登入POV: VINE"I’m done looking at you," I said over my shoulder.I walked out of the room, my heartbeat slowing for the first time in months. With every step toward the exit, I felt the mansion—the weight of his expectations, the phantom touch of his hands, the fake charm of his voice—peeling away from my skin.By the time I reached the front gate, the air felt different. It was cold, but it was my air. I was walking out of the crypt.The sound of tires screeching against gravel cut through the evening. A sleek, high-end coupe pulled to a violent stop, blocking the pedestrian gate. The window rolled down.Rose Cartella.She was smoking a cigarette, her hair pulled back into a sharp ponytail. She leaned out, a grin spreading across her face that didn't reach her eyes."So," she said, tapping ash onto the driveway. "The rat finally ran away? Perfect."I stopped, my hands curling into fists at my sides. "Get out of my way, Rose."She laughed, a sharp sound. "Oh, I’ll get out of your way. I
POV: VINEThe coffee shop on the edge of Stone Hill Valley was an ironic choice. It was where I used to go to hide from the Vipers, and now, it felt like the only place where I could breathe without the gross, suffocating scent of wolf musk filling my lungs.I watched Drew walk through the entrance, and I felt nothing. No fear. No lingering trauma. He wasn't the monster I remembered; he was just a guy in a hoodie, looking as tired as I felt. After I had sent that email to the dean’s office—demanding they pull me from the disciplinary review so I wouldn't have to look at him or speak his name—I had assumed he’d been scrubbed from my life.Apparently, he had been busy.He didn't bother with small talk. He didn't ask how I was or offer an apology. He simply slid a thick, manila envelope across the table. It was heavy, the edges worn from use."You should look at this, Vine," he said, his voice flat. "Not because I’m trying to win you back or play games. But because I know what it’s like
POV: ACEFucking hell.I sat in the back of the car, my hands clenched so tightly around the leather upholstery that I could hear the stitching snapping under the pressure. Every nerve ending in my body felt like it was being flayed alive. I had done it—I had played the part of the obedient, heartless Callahan heir—but the cost was a gaping, festering wound in my chest that no amount of wealth or bloodline power could ever heal.I felt absolutely terrible. Nauseous.But I had no choice. I had watched Rose stumble, watched her fake that pathetic little tear, and I knew exactly what my father would have done if I had shown even a flicker of empathy toward Vine in that dining room. The wrath he would have rained down on her wouldn't have been a simple verbal lash; it would have been permanent. I had to step up. I had to perform.And yet, seeing the way Vine’s expression had crumpled—that brief, devastating second where the light in her eyes had completely extinguished—felt worse than a
POV: VINEThe silence that followed Ace's question was deafening. I…. I couldn't believe he'd just told me that. Ha… who would've thought?The entire restaurant seemed to grind to a halt, the clinking of silverware and the murmur of polite conversation vanishing into a vacuum. He was still kneeling there, his hands protectively cupped around Rose’s apparently bloodied palm, his gaze fixed on my face with a terrifying, hollow intensity."I said, what is wrong with you?" Ace repeated, his voice dropping into a low, jagged rasp. "Apologize to her. Now."There was no way in nine hells….. fuck. Stupid me didn't even have a name for what I was feeling. It was an insane combination of heartbreak, disbelief, and a rage so sharp it felt like it was carving me open from the inside. I looked at the way he was staring at me—like I was nothing more than a stain on his perfectly curated night—and I let out a laugh. It was a jagged, bitter sound that shocked even me.Back to the bad old times, w
POV: VINEThe lobby of the social club was a nightmare of marble and polished brass, but nothing was as hard or as cold as the look Ace didn't give me.He didn't say a damn word in reply to Bluey’s jab about the captaincy. He just stood there, his jaw locked into a rigid line of steel, and then he did the one thing I didn't think he was capable of. He reached out and hauled Rose toward him by the waist, his hand sliding over the exposed skin of her back with a sickeningly possessive possessiveness."Sorry, babe," Ace said, his voice dropping into this smooth, calm, boyfriend-like register that felt like a serrated knife dragging across my nerves. "Can't stop him from being a man-child. I'm sure you're hungry. Let's get in, yeah?"I stood there like a statue, my throat tight as I swallowed the lump of bile rising there. I stepped aside, giving them a wide berth, and as they walked past me, I held my breath, waiting for the flicker of recognition. A glance. A glare. Anything.He didn't
POV: ACE"I don't know, Jaxon," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears. I stared at him, the weight of the last twenty-four hours pressing down on my shoulders like a physical mountain. "I don't have the fucking answers. When I did have the answers, when I knew exactly what to do to protect the people around me, you didn't take my advice. You chose this path, and now the consequences are written in your own blood."Jaxon was vibrating with fear, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the squat rack. "But it's Clyde. How am I supposed to just... walk away from her? How am I supposed to tell her that I’m actually bound to her sister by a triple bond that’s slowly killing us both? She’s going to think I’m a monster.""Right now, there is only one path that keeps you both breathing," I said, my tone flat and stripped of any sympathy. It was the survival of the pack, the cold logic my father had hammered into me since I was a pup. "End what hasn't even started with Clyd
POV: VINEI was just so fucking glad that he was okay.The weight that had been pressing down on my chest for the last four days finally evaporated into thin air, leaving me with a weird, light feeling that I hadn't felt in months. Plus, ever since he woke up from that horrific nightmare in the cel
POV: ACEMy eyelids felt like they were coated in lead, scraping against my eyes as I forced them open.Everything was a blurry, out-of-focus mess of white light and shifting shadows. My skull was throbbing with a brutal, relentless rhythm, and my throat felt like I had been swallowing dry sand for
POV: VINEIt had been days in that place, and I was completely exhausted.I had lost track of time inside that dark, windowless cell. The only things keeping me company were the distant roar of rushing water somewhere beneath the floor and the constant headache pounding behind my eyes. I sat on the
POV: ACEMy headlights cut through thick, unnatural fog as I drove into the area Mariam described. The deeper I went past the old boundary fence and the split-peak boulder, the more the atmosphere warped. It felt like permanent nightfall. The sky was a suffocating pitch-black that seemed to swallow







