Novels by Unloyal

Ivy's POVThe letter is three sentences long.I don't know why that surprises me. My father has always communicated in the smallest number of words that will do the job. Why would this be different.‘Ivy. By the time you read this, you will have figured out most of it. What you haven't figured out is that the faction isn't trying to extract you. They're trying to eliminate you.’I read it three times.Then I put it flat on the table and look at Rook.He's already looking at me too.“They don't want to control an Omega inside Pack territory. They want to make sure there isn't one,” I say. “A fully awakened Omega changes the political balance between the Syndicate and the Pack permanently,” Rook says, “Your father wants to use that, but the faction would rather destroy it.”The fire burns between us and the library is very quiet. I sit with the specific sensation of understanding something that rearrange

Ivy's POVI don't sleep.I lie on my back and think about Davan. His face in Soren's study when I decoded the first transmission; the careful neutral expression of a man watching a situation and calculating. I thought it was Pack wariness.I was reading the right face and drawing the wrong conclusion.That bothers me more than anything else, because I'm good at reading people. My father spent years making me good at it because a diplomatic asset that can't read a room is a liability. And Davan sat three feet from me and I missed it entirely.I won't miss it again.***Morning comes grey and cold.I'm dressed before the lodge is fully awake, sitting at the small desk in my room with Maren's documents spread in front of me; the transmissions, the financial records, the timeline. I've been through everything twice.Davan has been inside the faction's operation for at least three weeks. Possibly longer; three weeks is just when the paper trail starts. I fold the documents back into the o

Ivy's POVMaren talks for a long time.We move to the library because the corridor is exposed and the empty room feels like a crime scene. Four of us surround the low table.Maren lays it out cleanly. ‘The group; four of them, all Pack-born, two operating from the borderlands between Pack territory and Syndicate-adjacent settlements. Watching the political situation for two years.’She puts documents on the table as she talks.Printed transmissions, handwritten notes, a timeline that starts eighteen months ago and ends four days from now. I watch Caelum look at the timeline and go very still."You've known about this group," I say to him, when Maren pauses.He doesn't deny it. "I suspected something like it existed. There have been little irregularities. Nothing I could bring to Soren without looking like I was seeing problems where there were none." He looks at Maren, "I didn't know it was you.""I know," she says."How long?""Eighteen months."Something moves through his jaw. He lo

Ivy's POVMaren.She's standing in the middle of the empty room with a small torch in one hand and something in the other; flat, dark, the twin of the device Hess pulled from the floorboards this morning. Her face when she turns is not the face of someone caught doing something innocent.It's the face of someone who has been dreading this exact moment.We look at each other.I think about her hand over mine twenty minutes ago and the specific careful kindness she has aimed at me since the first morning.I also think about how useful that would be. If you needed someone close to me."Put it down," I say.She looks at the device in her hand. Then she sets it carefully on the floor beside her foot. She can reach it in one movement and we both know it."Let me explain," she says."You have a transmission device in an empty room. The first one was found this morning. This is the second," I keep my voice level, "How many more?"She closes her eyes briefly. "One.""Where?""Healers' building

Ivy's POVThe paper is thin. Official weight, the kind the Syndicate uses for correspondence that isn't meant to exist.I unfold it.The cipher is one I don't recognize on the first pass, which tells me it isn't my father's. This is older; the block structure is similar but the rotation pattern is different.My name is in the third line. Clear, unencoded, sitting in the middle of the cipher text like it was meant to be found.‘VOSS IVY ASHVEIL TERRITORY CONFIRMED. OMEGA STATUS UNVERIFIED. EXTRACTION WINDOW OPENS FULL MOON PLUS SEVEN. ASSET MUST NOT BE CLAIMED BEFORE RETRIEVAL.’I read it twice.Then I fold it and press my fingers flat on top of it and breathe.Caelum is watching me. He's standing across the table with his arms loose at his sides. "Asset," I say."Yes.""Extraction window.""Yes.""Must not be claimed before retrieval." I look up at him, "That's the faction. The one inside the Syndicate that doesn't want my father's treaty.""That's what I think," Caelum says."They k

Ivy's POVRook talks for a long time.Not the way most people talk. He speaks in the flat precise way he does everything, laying facts down like cards on a table. It starts three months ago.Before the treaty was announced. Before I was told anything. My father called Rook into a private meeting. My father sat in one chair and said, I need something from you that isn't in your job description."What did he say exactly?" I ask when Rook pauses."He said he had a daughter who was going to be more valuable than she knew," Rook's voice is even. Careful. Like he's making sure I get the exact words, "He said the Pack would recognize what she was before she did. He said he needed someone inside the territory who could manage the timeline.""Manage the timeline," I repeat."His words.""What timeline?" I say."He didn't specify. He said I'd know it when it started," Rook pauses, "I think he meant the awakening.""He knew it would happen here," I say."He knew it would happen faster here. Ful