CHAPTER 15

XAVIER

The words did not change no matter how long I stared at them.

She signed. Now she bleeds.

Five words. Black ink. Clean handwriting. No tremor, no hurry.

Whoever had written them had taken their time.

My wolf wanted to tear through the building wall by wall until it found a throat. I kept my hand flat on the kitchen table instead, fingers spread beside the photograph, because if I curled them, something would break.

Again.

Deena stood close enough for me to feel the heat of her body at my side. She was quiet, but the bond betrayed what her face refused to show me.

Fear.

Anger.

Humiliation.

And beneath all of it, a steady beat of defiance that made my wolf lift its head.

“Let me see it,” she said.

“No.”

Her eyes cut to mine.

I heard the mistake the second it left my mouth.

Nicole made a sharp little sound behind her. “You are learning nothing at an Olympic level.”

I turned the photograph over and handed it to Deena.

Her fingers brushed mine.

The bond sparked hot.

She read the message. Her smooth brown skin did not lose color. Her lips pressed together, and for a moment, all the sass went still inside her.

Then she looked up.

“Well,” she said, voice dry as ash. “That’s dramatic as hell.”

Nicole stepped closer. “Dee.”

“If I don’t make jokes, I’m going to scream, and I like my neighbors.”

Mace came into the room from her bedroom, his expression locked down. “No one inside. No devices that I can find. They used a masking agent over their scent.”

“Professional?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Deena’s fingers tightened around the photograph. “Professional supernatural burglars. Great. Do they have a Yelp page?”

I took the picture from her before she could crumple it. “Bag it.”

Mace pulled a plastic evidence sleeve from his jacket.

Nicole watched him. “Do you just carry those around?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you do.”

He slid the photograph inside without touching the surface. “No obvious fingerprints. I’ll have Lena check the ink for blood binding.”

Nicole blinked. “I’m sorry. Blood binding?”

Deena closed her eyes. “I was happier thirty seconds ago.”

“It may be ordinary ink,” Mace said.

Nicole stared at him. “You say that like ordinary threatening ink is comforting.”

I moved through the apartment again, forcing myself to see details instead of rage.

Small space. Warm despite the damage. Books stacked on a side table. A blanket folded over the couch. A mug in the sink. Plants on the windowsill, one half-dead and somehow judgmental. Photographs with Nicole. Photographs with the older woman whose broken frame Deena had lifted from the floor like it was more precious than anything else in the room.

This had been her home.

Not a political complication. Not a claim under old law. Not the human problem stamped in red ink by cowards hiding behind treaties.

A home.

And someone had walked into it because of me.

“They took the shoebox,” Nicole said from the bedroom doorway. Her voice had lost every trace of humor. “The one with her old documents.”

Deena turned. “All of them?”

“Birth certificate copies. Grandma’s letters. Some medical stuff from your mom.” Nicole swallowed. “It’s empty.”

I looked at Mace.

His jaw tightened. “They knew what to look for.”

Deena’s hand went to the necklace at her throat. The crescent and blade rested against her chest, catching the weak kitchen light.

A human nurse with a royal crest hidden in her family jewelry.

A signature page missing.

Old records stolen.

The pieces were not yet a shape, but they were no longer scattered.

“They’re not just trying to scare you,” I said.

Her gaze came back to mine. “No shit.”

“They’re building a case. Or destroying one.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“And you hate saying that.”

“Yes.”

That earned me half a breath of surprise from her.

Then she looked around her destroyed apartment, and whatever softness might have formed vanished. “I need ten minutes.”

“We leave now.”

“No.” Her voice cut clean. “You do not get to rush me out of my own home while my underwear is on the floor because some wolf asshole got excited about my paperwork.”

Mace looked at the ceiling.

Nicole pointed at Deena. “That sentence was legally perfect.”

I fought the urge to command. It was ugly, that instinct. Old. Useful in war, useless with a woman who had already made it clear she would rather walk through fire than be carried over it like luggage.

“Ten minutes,” I said. “Mace clears the hallway. Nicole stays with you. I stay at the door.”

Deena studied me. “Was that compromise?”

“It was an effort.”

“Needs polish, but fine.”

I did not smile.

But I wanted to.

That irritated me almost as much as the threat.

For ten minutes, Deena packed what remained of her life into two bags and a laundry basket. Uniforms. Medication. Toiletries. A few books. A worn sweatshirt she held to her face for one second before folding with careful hands. Nicole collected chargers, loose papers, a handful of bras, and a pair of shoes she declared “emotionally necessary.”

No one argued.

In the hall, a door cracked open.

An older woman peered out, her gray hair wrapped in a scarf, worry carved deep around her eyes. “Deena? Baby, are you all right?”

Deena was across the hall before I could stop her. “Mrs. Alvarez, I’m okay. Someone broke in, but they’re gone.”

The woman’s gaze flicked to me, then Mace, then the size of every man in the hallway.

Her fear spiked the air.

Deena stepped slightly in front of her line of sight. Protective. Instinctive. “Lock your door, okay? If anybody knocks and you don’t know them, don’t open it.”

“Should I call the police?”

Nicole appeared with a bag over her shoulder. “Already handled.”

A lie.

A good one.

Mrs. Alvarez reached out and squeezed Deena’s arm. “You come back when you can.”

The bond pulsed.

Pain. Not from the marks this time.

From loss.

Deena smiled anyway. The dimple appeared in her left cheek, small and brave and fucking devastating. “I will.”

She knew she might not.

So did I.

I waited until Mrs. Alvarez shut her door before turning to one of my men at the stairwell. “Two watchers remain on this building. Quietly. No contact unless there is a threat. Every resident on this floor is off-limits to anyone looking for her.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

Deena heard me.

Of course she did.

“Do not make my neighbors your subjects,” she said.

“I won’t.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I make them untouchable,” I said.

That silenced her.

Only for a moment.

Then she adjusted the strap on her bag and walked past me. “You’re still bossy.”

“Yes.”

“But that one was acceptable.”

A stupid amount of satisfaction moved through me.

I buried it.

The drive back to the estate felt different.

On the way to the city, Deena had been tense and furious. On the way back, she sat with a laundry basket between her feet and her grandmother’s cracked photograph in her lap. Nicole rode with Mace behind us, probably insulting his driving, his posture, or the emotional range of his eyebrows.

Rain slid down the windshield in thin silver lines.

Deena stared out at the city as it blurred past. “They touched everything.”

“I know.”

“No, you know strategically. You know, like somebody breached a perimeter.” Her thumb brushed the broken frame. “I mean they touched everything.”

I kept my hands on the wheel.

I did know.

Not the way she did. Not this apartment. Not these drawers. But I knew the way safety could be poisoned after one violation. I knew what it was to sleep in rooms other people could enter, to own nothing that could not be taken, to measure every door by whether it locked from the inside.

“I am sorry,” I said.

The words felt insufficient. Stiff.

True.

She looked at me. “For the break-in?”

“For bringing danger to your door.”

“You didn’t make them do it.”

“No. But I am the reason they knew where to look.”

Her expression softened, then sharpened as if she resented the softness. “Don’t get noble and tragic on me. I’m too tired.”

“I am neither noble nor tragic.”

“Debatable.”

The corner of my mouth nearly moved.

She noticed.

“Was that a smile?” she asked.

“No.”

“Liar.”

The bond warmed.

For half a second, the threat on the photograph was not the only thing in the vehicle.

Then my phone buzzed.

Mace.

I answered through the car system. “Report.”

“We pulled partial footage from the building lobby before the feed cut,” he said. “Not enough for facial recognition. I’m sending it to your phone.”

The screen lit with a still image.

A figure in dark clothing. Hood up. Face angled away. Gloved hands.

No scent. No face.

But posture mattered. Height. Shoulder set. Balance.

Trained.

Not a human burglar.

Deena leaned forward. “Is that them?”

“Yes,” I said.

She stared. “Can you tell who it is?”

“Not yet.”

But a cold thread moved down my spine.

Because something about the figure’s left hand bothered me.

The glove did not fully cover the ring finger.

A flash of silver.

I enlarged the image with two fingers.

The image distorted, pixels breaking apart.

Still, the shape remained.

Crescent.

Blade.

My crest.

I said nothing.

Deena noticed. “What?”

“Later.”

“No. Do not later me in a moving car after my apartment got ransacked.”

I sent the image to Mace with one command.

Enhance the hand. Now.

Then I looked at Deena. “You and Nicole will stay at the estate.”

“There it is.”

“I am asking.”

“You’re bad at asking.”

“I know.”

That slowed her anger more effectively than any argument could have.

She watched me in the dim gray light. “I have conditions.”

“Tell me.”

“No locked doors. No guards inside my room. No one goes through my bags. Nicole stays beside me. I keep my phone. I get coffee without requesting royal permission. And when people talk about me, I’m in the damn room.”

I should have refused at least three of those for security reasons.

Instead, I said, “Agreed.”

Suspicion narrowed her eyes. “That was too easy.”

“I can become more difficult if it comforts you.”

“Don’t strain yourself.”

By the time we reached the estate, the sky had darkened again, clouds dragging low over the tree line. The mansion rose at the end of the long drive, elegant and warm from the outside, windows glowing gold against the rain.

A fortress pretending to be a home.

Silas waited in the foyer when we entered, dressed as if he had been born in a suit and would be buried in one. His gaze moved over Deena’s bags, then to me.

“So this is your answer?” he asked. “Bring the liability deeper inside?”

My wolf rose.

Deena’s shoulders stiffened.

Nicole stepped through the door behind Mace and immediately said, “Wow, you really do wake up committed to being a dick.”

Silas ignored her. “The message proves what I warned you about. Her presence invites challenge.”

“No,” I said.

The foyer quieted.

Twenty household scents drifted from nearby rooms. Fear. Curiosity. Concern. Resentment.

I let them hear me.

“The message proves my enemies know her name. That makes her a target under my protection.”

Silas’s mouth tightened. “Your protection is exactly what they intend to exploit.”

“Then they have forgotten what happens to those who exploit what is under my protection.”

Deena looked at me.

I did not look away from Silas.

“Prepare the guest wing,” I said. “The room beside hers belongs to Nicole.”

Mace opened his mouth, likely to argue about security layout.

Nicole beat him to it. “Try me, Tall, Dark, and Emotionally Constipated.”

His jaw clicked shut.

A small, dangerous silence followed.

Then my phone buzzed again.

Mace checked his at the same time. His expression changed.

He turned the screen toward me.

The enhanced image was grainy, but clear enough.

The intruder’s gloved hand, caught in one exposed sliver of lobby light.

A silver signet ring sat on the finger.

Not decorative.

Not stolen from a tourist shop.

An Evers crest, reserved for blood family and sworn inner circle.

My house.

My name.

My betrayal.

Deena stepped close enough to see it. Her breath caught once, then steadied.

She looked from the image to the gathered household.

“So tell me, Your Majesty,” she said softly. “Which one of your monsters searched my home?”