Sabrina's quarters are on the second floor, east wing. I know this because Elena's intelligence network is thorough, and because predators always know where their prey sleeps.
The door is unlocked—arrogance or carelessness, I don't care which. The sound of running water echoes from the bathroom. Perfect.
I step inside and close the door with a soft click.
Her room is a museum dedicated to theft. Photographs of me at nineteen line her vanity, edges worn from handling. My old dresses hang in her closet, altered to fit her smaller frame. On her nightstand sits a collection of my favorite books from before Seattle, pages marked with notes in her handwriting analyzing my personality.
It's not admiration. It's dissection.
I start with the closet. Silk and cashmere slide through my fingers as I gather armfuls of fabric—the pale blue dress from last night, the pink monstrosity from this morning, every piece she's stolen from my past. The window opens with a whisper of hinges.
Three stories down, the training courtyard is all mud and gravel.
I throw the first dress out. It catches the wind, billowing like a ghost before landing in a puddle. The second follows. Then the third. I work methodically, emptying her closet with the same precision I once used to plan charity galas.
The cosmetics come next. Bottles of my custom perfume—how did she even get these?—shatter against the stones below. Lipsticks in shades I wore as a girl. Eyeshadow palettes she's studied like battle plans.
All of it goes out the window.
The shower cuts off. I have maybe two minutes.
I save the photographs for last, tearing them from their frames and sending them fluttering down like broken butterflies. The shrine dismantled. The costume destroyed.
I'm halfway to the door when Sabrina emerges from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, her wet hair dripping onto bare shoulders.
She sees the empty room. The open window. Me.
Her scream could shatter glass.
"What did you do?" She rushes to the window, staring down at the wreckage of her carefully constructed identity. "You—you destroyed everything!"
"I destroyed nothing." My voice is ice over steel. "Those were mine to begin with. I simply took back what you stole."
Her face twists, the innocent mask cracking completely. "You're insane. You're—"
Footsteps thunder in the hallway. Phoenix's voice cuts through her hysteria. "Sabrina? What's wrong?"
She looks at me. At the window. At the door.
Then she throws herself to the floor.
The impact must hurt—hardwood doesn't forgive—but she commits to the performance. Tears stream down her face as she clutches her ankle, her voice breaking into sobs. "She tried to push me! Vivienne tried to push me out the window!"
The door slams open. Phoenix takes in the scene—Sabrina on the floor, crying, me standing by the open window, my expression cold.
He doesn't ask questions. Doesn't pause. Doesn't think.
He lunges.
His hand closes around my throat, driving me backward. My spine hits the stone wall with a force that steals my breath. For a moment, I'm back in the cage, Cain's hands around my neck, squeezing until the world goes dark.
"You tried to kill her." Phoenix's face is inches from mine, his eyes wild. "You're so broken, so twisted, you'd actually—"
He shoves me harder against the wall. Something in my left arm gives way with a crack that echoes inside my skull. Pain explodes white-hot from shoulder to fingertips.
I don't scream. I learned not to scream.
Phoenix raises his hand again, and I see it in his eyes—he's going to hit me. Actually hit me. The man I saved is going to—
"Touch her again," a voice cuts through the chaos, low and deadly, "and I'll rip your throat out."
Nikolai Bell materializes from the shadows near the door. I didn't hear him arrive. Didn't sense him. But he's here now, and the temperature in the room drops ten degrees.
Phoenix's hand freezes mid-swing. "This doesn't concern you, Enforcer."
"It concerns me." Nikolai moves with terrifying speed, crossing the room in two strides. His hand closes around Phoenix's throat, yanking him away from me with enough force to lift him off his feet. "It has always concerned me."
He slams Phoenix against the opposite wall. The commander's face turns red, then purple, his hands clawing uselessly at Nikolai's iron grip.
"She is the Supreme Alpha's sister." Nikolai's voice never rises above a whisper, but it carries the weight of absolute authority. "She is a Moore. And you—" His grip tightens. "You are nothing."
Phoenix's eyes bulge. His wolf tries to surface, gold flickering in his irises, but Nikolai's dominance crushes it back down. Submission or death. Those are the only options.
Phoenix's body goes limp, his head tilting to expose his throat.
Nikolai holds him there for three more seconds—a lesson, a warning—then releases him. Phoenix collapses to the floor, gasping.
Then Nikolai turns to me.
His eyes—dark gray, storm-colored—scan my face, my throat, my arm hanging at an unnatural angle. Something raw and anguished flashes across his features before his expression smooths into professional concern.
"Vivienne." My name in his voice sounds like a prayer. "Let me see."
He approaches slowly, telegraphing every movement, giving me time to refuse. When I don't pull away, he gently—so gently—lifts my injured arm. His fingers are steady where mine would shake.
"Fractured," he says quietly. "You need a healer."
Behind him, Sabrina has gone silent, her performance forgotten. Phoenix is still on the floor, one hand pressed to his bruised throat.
Nikolai doesn't look at either of them. His attention is entirely on me as he carefully scoops me into his arms, cradling my injured arm against his chest.
"I've got you," he murmurs, so low only I can hear. "I've always got you."
And for the first time in five years, I believe it.
