LOGINLyra’s POVWatching the shock crack open on Kayden’s face was better than fine wine. It was a goddamn masterpiece. He looked from me to Nyx, still crumpled and gasping on the floor, and I could see the pieces trying to click together in his head. Too slow, human. Way too slow.“What are you talking about?” he choked out, straining against the guards holding him.I let my eyes go wide with believable fury. “Stop lying! We both know what you did!” I infused my voice with a righteous tremor. It wasn’t hard. The jealousy was real; I just channeled it into this new, perfect script.He turned his desperate look to Nyx. “You can’t possibly believe I did this!” She was breathing hard, her eyes screwed shut, lost to the pain. She couldn’t defend him. It was perfect.He swung his gaze back to me, and I saw the moment he understood this was my move. “You’re making this up!”Time for the final nail. With a flourish, I drew the small glass vial from my pocket. I held it up, letting the dawn light
Kayden’s POVI stood there in the training yard after she walked away, the coppery stink of Rykker’s blood filling my nose. My new “team” stared at me, their eyes a mix of fear, hatred, and pure disbelief. None of them moved. The body at my feet was still leaking into the dirt.Promotion. Right.This wasn’t a promotion. This was a trap with a fancy title. She’d painted a target on my back so big you could see it from the moon. Every wolf in this fortress would now either want to test me or straight-up murder me in my sleep. And Silas? When he heard his assassin had been made the Alpha Queen’s head of security… he’d lose his damn mind. This wasn’t just her using me as bait. This was her throwing me into the wolf pit and welding the gate shut.I was pissed. No, more than pissed. I was boiling.This whole drama in the training ground? Chopping a guy’s head off just for questioning her? Then acting like it was nothing? I didn’t know what her game was, but I knew she was playing one. And
Nyx’s POVThe shower water was way too hot. It was almost scalding, but I didn’t turn it down. I needed it to hurt. I needed it to burn his touch off my skin.It didn’t work.My mind kept circling back to him. To the dungeon. Not just the sex, but the quiet after. The way he’d held me when the nightmare had me. I didn’t ask him to. He just did it. His arms were solid. For a minute, I wasn’t the Alpha Queen. I was just a person, and he was just a shelter.Stupid. So stupid.He’s a liar. A killer. He has a job to do, and I’m the job. My brain knows this. My body… my body’s a traitor.I was scrubbing soap over my arms, my thoughts a million miles away, when my hand just… stopped. It rested on my stomach. Then it slid lower, through the slick heat between my legs. I flinched, like my own touch was a surprise.Don’t, I thought. But my fingers moved anyway.I shut my eyes tight. I didn’t want to, but I pictured him. Not the smirking prisoner. The other one. The one with the quiet voice who
Kayden’s POVThe bedroom door clicked shut, sealing us in. The fight with Lyra felt like it happened in another lifetime. Now it was just the quiet, and her, and the space between us that felt charged and stupid.Nyx walked ahead of me. She hadn’t bothered to tie her robe. Black silk hung loose, slipping with every step to show a flash of shoulder, the line of her spine, the curve of her hip. City light from the window cut across her skin in silver stripes. My brain short-circuited.I just stared. Couldn’t help it. My eyes tracked her like they were glued on, taking in every shift and shadow. Remembering how those hips moved. How her skin tasted. A heavy, stupid heat pooled in my gut, reckless and demanding. I wanted to cross the room, rip that flimsy silk away, and take her right there against the wall. Forget the mission. Forget my name.A folded heap of dark fabric smacked me right in the face.I jerked back, fumbling to catch it. Rough cloth. Pants and a shirt.“Finally.” Her voic
Chapter ElevenLyra’s POVThat question just hung there. You actually care about her, don’t you?He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. You could see it all on his face, plain as day. This weird, tangled-up look. It made me want to scream. Right there in the hallway. All my time, all my work, everything I’d built—it was coming apart because of some guy who heals fast and can’t make up his mind.“What is going on here?”Nyx’s voice. It sliced down the hall, cold and sharp. It wasn’t a question you could ignore.We both jerked like kids caught stealing. Kayden and me, still standing there like we were about to throw more punches, looked over at the same time.She was in the doorway. Backlit from her room, so she was mostly a silhouette. She’d tied a robe on, tight around her waist. Her hair was a mess from sleep, but her eyes… her eyes were completely awake. And they were looking at everything. The knife on the floor with blood on it. the dark, wet patch on Kayden’s side. The way we were
Kayden’s POVThe world was just pain, a white-hot sun burning in my side. Her voice, that sweet, poison whisper floated somewhere above me.My vision swam. The hallway walls tilted.But I’d been hurt worse. Taught to function through worse.My hand shot up, not to the wound, but to hers. The one holding the knife. My fingers closed around her wrist, slick with my own blood, and squeezed. Hard. I felt the fine bones grind together.Her gasp was a sharp, satisfying sound.I looked up, right into the slits of her mask. “You should have made sure I was down,” I gritted out.Then I pulled.The knife came free with a sick, wet sound. A fresh tide of agony washed over me, but it was a clean pain now. Controllable.I didn’t throw the knife away. I kept her wrist locked, yanked her off balance, and kicked out. My foot connected with her stomach, solid and mean. The air left her in a whoosh. She stumbled back, hitting the opposite wall.It bought me maybe three seconds.I pressed my free hand o







