Ivy’s POV“Just hold on,” I repeated, and they all froze and turned to me.“You mean y’all want me to go meet him?” I asked, letting disbelief lace each word. Daniel nodded, jaw set hard like he’d carved his decision into stone.“Which means that I’ll be locked up in his chambers alone with him?! Dressed like a workaholic?!” I shrieked, the sound ricocheting off the dungeon stone, loud and ridiculous against the concerned expression of the others. I jabbed a finger at my corporate pants and button-up…my office uniform that read ‘Just a simple office worker’ louder than anything else.Daniel rolled his eyes and groaned. “Oh princess, for the love of God, this is a serious issue! Why are you trying to be funny?” He rubbed his hands through his hair like I’m not making sense, and I’m just being unreasonable.He thinks I’m trying to be funny?Around me faces shifted…the half-hardened masks of people who’d been stewing in fear too long: hope stretched thin, anger raw. They’d been arguing
Ivy's POV She smiled like a child giving a list of presents. “I want them executed. But first…I want her.” Her finger stabbed at me with a sweetness that made my blood turn to tar. “I want her arms chopped off before she’s killed. I want to watch it happen.”The words landed like a strike. The king’s voice was soft, flat as a blade. “You heard the queen.”Ezra screamed, a sound ripped from the bones. “My king—”He was already turning, Lila tucked into him like an offering. “Have them executed as a present for the queen at her coronation tomorrow,” Leo growled, his tone a slow thing that promised ruin as he began to leave.I could not breathe in the right sequence. Sounds blurred. Daniel’s hands found my wrist, pulling me into his solidness as the guards closed in, pushing us toward the dungeon mouth that yawned like a hungry thing. The Betas’ cry, the scrape of armor, the distant clatter of a crown being set…all faded into a single, hot pulse.Lila’s eyes found mine as we were hauled
Ivy's POV The sound of it was paper-on-stone. I felt my cheek ring. For a second, my brain paused…like a badly buffered video…and then everything sped up. “Keep quiet or I'll stitch your mouth up for good,” she yelled at me, her eyes filled with hatred and rage.But it only made me bolder.“You like being the martyr, don’t you?” I said. “Playing the tragic one so everyone feels sorry for you. Well…congratulations. You’re very convincing.For a second there,I thought you were really in charge,” I mocked her.“You’re already dead in my eyes, so your words don't matter!” she hissed, each word a venomous promise. Her nails dug into the curve of my jaw like she was trying to carve a name there, but I shoved her off and she staggered with her one arm.Pathetic.“I’ve dreamt of this day, Aria. Of disgracing you. Of making you feel the same shame and the same hollow ache I swallowed because you just had to be the perfect daughter."I don't even remember this bitch, and she's busy yapping lik
Daniel's POV I ignored Ivy's ridiculous laugh and turned to Lila.“What are you doing here, Lila?” I asked, voice low and rough from unused anger."Shut up, you..." Lila replied, still unnervingly calm. She folded her arms like a queen waiting for someone to finish a joke. "I'm Ivy Blackwood not Lila. Don't test me, dog.""If you're Ivy, then I'm the king's mistress you freak," I replied and Ivy chuckled, stifling a laugh."Silence!" Lila's voice sliced through the hall. Ivy tapped my arm, demanding to be set down, and I obeyed because the world was unpredictable enough without me being stubborn.Ivy looked between Lila, the other version of herself, her mouth shaping the word wow like a child seeing a magic trick. She looked back at me and then grinned, loud and messy. "Daniel, can you believe this? I have a disfigured sister!" she yelled, pointing at Lila's missing arm.My hand shot to my face like I might be able to palm the nonsense away.Ivy’s smile widened. She looked amused a
Daniel's POVThe vow burned in my chest and then I let it go…for the moment. There was a storm to outrun.We'd stopped at a neighboring pack to wait it out. The thing with storms is they tell you who they are before they arrive; this one lied. One second the sky was stupidly, violently blue. The next it was like someone threw a thick blanket over the world. No warning. No birds dropping from the sky. Just a silence that tasted wrong.We rested at Peak Pack. We decided to wait; better to move when the road didn’t look like a war. Ivy was a live wire in a limp suit…the second she woke, her eyes searched for exits like she knew doors were the only thing that mattered. So we kept knocking her out until she slept like a stone. It felt ugly, but it worked. When she surfaced, she’d be scanning for a door. When she was down, she was weight and warmth and something I could carry without worrying she’d slip away.They welcomed us like guests of honor…probably because Ezra was the king’s beta
Reina's POVI never meant to be the kind of person who eavesdropped. Nursing should have taught me that…professional distance, a measured voice, hands that only trembled when they had permission to.But this isn’t my world. This place heals no one…it devours, a den of wolves with teeth bared.”And when I heard those words, I knew I had to get to the bottom of it.Morning sunlight spilled into the corridor, stretching the curtain’s shadows along the walls while I pressed myself tighter to the cold plaster.Their voices slithered through the hidden corner…two men, Cassian’s own men, whispering with the kind of venom only betrayal could carry.I carefully peered through the edge of the wall. The two men were hunched in the corner, the angle they positioned themselves swallowing half their faces. Soldiers…Cassian’s men. His own family, if I'm to use their term.“I poured it myself,” one of them muttered, his tone sharp with glee. “Mixed it in smoothly… Right into his glass. He won’t even