Chapter 1: He's dead*

Vae

The bass hit hard enough to rattle the glasses on the bar. I didn't care. I hadn't come for the music.

Crown Prince Ryker of Ironfang sat in the VIP section of the club, surrounded by his men. Black suit. Easy smile. The quiet, dangerous presence of an Alpha who never needed to raise his voice. A prince in expensive suits. A monster who still breathed.

I had to find a way to get in-,to use my power on him.

Soon he excused himself and went to the men's restroom.

Perfect.

I followed, making sure I wasn't seen by the guards. Good thing I'd brought my mask.

I waited outside, positioned myself where he'd have no choice but to pass close.

When he walked out, I let myself stumble, a shoulder into his chest.

"Oh –, I'm sorry." When his eyes finally lifted and met mine, I slipped.

Not with my feet.

With my mind.

The surface of his thoughts opened the moment our gazes locked. I moved through them cleanly, past the boredom, the constant low calculation, the restless growl of an Alpha who never fully rested.

And there, deeper, I found what I needed, the woman he wanted. Soft dark hair. Eyes that looked like they could forgive anything. A mouth shaped for smiling and for worse things. The exact image of a girl he had never found.

I took it.

When I surfaced, I was no longer the girl in the mask to him. The illusion settled over me like a second skin, her face, her voice, her scent. I felt his attention sharpen, the way a predator does when something finally interests it.

"Careful," he said, voice low, a hand already steadying my waist though I hadn't actually stumbled that far.

His eyes moved over me slowly, already measuring. "You could've just asked for my attention."

I let the smallest smile touch my mouth, the one from his dream. "Maybe I wanted to earn it."

His mouth curved. Something shifted behind his eyes, recognition chasing a memory that didn't exist. "Have we met?"

"Maybe. In another life."

"If we had," he said, stepping closer, close enough that I had to tip my chin up to hold his gaze, "I would've remembered."

The scent of him reached me, woodsmoke, pine, dominant wolf, something underneath it that was just him, unplaceable and unwelcome in how it settled in my chest. I pushed the reaction away and kept my expression soft, curious, unbothered.

"What's a girl like you doing in my club alone?"

"Looking for trouble." My voice stayed light.

Inside, the old hatred sat cold and steady, a stone I'd carried so long it had worn smooth. I did not let it show.

"Or maybe just looking for someone interesting."

His hand found the small of my back, possessive already, fingers spreading like he was testing how much of me he could claim in one touch.

"Interesting, can be arranged." His breath grazed my ear when he leaned in. "Come upstairs. My men will make sure no one interrupts."

So fast?. I tightened the illusion around me and let him lead me, past the guards, past the watching eyes, his hand never leaving my back the entire way, as if he thought I might vanish if he let go. My pulse stayed even. I had waited too long for this night to waste it on nerves.

The private room was dark wood and low light, the music from downstairs reduced to a distant pulse through the floor. The door clicked shut behind us, and the sound of it, final, private, did something to the air in the room.

Ryker turned. Whatever patience he'd shown outside was gone now, replaced by something hungrier, sharper at the edges. That leering smirk sat sharp under the expensive suit.

"Take it off," he said, voice dropping into a command, the kind he probably never had to repeat. "Everything. I want to see if the rest of you matches the face that's been living in my head."

I straddled him instead of answering. Let my hands slide up his chest, feeling the hard muscle beneath the shirt, the heat of him even through fabric. He caught my wrist before I reached his collar, not stopping me, pulling me closer, until there was no space left between us to speak of.

"No rush," he murmured against my temple, and for a second, one second I hadn't planned for, his voice lost its command and turned almost gentle.

"I want to remember this."

His free hand slid up my spine, into my hair, tilting my head back. I let him. I let myself feel the warmth of his palm at the back of my neck, the way his thumb traced along my jaw like he was memorizing it, the way his breathing had changed, gone rough and unhurried at once. Felt the steady, unbothered beat of a heart that had no idea how little time it had left.

"Gladly," I whispered, and it cost me nothing to make it sound true.

When he leaned in to take my mouth, I drove the silver-edged blade up under his ribs.

His eyes went wide. Gold flared for one stunned second, bright and disbelieving, the look of a man who had never once considered that this was how it would end. A wet, shocked sound left his throat. Blood spread dark across the white of his shirt, blooming outward faster than I expected, hot against my knuckles where they were still buried in the wound.

I twisted the knife once, clean and deep, and felt something in him give.

He staggered back a step, hand flying to the blade, and I let him go.

"For my kingdom, and my parents," I said quietly, and dropped the illusion so he could see the real me in his final moments.

Not the woman from his dreams. Me. "For everything you took."

Something in his face changed, recognition, maybe, or just the animal understanding that he'd been hunted, not chosen. He tried to shift. I watched the change start under his skin, claws lengthening, jaw beginning to elongate, and then stall, seize, refuse to finish. The silver saw to that.

He dropped to his knees. Then to the floor. The gold in his eyes dimmed to something dull and human before it went out completely.

I didn't wait to watch it happen. I wiped the blade clean on his jacket, sheathed it, and walked out.

The hallway guards never saw me coming. The first one turned at the sound of the door, hand already going for his sidearm, and I put a silenced round through his temple before the motion finished.

He dropped without a sound beyond the soft, wet thud of a body meeting carpet.

The second lunged. I let him close the distance, better to fight inside his reach than let him use it– and drove my knife across his throat in the same motion I used to step past him, so that by the time the blood started he was already falling behind me. He clawed at his neck with both hands, a wet, useless gurgle rising in his chest, and went down against the wall.

The third was faster. He'd already started to shift, claws breaking through at the knuckle, a snarl climbing out of a throat gone half-wolf.

I didn't give him the room to finish it. I closed the gap before he could bring his arm up, drove the heel of my palm into his windpipe hard enough to feel cartilage give, and when he doubled forward, choking, I brought my elbow down across the back of his neck. He hit the floor and didn't get back up, chest heaving in short, wrong-sounding gasps.

Twenty seconds. Three bodies. No alarm raised.

I stepped over the last one, checked my hands and sleeves for blood in the low light, and kept moving.

Outside, the night air was cold and clean, a sharp relief against skin still warm from the room upstairs. I slid into the black car waiting at the curb, engine already running.

Tires whispered against wet asphalt as I pulled into traffic, city lights blurring gold and white across the windshield.

I touched the tiny comm unit behind my ear.

"It's done," I said.

"Crown Prince Ryker is dead."

A short silence. Then a soft, satisfied breath on the other end.

"Good work, Vespera. Extract and disappear. We'll handle the rest."

I ended the call and kept driving. City lights smeared across the windshield. Ironfang territory shrank behind me in the rearview.

One Alpha down.

There would be more.