Diana Cross's clinic smells like antiseptic and mountain herbs. The healer works in silence, her hands steady as she manipulates my fractured arm into alignment. I don't make a sound—I learned that lesson in a cage—but sweat beads along my hairline.
Nikolai stands three feet away, close enough to intervene, far enough to give Diana space. His posture is rigid, hands clenched at his sides. Every time Diana's ministrations make me flinch, his jaw tightens.
"Almost done," Diana murmurs. The bone clicks into place with a sensation that makes my vision white out for a heartbeat. "You'll need to keep it immobilized for forty-eight hours. The wolf healing will handle the rest."
She wraps the splint with practiced efficiency, her dark eyes flicking between me and Nikolai. Whatever she sees there makes her mouth thin into a disapproving line.
"I'll give you two privacy." She stands, gathering her supplies. "But Vivienne needs rest, Enforcer. Not interrogation."
The door closes behind her with a soft click.
Nikolai moves immediately, closing the distance between us. He drops to one knee beside the examination table, bringing himself to eye level. His hand hovers near mine, not quite touching.
"I should have been there sooner." His voice is rough, scraped raw. "If I'd known he would—"
"How did you know to come at all?" The question emerges sharper than I intend. "You appeared like you'd been waiting. Watching."
Something flickers across his face. Guilt. Fear. "I'm always watching."
"That's not an answer."
He exhales slowly, his gaze dropping to my splinted arm. "I've had surveillance on Phoenix since you arrived in Seattle. When Elena contacted your brother about the mattress incident, she copied me on the message. I was already en route when Sabrina started screaming."
The pieces don't quite fit. There's something he's not saying, something hovering just beneath the surface of his careful words.
"You knew she would escalate," I say slowly. "You were expecting violence."
"I was expecting Phoenix to show his true nature eventually." Nikolai's hand finally settles over mine, his palm warm against my cold fingers. "I just hoped I was wrong."
His thumb traces an absent pattern across my knuckles. Back and forth. Soothing.
Then he stops.
His gaze fixes on my wrist, on the thin white scar that circles it like a bracelet. The mark left by shackles, back when they thought chains could hold me better than wolfsbane.
"The hinges were rusted through," he says quietly. "On the cage door. I remember thinking it was mercy—that you'd been spared that small indignity, at least. That the metal hadn't cut into you every time you moved."
The room tilts.
"What did you say?"
Nikolai's eyes snap to mine, and I watch realization dawn. Horror chases it immediately after.
"Vivienne—"
"The hinges." My voice emerges flat, emotionless, while my mind races. "You remember the hinges on the cage."
He goes very still. A predator caught in a trap of his own making.
"Phoenix told the story a hundred times," I continue, each word precisely placed. "At the medal ceremony. At our wedding. In every interview. He described kicking down the basement door. Finding me in the dark. Breaking the lock with his bare hands." I lean forward, ignoring the protest from my injured arm. "He never mentioned the hinges, Nikolai. Because he never saw them."
Nikolai's face could be carved from stone. "Vivienne—"
"It was you." The truth crashes over me like a wave, drowning and clarifying all at once. "You were the one who found me. You opened the cage. You—" My voice cracks despite my best efforts. "Why would you let him take credit?"
For a long moment, he doesn't answer. Then he stands, turning away, his shoulders rigid with tension.
"Because you needed a hero who could stand beside you in public," he says finally. "A decorated commander with political connections and a respectable bloodline. Not the pack's executioner. Not the bastard son of a disgraced family."
He turns back, and the raw emotion in his eyes steals my breath.
"I would have given you anything, Vivienne. Everything. But I couldn't give you legitimacy. Phoenix could." His voice drops to barely above a whisper. "So I let him have the glory. I thought it would protect you."
The splint digs into my arm as my hands clench into fists. Five years. Five years of marriage to a man who stole another's valor. Five years of being called tainted by someone who never even had the courage to face the Rogues.
Something inside me—something that's been dormant since the wolfsbane destroyed my connection to my wolf—suddenly ignites.
Power floods through my veins like liquid fire. The air pressure in the room drops. Diana's carefully organized supplies rattle on their shelves.
Nikolai's eyes widen. "Vivienne, your eyes—"
I don't need a mirror to know what he's seeing. Gold. Pure, undiluted alpha gold, the birthright of the Supreme bloodline.
The Moore legacy, finally awakened.
"I'm done protecting Phoenix's reputation," I say, and my voice carries an echo of power that makes even Nikolai take a step back. "I'm done being the broken princess who should be grateful for scraps of affection."
I slide off the examination table, steady despite the pain radiating from my arm. The power thrumming through me is intoxicating, terrifying, right.
"It's time Phoenix Evans learned what it costs to break a Moore."
Nikolai's expression shifts from concern to something fiercer. Anticipation. Pride.
"What do you need?"
I meet his storm-gray eyes and smile. It's not a kind expression.
"Everything."
