### Chapter Eleven – The Truth in His Eyes ###Bryan hadn’t made it more than a block from the bar before he heard the scrape of the door behind him.“Boy!”Pa Clever’s unpleasantly harsh voice cut through the night air.Bryan didn’t turn at first. His jaw was clenched so tight his teeth ached. He didn’t have time for another dismissal, another smoke-and-mirror trick. But there was something different in the tone, something Bryan had never heard before.Not mockery. Not irritation.Weight.Slowly, Bryan turned.Clever stood in the doorway, the dim light catching the sharp creases of his face. He wasn’t leaning on the frame with that casual arrogance anymore. His shoulders sagged, his eyes steady.“Come here,” Clever said. “You want answers? Then you’ll get them. All of them.”Bryan’s heart jolted. He didn’t move for a moment, torn between suspicion and need. Then, with stiff steps, he walked back.---The bar had emptied some in the last half hour. A few drunks muttered at the counter

### Chapter Thirteen – Blood on His Hands ###(Bryan POV)The rain hadn’t stopped since Bryan left Clever’s bar.Sheets of water blurred the city into a smear of neon and shadows. His hood was pulled low, but every drop that hit his skin felt like a needle. He wanted the sting. He wanted the cold. Anything to numb the fire inside his chest.Amark. His father.The name roared in his head like thunder.Bryan shoved his hands into his pockets and walked faster, his breath steaming in the air. Every memory of his mother’s screams, every nightmare of Bruno’s death—they burned hotter now, poisoned by the truth. All this time, he had cursed werewolves, hunted them, sworn to kill the beast who ruined his life… only to learn he carried the same cursed blood.He stopped at a corner, gripping a rusted railing until it bent under his fingers with a groan of metal. He let go quickly, heart pounding. His hand throbbed, but not from pain. From strength.The kind of strength he shouldn’t have.He pre

### Chapter Fifteen – Teeth Beneath the Skin ###(Bryan POV)The silence pressed down like a weight.Bryan sat with his back against the wall, bandaged side pounding in dull, persistent waves. Dust clung to the air, lit by thin streaks of morning sun slipping through boarded cracks.Across the room, Mayer was crouched over a metal basin, rinsing bloodstained cloth with the last of the water she’d scavenged. Her movements were efficient, calm, as if patching up injured fugitives was an everyday routine.Bryan’s jaw clenched.He hated the way she moved with such control, hated the ease in her face—like she hadn’t just seen him almost tear out of his own skin last night. Like she hadn’t dragged him, unconscious, into this rotten place and stitched him up like some… pet.She was a hunter. His enemy. His mother’s kind of murderer.So why the hell had she saved him?He wanted to ask. No, he wanted to demand answers. But the words jammed in his throat, blocked by something far uglier than an

### Chapter Seventeen – Silver in His Veins ### The pounding at the door turned into an avalanche of sound, wood scattering, hinges groaning, and then the entrance gave way entirely. A flood of hunters stormed inside, rifles raised, their black coats flaring like the wings of carrion birds. Mayer barely had time to adjust her stance, sword raised, her eyes scanning the room for any sign of weakness. She’d taken down two already, but now there were nine—maybe more in the shadows, waiting for their moment to strike. Bryan staggered beside her, his chest hammering, blood dripping down his side. Even as it fell, the wounds began knitting together, muscles tightening, tendons pulling in ways he didn’t understand. He looked down at his arms, at the wounds that sealed themselves shut like invisible threads weaving skin back together. The hunters saw it too, their eyes widening in shock and fear. "God—he’s healing," one of them said, fumbling with his rifle. "It’s him. He’s one of them

### Chapter Nineteen – Shackles and Leashes ###The restraints were finally gone, but the marks they left burned like shackles etched into Bryan’s skin.He sat up slowly on the steel bed, his breath ragged, chest still heaving from the suffocating grip of Owen Zender. His muscles ached, his veins stung with the chemical still waging war against his wolf blood.And yet, none of that compared to the shock rattling through his skull.Because he had heard it—clearer than he wanted to believe.“My sister’s son,” Owen had muttered when Mayer blocked his blade, the words slipping out like a crack in armor.My sister’s son.Bryan’s chest constricted. Samantha. His mother. The woman whose face haunted him in dreams, whose absence was an open wound he never managed to close.Owen was her brother. His uncle.The strongest hunter alive—the man who almost ended him just minutes ago—was his own blood.Bryan’s fists tightened at his sides. He wanted to scream, to curse, to demand answers. But his th