Sabrina's POV~The room felt like a cage, the peeling walls closing in as I walked and walked, my nails punching my skin. The air was stagnant, thick with the stench of cheap perfume and my panic. I was trembling: My hands and my stomach were in knots from nerves, and my grip on my phone was tight. Losing Rosa’s journal to Caspian was bad enough, but planting that tracker on Julian’s car had been a desperate shot in the dark, one which could get me exiled if the pack ever found out. The Bloodhound Pack’s disruption—raids that were tearing up Vellex borders, Roland’s threats about Julian’s capture—shrieked in every text alert. I was an idiot to believe I could play Julian’s game and walk out of it clean. I did a poor job of hiding it because I couldn’t stand what I just did to Elara, not because I cared but because of my brother's fury. My heart stuttered, and I could barely breathe as I felt the full weight of my betrayal, of my brother who did not even trust me.I dialed the phone,
Caspians POV~I rested against the table, maps and knives spilling as though it were a battlefield, my hands still trembling from the scout fight with Elara. Her questions about Winifred rattled around in my mind, but the noise outside was louder, and it drowned the questions out—Bloodhound Pack’s howling about Julian’s arrest was tearing Vellex in half. My phone vibrated, a scout’s report displaying: Bloodhound raids eastern border! Five wounded. I swore, my chest tight, and stomped to the window. Down below, two scouts came crashing through the gate, blood covering their faces.“Caspian!” one shouted, his voice raw. “Roland’s soldiers tacked our outpost. They want Julian and are threatening to rake Vellex if we withhold him.”I clutched the sill; my knuckles turned white. “Roland’s lost it. What’s their move?”“They are gathering at the river,” the other scout panted. “Little hits, but they’re testing us. Roland is screaming about his son, says Damien’s got him chained.”“Damn it,”
Elara's POV~I sat in my room, the air heavy with the scent of old coffee and the tang of fear, my laptop glowing with Tyler’s ledgers of photographic evidence. Phase Reassigned – vessel – Verses of Caspian’s ledger echoed through my mind, like a toxin seeping through my thoughts. Jasmine’s warning — Tyler’s hit was targeting me — clawed at my collarbones, but I was thankful that my parents were still living this reborn life. I was trembling as I closed the laptop, my pulse a frantic drumbeat. I had questions and Caspian had all the answers.Slipping through the stone corridors of Vellex, the force of my suspicions weighed heavily on my ribs. The room was a castle of maps and arms, and Caspian was in the midst of it, a still, gray-eyed figure standing at a table, alert but tired. I banged the door shut and my voice sliced through the quiet. “Caspian, what’s ‘vessel’? The ledger — you know more than you are saying. Tell me, now.”He tensed, jaw muscles clenched, but didn’t turn his eye
Julian’s POV~Darkness.The first thing I noticed was the air — thick and choking, the kind you feel pressing against your eyelids even when they are open. My head ached, a steady pulse deep inside my skull that reached from my neck up my shoulder. I attempted to move, and cold metal sank into my wrists. Silver cuffs.I blew out hard from my nose, trying to break the bindings. The chains rattled, the noise racketing in the silence. My wolf should have been able to do it—I wanted to imagine it snarling at the insult of the rip, ripping against the poison in the metal—but there was nothing. Just silence. A yawning, hollow blackness in the space where my energy should've been.Where are you? I delved deep within in search of my wolf’s comforting fire, the rumbling growl that all but lived in my bones. Nothing answered.The sedative. It had to be.I spread my fingers, trying to bring feeling into them. The ground I rested my back on was cold, hard concrete, slightly damp with something I
Jasmine’s POV~ The air in the casino ventilation shaft was heavy with dust and the sour bite of bleach. My knees were killing me from crouching, while my palms slipped against the cold metal. Beneath me, I heard my father's voice slice through the murmur of the casino floor -- cold, authoritative, and entirely without regret. “Terminate her tomorrow. Clean. No residue.” My breath hitched. Elara. I had to get out. I backed off, cursing as I heard the vent creaking under my weight. The service exit was only a little farther down—beyond the storage room and left at the broken slot machine. Almost there. Then—footsteps. A beam of torchlight cut through the blackness and froze me in position. “Hey!” A guard’s voice barked. “What the hell are you doing back here?” My chest throbbed against my ribs. Think, Jasmine. Think. I relaxed my body to sag, my eyelids to blink as I staggered on my feet. “Ugh,” I moaned, covering my belly. “Bathroom. Got lost… too many tequila shots.” For emph
Jasmine’s POV~I stood in my dorm, the dim light from my desk lamp creating long shadows against the pictures of Dad’s ledgers, the numbers a scorching truth: Tyler, my father, was a traitor, maybe even a murderer. My hands shook, my chest filled with grief, as thoughts swirled around me so thick and fast that I could not see my surroundings, walls of my small room closing all about, just as I wanted to close off all from the unwelcome world outside. I had betrayed him, by taking those pictures with Elara. My phone vibrated, Elara’s name flashing and I picked up, barely able to speak. “Elara, what’s happened?”Even as my head was fogged, her voice was calm but desperate. “Jasmine, I met Rosa at the station. It had been true––my dad's death was a kill order from Tyler. She’d heard him, saying that Gideon was too close to the silver. We’re right there, but it’s risky. Tyler’s not just a part of it. Jasmine, he’s at the forefront of it.”I fell on my bed and my legs gave way, and warm si