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Karen: I am living. Prudently.

Hilary: That’s enough. Everyone put the phones away for the night.

Trevor: yes alpha

Mason: orders received, alpha

Byron: Understood.

Karen: Finally, some authority.

Okay. So. Werewolves existed.

The Blackwell family wasn’t part of some role-playing community. They weren’t dog enthusiasts who had taken an inside joke too far. They were people who turned into wolves, and Hilary was their alpha—whatever the hell that meant.

I had been exchanging memes with werewolves. I had reminded a werewolf to drink water. I had flirted with a werewolf!

The last thought hit with enough force that I stood again.

Hudson.

Hudson had told me that sometimes he shifted on the ridge trail. I’d figured he was referring to getting away from work, shifting to another frame of mind.

My phone vibrated with a private message from him.

Hudson: You created chaos.

I looked at it for several seconds. Then another appeared.

Hudson: Mason is demanding an appeals process for determining the winner.

Under any other circumstances, I would have laughed. Instead, I pictured the mountain ridge in his profile image and tried to imagine him transforming there. I didn’t know what his face looked like, but now my mind supplied fur, paws, teeth, and the kind of physical power that could turn an ordinary trail into something wild.

Butterflies surged through my stomach. Apparently, my terror had poor boundaries.

Sloane: I may have underestimated how competitive everyone is.

My fingers felt disconnected from the words.

Hudson: You encouraged Trevor to film a shift beside open resin containers.

Sloane: I didn’t know about the resin containers. Is that dangerous?

Hudson: Mostly just to the carpet.

He was still Hudson.

That shouldn’t have been comforting because I had no idea who Hudson really was, obviously. He could become an animal large enough to hunt deer. He belonged to a hidden society with councils and secrecy laws.

I tapped on the group information and stared at the Leave Group button until it began to blur.

I had to press it. This was no longer a harmless misunderstanding. I had entered a secret supernatural community under another person’s identity. I knew information that they went to considerable lengths to conceal. They’d just manipulated an entire school so they wouldn’t be exposed.

If they discovered the truth, leaving the chat might become the least of my problems.

My thumb hovered above the button.

I pictured my life before Grandma Ruth accidentally added me to THE PACK. Silent mornings. Reading through client emails. YouTube playing in the background to break that silence. A tray of cupcakes, and nobody to share them with.