didn't blink, I couldn't. The photo trembled slightly between my fingers, but not from fear, my body was steady. It was my mind that felt like a cassette tape being pulled out of its reel, shredded by confusion and memory.

She looked exactly like me. Same dark eyes, same dimple at the corner of her cheek, same sharp jawline that used to earn me compliments and now made my reflection feel like a threat. But this girl was younger. Thirteen? Fourteen? And she was standing beside Alaric Thorne.

He had his hand resting on her shoulder. Possessive, like he owned her.

No date, no notes, just that image, stuffed between aged documents like it meant nothing.

Except it meant everything.

My mother's voice from the letter echoed in my head. Do not trust the one who walks in two skins, but which one was that now? Dominic or Alaric?

Was that girl me?

No. That wasn't possible. I had never met Alaric. I would remember. Wouldn't I?

Unless I didn't.

Unless something had been wiped clean.

I pulled the rest of the contents from the satchel like a woman digging through her own grave. More letters, a torn hospital bracelet with a name faded beyond reading. Medical records half-burned. Photos with faces scratched out. One document was in another language entirely, ancient Latin, maybe. Priestess symbols were scrawled across the bottom.

Then I heard it.

A low growl.

Not from inside the estate.

From beneath it.

I rose, instinct sharpening every muscle. The estate was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that felt staged.

The hallway stretched in both directions, empty, elegant, deadly. I walked barefoot, silent as thought, toward the elevator that led to the cellar level, where Dominic told me never to go.

But I wasn't built to obey.

I pressed the panel. Nothing lit. Locked, of course.

I pulled the photo from my robe pocket and stared at the girl's face again. My face. She didn't look afraid.

I was.

I turned back to my room and nearly slammed into him.

Dominic.

No suit tonight. Just a dark henley, black slacks, no shoes. He looked human, almost, until his eyes met mine.

"You've been somewhere," he said.

"I've been reading."

"Reading doesn't smell like adrenaline."

His nostrils flared. "You found something."

I didn't lie, I didn't confirm. I simply asked, "Who is she?"

Dominic's gaze flicked to the photo now crushed in my palm.

Then something shifted. He went still. Not frozen, alpha still. The kind of stillness that sucks oxygen from the room.

"Where did you get that?"

"Elias."

His jaw clenched. "He came to your room?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"Because I don't have the answer you want."

I raised the photo between us. "That's not a look of confusion on your face. That's guilt."

He took the picture from my hand slowly, reverently. His voice dropped to a whisper.

"She was the last Crux born before you."

"Crux?"

"Hybrid. Cross-blooded. Moon-chosen. Whatever label suits your fear."

"Where is she now?"

He didn't answer.

Instead, he asked, "What else did Elias show you?"

"Everything you should have."

He stepped close. Too close. I refused to step back.

"I didn't tell you because it's not just your life at risk, Sierra. There are powers watching you now that will cut through my entire pack to get to your blood. And they won't ask for consent."

"Then let me fight."

"You're not ready."

"Then stop pretending I'm some fragile thing you can cage."

He smirked. "Caging you would be easier than this."

I folded my arms. "Then why haven't you?"

He leaned in, and his voice brushed my skin like smoke.

"Because you bite back."

Our eyes locked.

Then the alarm sounded.

A low, humming pulse that vibrated through the marble like a coming earthquake. Dominic was already moving.

"Stay in your room," he barked.

I didn't.

I followed him down the west wing, barefoot and furious. Doors slammed. Men shifted mid-run into wolves. And through it all, Dominic moved like a king bred for war.

We reached the courtyard.

Bodies lay scattered, guards, wolves, and blood glistened on stone.

Three intruders stood at the center. Not rogue wolves. Priestesses.

One of them were tall, bone-white robes soaked in blood locked eyes with me.

"Crux," she said. "You were never meant to stay hidden."

Dominic growled, low and lethal. "You're not welcome here."

"We didn't come for you, Alpha," she said. "We came for her."

My legs refused to move.

The woman lifted her hand.

Pain lanced through my chest like fire unraveling every cell.

My knees hit the ground.

Behind the priestess, something emerged from the trees.

Alaric.

He was alive, smiling.

I didn't breathe.

Alaric stepped forward like a king surveying ruined land, but his gaze wasn't on the bodies bleeding out behind him. It was on me, like I was a relic, an inheritance, something he had been promised long ago and was finally here to collect.

Dominic moved faster than I could see, shifting mid-lunge. Bones cracked, fur erupted, and a midnight-black wolf collided with Alaric's guard. The priestesses didn't flinch. They stood like marble saints, serene and terrifying, watching chaos unfold like it was expected.

One of them whispered something in an ancient tongue.

The pain in my chest flared again, worse this time. Like fire was stitching itself into my veins, branding my lungs from the inside out. My vision wavered. My hands hit the stone.

"Sierra," someone shouted, It was Elias, I think. I couldn't look. Couldn't lift my head.

Alaric was closer now. He held the second photo between two fingers like a prophecy.

"You always had her eyes," he said softly. "But you'll do better than she ever did. Stronger blood. Cleaner lineage."

"What do you want?" I rasped.

His smile didn't reach his eyes. "To finish what your mother started."

Then he looked at Dominic who was rising from a fresh kill, snarling, blood-drenched and shaking with rage.

"You should've told her, son," Alaric said. "You thought you could own a secret like her?"

Dominic shifted back mid-stride, still in motion, his voice human and savage all at once.

"She's not yours."

Alaric didn't blink. "She was never yours to begin with."

Then everything around me pulsed with moonlight and ancient symbols burned onto the stones beneath my knees.

Something inside me opened.

Something I didn't know I was carrying.

And it wanted out.