ANDRE'S POV War rooms always reek of iron and gun oil, but tonight the stench clung to my skin like judgment.I walked out without a backward glance my soldiers still whispering, parsing whether my choice was strategy or rage. Let them wonder. Kendrick’s blood had dried on my knuckles; his empire was already rationing dread by the spoonful. My soldiers would fall in line. Power needs no explanations, only proof.The corridor to my room stretched long and dim, sconces guttering against stone so old it remembered every scream. Each step struck the flagstones like a drumbeat, steadying the stampede of adrenaline in my veins. I was conscious of the weight in my fists the ghost of a man’s throat, the tremor still lodged in my tendons. But the battlefield had shifted. Now it lay behind my bedroom door.I eased the latch. Candle-light spilled over the threshold in a soft, golden hush, and the storm inside me quieted to a single, deliberate throb. Genevieve, she rested on her side in the cen
GENEVIEVEThe sound of the obsidian doors closing behind us echoed like a verdict deep and final, sealing us off from everything that had just happened inside. It lingered in the air, a shiver crawling down my spine like a warning I couldn’t quite shake.André’s hand was still in mine, firm and warm. His grip hadn’t loosened since we left the council chamber, and even though he looked composed on the outside, houlders squared, jaw locked, I could feel the tension pulsing beneath his skin. It was like touching a live current. There was no tremble in his fingers, but the heat pouring off him told a different story. He was still riding the high of it all. The confrontation. The kill. The power.I could feel it thrumming inside him and some twisted part of me responded to it.We walked side by side through the courtyard in silence. Dawn had unfurled fully across the horizon, brushing the fortress stones with a raw, almost feverish gold. It was too bright, too soft for the things we’d lef
ANDRE'S POV The morning air was cold, damp with the kind of stillness that comes before a storm not the kind that lashes with wind and rain, but the kind that ends with blood on the ground.I stood at the top of the stone steps that led to my pack house, arms folded across my chest, unmoving. The dawn light was pale, barely breaking through the thick cloud cover above, casting long shadows across the gravel path where our guests were arriving.Alpha Kendrick's beta and his mate strode toward us, their footsteps purposeful, grim. Behind them, a line of their pack warriors marched in tight formation, bristling with quiet fury. The air between us was stretched taut like a wire.Xander and Kiera stood on either side of me my second and third, silent and watchful. Their presence was solid, grounding. A few paces behind me, Genevieve lingered, calm and still as stone. She said nothing, but I could feel her. Her gaze was on my back steady, intense, unreadable.She had learned how to survive
André’s POVI woke before dawn. Sleep hadn’t claimed me for long again. It hovered just out of reach every time I shut my eyes, like a ghost I couldn’t grasp. My thoughts were restless, looping and snarling like wolves in a cage, and all of them came back to her. Genevieve.Specifically, what she said yesterday. I told myself it didn’t matter. That her words were insignificant. She was just a girl bound to me by a contract a means to an end. Nothing more. But that was a lie. And worse, I knew it.Her voice, quiet but firm, kept playing in my head on a maddening loop. Every syllable curled around my mind like smoke thick, clinging, impossible to breathe through. I needed air. Space. Distance.I left the pack house without a word, the heavy door creaking shut behind me. The early morning chill bit at my skin as I walked, but I welcomed the discomfort. Let it distract me.The compound was just beginning to stir. A few wolves were already out some in human form, others shifting mid-stride
GENEVIEVE'S POV By the time I made it back to the house, my head was spinning. My thoughts tangled into knots I couldn’t undo, tight and suffocating.I wasn’t supposed to care.I wasn’t supposed to feel anything for him.But the words those women had hurled at me still echoed inside my chest like a warning bell, low and shrill and impossible to ignore. Not because they were wrong. No, because a part of me feared they might be right. And I didn’t want them to be. By the heavens, I didn’t want them to be. Maybe André was a jerk. A bully. A man who used people like chess pieces. But a monster? No. He wasn’t that. I’d seen monsters. André didn’t wear that title easily, not when I’d witnessed the rare flickers of something almost human in him.The house was quiet when I stepped inside. Dimly lit, the air felt thick, like it was holding its breath. I could hear faint voices upstairs staff murmuring behind closed doors, maybe. But none of it mattered.Not when I reached our bedroom. The mom
GENEVIEVE’S POVI pulled the duvet up to my chest and just sat there for a moment, staring at nothing. My body was still buzzing, but my mind… it was all over the place. I kept replaying what just happened. The way I gave in so easily. The way I moaned his name like it was the only word I knew. The way I begged him to go harder, faster. I begged. That’s not like me. At all. But I did it.And the worst part? I didn’t even regret it.Maybe it’s because I’ve accepted that this is my life for the next six months. Maybe I’ve decided that if I have to be here, I might as well enjoy the one thing he offers that makes me forget how messed up this arrangement is. Or maybe… maybe it’s because of the way he looked earlier commanding the room while talking about the maid who betrayed the pack. Cold. Powerful. He should’ve terrified me. But instead, I couldn’t look away.I had to walk away from him then, just to catch my breath. To tell myself to snap out of it. But when he followed me inside… I d