Chapter One

Chapter 1

Isla's pov

They say revenge is a poison you drink yourself, hoping the other dies. I suppose that’s true, except I never planned to die.

I planned to burn.

The ballroom glittered as a lie told too often. Gilded mirrors reflected perfect smiles, the chandeliers overhead weeping crystal tears, and everyone pretending not to notice how brittle the glamour had become. Arkenwald’s elite paraded their status like medals of honor, but beneath the silk and champagne, they were wolves clawing for favor.

And in the center of it all was Devon Crest. My ex-lover and my ghost.

His smile still held that charming tilt, the one that once made my stomach flutter. Now it made me want to shatter the glass around the ballroom. He looked effortlessly handsome, dressed in all dark velvet and smooth skin while his hand rested like a brand on the waist of his fiancée, Vanessa Marrow, daughter of the Minister of Trade and fresh out of some finishing academy where girls were taught to smile just enough to be owned.

They looked perfect. That was the point.

My glass of champagne was lukewarm, but I sipped it anyway. Bitterness suited me tonight.

"You're going to chip a tooth, grinding it like that."

The voice at my side startled me. It was deep, smooth, and threaded with something unplaceable. Authority. Amusement. Something darker. I turned slowly, already knowing who I’d find.

Alaric Crest, Devon’s stepfather.

He stood in the shadows just beside the terrace entrance, where the soft golden lights of the ballroom blurred into the night. His suit was tailored, but not ostentatious. His presence made the silk and glitter inside feel like papier-mâché.

“You’ve been watching him,” he said, not quite a question.

I met his eyes, they were cool, slate, and sharp enough to cut. “So has half the room.”

“But not like you.” He sipped from a glass of deep amber liquor, studying me as if I were an exhibit behind glass. “You're not watching him. You're calculating him.”

I smiled thinly. “Is that what you think?”

“I think,” he said, stepping closer, “that a woman doesn’t wear blood-red in a room full of white doves unless she wants to be seen. And feared.”

I resisted the urge to glance down at my gown, it was a crimson silk dress, sleek and vicious. Not my usual taste, but tonight, everything I wore was a weapon.

“Perhaps I’m mourning,” I offered, turning back toward the ballroom with a mock sigh. “The death of devotion.”

“Mourning,” he echoed, voice like crushed velvet. “Is that what they call it now?”

I laughed sharply. “No. Mourning’s what I did when my mother died. This,” I gestured toward Devon and his prized bride, “this is sport.”

He looked at me not like a man looking at a woman, but like something ancient trying to decide if the flame in your palm is heat or hazard.

"You’re Isla Virelle,” he said at last.

“You know me?”

“I make a point of knowing the ones my family disposes of.”

The word hung in the air like smoke. Disposes.

I looked back at Devon, who now had Arabella’s hand to his lips, the perfect fiancé in a gilded cage. Not a trace of guilt. Not even a flicker of memory.

“I suppose I should thank you, then,” I said, setting down my glass. “If it weren’t for your stepson’s treachery, I might still be worshiping at the altar of a false god.”

Alaric tilted his head slightly. “Is that why you’re here? To unmake him?”

I let the question hang. Let him taste the weight of it.

“I haven’t decided yet,” I said finally. “I thought I might start by introducing myself to his father.”

He smirked, just slightly. “Stepfather.”

“Details,” I said, turning to face him fully. “Such fragile things. Like trust. Like bloodlines.”

A flicker of something crossed his face, could it be approval? Curiosity? It was gone before I could name it.

“Careful, Miss Virelle,” he murmured, stepping closer, so close I could smell the quiet heat of his cologne smelled of cedarwood and something older. “You’re playing a game where even the winners bleed.”

“Then I’ll dress in red,” I whispered, holding his gaze.

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed. I didn’t look away. Neither did he.

He reached out to pluck a fallen petal from the hem of my gown. A white rose petal, bruised at the edges.

“How poetic,” he said, letting it flutter to the terrace floor. “A thorn in the garden.”

And then he was gone.

He vanished into the crowd like smoke slipping beneath a door, leaving nothing but the faint memory of his voice and the thrum in my chest I couldn’t quite calm.

I turned back to the ballroom, the laughter inside now hollow and tinny. I could still see Devon laughing with Arabella, surrounded by people who applauded his ascent and ignored the blood on his boots.

But the air felt different now and tighter, even hungrier now.

Alaric Crest had seen me.

And I, the fool that I was, had seen him too.

The first move had been made. The game had beg