LOGINJasmine’s POVI sat on Marc’s bed, facing him, and told him what he needed to know in the direct way I had always spoken to him.I made no attempt to perform calm or simplify the truth into something easier to hear. There were people who wanted something from him that he did not have to give. Whatever they believed his power could do, it did not create an obligation for him to surrender it. Saying no was not being difficult. Saying no was being correct.Marc sat opposite me, his small hands very still in his lap. His silver-blue eyes remained steady throughout the explanation, and he listened without interrupting. The safe-house room was quiet except for the soft hum of the building and the faint sound of Jeff somewhere beyond the door—not close enough to listen, close enough that the perimeter still held. Marc’s bag was where he could reach it. The night-light worked. He had already assessed the locks when we arrived. Third safe house in six months. He had gone without complaint. He
Jasmine’s POVFabian spoke calmly.Standing in the aftermath of the street fight, dust still clinging to his coat, he made no attempt to restore his usual composure or turn the moment into a performance of dignity. He addressed Tristan directly and told him that his pursuit of me was genuine and separate from bloodline politics. It was not a strategic maneuver, an attempt to gain leverage, or a means of advancing the interests of the Clay family.He explained that he was making his intentions clear because I deserved honesty from the men in my orbit, and Tristan deserved not to be maneuvered around or kept in the dark about something that directly concerned him.When Fabian finished, he extended his hand and waited.I watched Tristan look at the offered hand before lifting his gaze to Fabian’s face. The man standing opposite him had just offered something rare in a room full of alpha males: an honest account of his position without tactical concealment. Glass still glittered on the ma
Jasmine’s POVThe pretense was gone entirely, burned away in the market street with the amulet.Fabian was still there when Tristan’s curse marks turned fully black, spreading up both arms to his elbows. The reaction was intensified not only by the rogue energy residue lingering in the street but also by the presence of another alpha. Tristan’s hands opened at his sides as the darkness continued crawling toward his collar. Glass still glittered on the stone, six rogues still lay where the silver pulse had thrown them, and somewhere people were still shouting, or had gone quiet in the way crowds do when they decide the danger might not be finished.I saw the change before Tristan could move toward Fabian.I crossed the distance between them and stepped directly into Tristan’s line of sight. Without hesitation I pressed both palms against his forearms. The silver energy that had erupted from my body when the amulet shattered moved through my hands. It met the darkness beneath his skin a
Jasmine’s POVTristan arrived forty seconds after the amulet broke.He stepped past Fabian without looking at him and stopped directly in front of me. Whatever professional composure he had maintained since the lobby fell away. For once he made no attempt to control how I saw him or soften what he was about to tell me.He gave me his real name and explained that Glenn had been a proxy body his curse allowed him to occupy. The man I had met in the hotel suite, the CEO I had known, and the figure who had appeared in the alley months ago were all the same person. He told me that Marc was his trueborn son.He did not leave room for another interpretation or hide behind an explanation that would make the truth easier to accept.I received the confession with silver energy still moving through me in slow, visible waves. Betrayal, fury, and relief arrived in the same breath. I held all three without allowing any of them to tip me off balance. I had never allowed a revelation to take me off m
Jasmine’s POVSix rogues came at me in broad daylight, and I was alone. No Jeff, no Tristan, and no backup atall.The first pair attacked together, and I handled them with the knowledge Tristan had built into me over months of training. I did not waste movement or reach for strength I did not need. My contact points were precise, my balance stayed beneath me, and every response came from practice rather than pure instinct. The difference between someone who had trained to survive and someone who trained only to perform was present in every movement. Forty sessions on the mat. Prague alley. The placed elbow. The checklist Marc recited. All of it lived in my body when the first rogue closed distance and I stepped inside his range the way I had been taught.I caught the third rogue’s arm below the strike and drove my elbow into his ribs. The impact traveled cleanly up my arm, and for the first time I felt what it was like to fight without a training mat beneath me, without Tristan correc
Jasmine’s POVI held the amulet in my open palm. Five cracks ran across the iron face, the fractures cutting through the old runes that had kept their purpose for years. Some of the markings were almost completely dark now, worn down by the strain of prolonged suppression. I studied it with the expression of someone looking at something that had saved my life and cost me years of it at the same time.Then I closed my hand around it.Abe stood beside me and explained that the procedure would take the remaining suppression down. Once it began, I should be prepared for the full emergence of what the amulet had been holding back. He warned me that it would feel enormous—not necessarily because something was going wrong, but because I had spent so long experiencing myself through layers of restraint.I looked straight ahead.“I’ve been prepared for this my entire life.”Abe did not answer immediately. When I looked at him, I saw that he had heard exactly what I meant. He accepted the state







