LOGINIRIS POV:We were still sitting in the living room when a knock came.Sarah sat right beside me on the sofa. Aurelian was in the chair across from us. Stephen stood near the door with his hands folded in front of him, pretending he wasn’t listening to every single word.Three quick taps sounded on the door.I frowned.Aurelian glanced once at Stephen, and Stephen immediately opened the door.Two men in dark suits stood on the porch. One of them held a sealed envelope. They looked calm and professional.Then one of them looked past Stephen and into the room.His eyes landed on Aurelian, and instantly, both men went completely still like they had seen a ghost.I watched it happen right in front of me. The realization of who they were seeing hit their faces, the color draining from the first man’s jaw. The second one took a half-step back without meaning to.Stephen stepped aside.“Come in,” Aurelian commanded from his chair, his voice staying completely level. “State your business.”The
IRIS POV:I sat on the couch, staring at the front door, my hands twisting together in my lap.The house was too quiet.Every second felt like it stretched forever. A sharp knock sounded on the door.I opened the door.Aurelian stood on the porch, and behind him, two of his men stood by the car at the curb. He looked at me like he was checking something he needed to confirm with his own eyes."Are you okay?" he asked."I feel a little dizzy, that's all," I said."Can I come in?" he asked."Oh, I'm sorry, come in," I said, stepping aside and letting him in.He came in, and I closed the door. We went to the sitting room, and he sat in the chair across from the sofa, and I sat on the sofa. For a moment, neither of us said anything.I took a deep breath and started from the beginning."I woke up in some kind of underground place. Its walls were dark glass. Fiona was there. She led me to a table and showed me a photo.""It was a photo of me and her. And what shocked me the most was that my
IRIS POV:I looked at my phone.Eleven missed calls from Aurelian's new number. Six from Sarah. Two from Julie, and I was fairly certain it was Sarah calling from her phone, which was exactly the kind of thing Sarah would do.I pressed Aurelian new number.It rang once, and he immediately answered."Are you alright?" His voice came through immediately, no greeting, just the question."Yes," I said. "I'm home. I'm okay."A pause. Brief."Where were you?" he said."I need to talk to you," I said. "Not on the phone."Another pause, longer this time."I'm coming," he said.The line went quiet.I set the phone down and looked at the ceiling and thought about the white eyes and everything that had happened and a woman who didn't know she was being controlled every time she got too close to the truth.I had a lot to tell him.I came out of my room and walked downstairs and sat on the couch, waiting for them to arrive.—·—·—·—·—·—·—SARAH POV:We stayed locked together, breathing heavily, bod
IRIS POV:I stared at the photograph for a long time.The two little girls in white dresses. The same dark hair. The same brown eyes. The scar on my knee that I had always been told came from falling off a bicycle at six years old.The handwriting on the back.My mother's handwriting. I knew it the way I knew my own name.I set it down on the table slowly.My hands were not steady.“My parents,” I said. “They knew.”“They knew,” Fiona said quietly. “They had to give one of us up. I don't know the full story of why. I only know what I was told by the people who raised me, that I was taken from a family who couldn't keep both of us. My real name was Fiona. That I had a sister named Iris who didn't know I existed.”I looked at her.“And Aurelian,” I said. “You said he knew you eight years ago.”“Yes,” she said.I looked at the photograph again.Something wasn't adding up, and the longer I sat with it, the louder it got.“I'm twenty-one,” I said.Fiona looked at me.“Eight years ago, I wa
SARAH POV:“But we’re not done yet.”I smiled, still breathing hard, my body buzzing. I arranged myself. My legs felt like jelly but I didn’t care. He carried me out of the bathroom and down the long fancy hallway.We passed many closed doors. The only sound was our heavy breathing and the soft thud of his boots on the thick carpet. He stopped at the end of the hall in front of a big wooden door, opened it with one hand, and carried me inside.I look around. The room was huge. Dark wood everywhere, a massive king-size bed with black silk sheets, soft golden lights on the walls, and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the whole glowing city. “You have a personal room?” I asked, my voice still shaky and breathless.Stephen kicked the door shut behind us and smirked against my lips. “We all have one,” he said. He carried me straight to the bed and dropped me on it. I bounced once on the soft mattress, my heart racing. He stood over me, eyes dark with hunger. “Now… where were w
SARAH POV:“Oh Stephen…” I gasped, my back pressed hard against the cold wall of the toilet. My legs shook as he held them open wider. His mouth was on me, hot and hungry, licking me like he couldn’t get enough. His tongue moved slow and deep, sliding over my wet folds, then circling my clit again and again.I grabbed his hair with both hands, fingers digging in. “Right there… yes… don’t stop.”Stephen growled low against me. The sound vibrated straight through my core. He was on his knees in front of me, my dress bunched up around my waist, my panties on the floor. His big hands gripped my thighs tight, keeping me pinned to the wall so I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. And I didn’t want to.He licked me harder, sucking my clit into his mouth, then letting it go with a wet pop. I cried out. My wolf was howling inside me, loving every second. Heat rushed through my whole body. I was so wet it was dripping down my thighs and he licked every drop like it was the best thing he had ever







