BREAKFAST INTERROGATION

Anya woke wrapped in Alexei's scent and the memory of his mouth on hers.

She was alone in the massive bed, sunlight streaming through windows she'd forgotten to close. For a moment, she let herself stay there, processing what had happened.

She'd chosen them. Said the words out loud. Kissed Alexei like she was drowning and he was air.

And her immunity had dropped to sixty-five percent in a single night.

The connecting door opened without warning. Alexei walked in carrying a tray, already dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt that made his grey eyes look almost silver in the morning light.

"You're awake." He set the tray on the bedside table. Coffee, eggs, fresh fruit, pastries that smelled like heaven. "I wasn't sure if you'd sleep through breakfast."

"What time is it?"

"Almost ten. You needed the rest." He sat on the edge of the bed, close enough that she could feel his body heat. "How are you feeling?"

"Confused. Terrified. Like I just made the biggest decision of my life while running on adrenaline and fear."

"Did you?" His hand found hers on the covers. "Regret it, I mean."

She thought about lying. About protecting herself with the walls she'd built over twenty-three years. But something about the way he looked at her, like her answer actually mattered, made her tell the truth.

"No. I don't regret it. But I'm still scared."

"Good. Fear keeps you sharp." He squeezed her hand. "Dimitri wants to talk to you this morning. He has questions."

"About what?"

"About everything. He's been digging into your background all night. Found some... inconsistencies." His expression was carefully neutral. "I need you to be honest with him. About as much as you can be. He's not going to hurt you, but he needs to understand what we're dealing with."

"And if I can't tell him everything?"

"Then tell him what you can. But don't lie. He'll know, and it'll make things worse." Alexei stood, offering his hand. "Eat first. You'll need your strength."

She took his hand, let him pull her up. His thumb brushed over her knuckles, and even that simple touch sent heat pooling low in her belly.

"Last night," she started. "When you kissed me. Did you feel..."

"Everything." He cut her off, eyes blazing. "I felt everything. The bond snapping tighter. Your resistance crumbling. The way your body knew mine even if your mind was still fighting." He pulled her closer. "I wanted to keep going. Wanted to strip you bare and claim you properly. But you weren't ready for that."

"How do you know?"

"Because you were shaking. And not from desire." His hand cupped her face. "When I take you, and I will take you, you're going to be begging for it. Not because the bond makes you want it, but because you genuinely want me inside you. Understood?"

The crude words should have offended her. Instead, they sent liquid heat straight between her thighs. She clenched them together, trying to ignore the ache building there.

"Understood," she whispered.

"Good girl." He kissed her forehead, chaste and at odds with his words. "Now eat. Dimitri's waiting in my office."

He left through the connecting door, and Anya stood there trying to remember how to breathe normally.

Good girl. Two simple words that shouldn't affect her this much.

She ate quickly, showered faster, and dressed in jeans and a sweater from the endless supply of clothes that fit her perfectly. The whole time, her body hummed with awareness. Every nerve ending felt more sensitive than it should.

The immunity failing was doing something to her. Making her hyperaware of the brothers in a way that was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

When she finally made her way to Alexei's office, both he and Dimitri were waiting. The room smelled like coffee and tension.

"Sit." Dimitri gestured to the chair across from the desk. He had his laptop open, files spread across the surface. "We need to talk about your cover story."

"What about it?"

"It's good. Very good. Detailed, believable, backed up by years of documentation." He turned the laptop toward her. "But it has holes. Small ones. The kind you'd only notice if you were looking very carefully."

Anya's stomach sank. "Such as?"

"Such as the fact that your college professor, the one who supposedly mentored you through your art degree, doesn't remember you. I spoke to him directly. Showed him your photo. Nothing."

"Maybe he doesn't remember every student."

"He remembered the name. Said Anya Brooks took his class, got good grades, turned in all her work. But when I showed him your face, he looked confused. Said that's not what she looked like."

Dimitri pulled up another file. "Then there's your former roommate. She remembers an Anya Brooks. Describes her as quiet, kept to herself, always studying. But again, wrong face."

"People's memories aren't perfect."

"No, they're not. But this many people misremembering your face? That's statistically improbable." He leaned back in his chair. "So either you had extensive reconstructive surgery that erased your features and gave you completely new ones, or you're not actually Anya Brooks. You just took over her identity."

Silence. Anya's mind raced through possible responses. Deny everything? Stick to the surgery story? Or...

"What if it's both?" she said finally.

Dimitri's eyebrows rose. "Explain."

"What if there was a real Anya Brooks? And what if she was taken, modified, and turned into me? What if I am her, but also not her, because they changed so much that the original person doesn't exist anymore?"

She wasn't even sure that was true. But it felt true. Felt like the only explanation that made sense.

"That's dark," Alexei said from where he stood by the window.

"That's my life." She looked at Dimitri. "You want honesty? Here it is. I don't remember much from before age eight. What I do remember is fragmented, unreliable. They told me I was in an accident, that I needed surgery, that my face was damaged beyond repair. But what if that was a lie? What if they just wanted to erase whoever I was before and create someone new?"

"Who're they'?" Dimitri asked.

"I don't know. I've never seen the people at the top. I only know my handlers. The doctors who did the modifications. The trainers who taught me to fight." She met his eyes. "I'm a weapon, Dimitri. That's all I've ever been. And weapons don't need to know who made them."

"Everyone needs to know where they come from."

"Do they? Because I'm not sure I want to know. Not if it means finding out I was someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's friend, and they took that all away to turn me... into this."

Her voice cracked on the last word. She hated that. Hated showing weakness.

Dimitri's expression softened. "We'll find out. Who you were before. Who took you. All of it."

"Why? What difference does it make?"

"Because you deserve to know." He closed his laptop. "But that's not why I called you here. I need to ask you about your therapist."

Anya's blood turned cold. "What about her?"

"Dr. Sarah Chen. You saw her twice a week for two years, according to your records. She prescribed you medication for anxiety and insomnia. Wrote detailed session notes that paint a picture of a young woman struggling with trauma but working through it." He paused. "She died three weeks ago. Car accident. Very tragic."

"I... I didn't know."

"Didn't you?" Dimitri pulled up a news article.

"Because the timing is interesting. She died exactly two weeks before you were activated for this mission. And her death was ruled accidental, but the investigating officer noted several irregularities. Brake lines that looked tampered with. A witness who said another car seemed to force her off the road."

"Are you saying she was murdered?"

"I'm saying it's suspicious. And I'm saying that she's the one person who could verify your emotional state, your mental health, whether you were genuinely traumatized or just pretending." He leaned forward. "Without her, there's no one who can confirm that you're actually the person your file says you are."

"Maybe that's why they killed her."

"That's what I'm thinking too." He showed her another file. "But here's the interesting part. I found her. Dr. Chen. Alive."

Anya's world tilted. "That's not possible. You just said she died."

"Someone died in that car. But I have surveillance footage from two days ago showing Dr. Sarah Chen entering a building in Prague. Very much alive. Very much not dead." He turned the screen again. The image was grainy but unmistakable. "Want to explain that?"

She couldn't. Her throat had gone dry, her mind blank.

"I don't understand," she managed. "If she's alive, then who died in the car?"

"Good question. I'm working on that." Dimitri's eyes were sharp as glass. "But the fact that your therapist faked her death right before your mission? That suggests she's not actually your therapist. She's part of your organization."

"That doesn't make sense. She knew things. Personal things. I told her about nightmares, fears... things I've never told anyone."

"Which she probably reported back to her superiors. Which means your organization knows everything about your psychological state. Every weakness. Every trigger. Every way to manipulate you." He closed the laptop. "You've been under surveillance your entire life, Anya. Not just external surveillance. Internal too. They put someone inside your head and made you think she was helping you."

The betrayal cut deeper than it should have. Dr. Chen had been one of the few constants in her life. One of the few people she'd almost trusted.

"How long have you known?" she asked quietly.

"Since last night. I've been tracking her movements since then. She's in Prague right now, meeting with people I can't identify. But I will." He stood. "I'm telling you this because you need to understand what you're up against. Your organization doesn't just control your missions. They control your mind. Your emotions. Everything you think is private? They know about it."

"Why are you helping me?" The question burst out before she could stop it. "I was sent to kill you. Why do you care what my organization did to me?"

"Because you're our mate." He said it like it was obvious. "Because what they did to you is unforgivable. And because I'm very good at destroying organizations that hurt people I care about."

"You don't even know me."

"I know enough." He moved around the desk, stopping in front of her. "I know you're strong enough to survive twenty-three years of psychological warfare. I know you're smart enough to question your own programming. I know you're brave enough to stand here and admit you don't have all the answers instead of lying to protect yourself."

His hand reached out, fingers tilting her chin up. "And I know that when I touch you, you feel it. The bond. The pull. The recognition that goes deeper than any training they could've given you."

The touch sent familiar heat through her system.

Her diagnostic updated: IMMUNITY: 63%.

"That's just chemistry," she whispered.

"Chemistry, biology, fate, whatever you want to call it. Doesn't matter. What matters is it's real." His thumb brushed her lower lip. "Tell me you don't feel it."

She couldn't. Because she did feel it. Every time one of them touched her, every time they looked at her like she mattered, every time they treated her like a person instead of a weapon.

"I feel it," she admitted. "But feeling something doesn't mean I should trust it."

"Then don't trust the feeling. Trust us." He stepped back, giving her space. "We've been honest with you. About what we are. What we want. What we're willing to do to keep you safe. Can your organization say the same?"

No. They couldn't. They'd lied about everything. Her identity, her purpose, even the people they'd put in her life to make her think she had choices.

"What happens now?" she asked.

"Now, you tell me everything you can about Dr. Chen. Every session, every detail you remember. We're going to use her to trace back to your organization's leadership." Dimitri returned to his seat. "And then we're going to burn them to the ground."

The casual way he said it, like destroying a shadowy international organization was just another Tuesday, should have worried her.

Instead, it made her feel safer than she had in years.

She spent the next two hours telling Dimitri everything she could remember about her sessions with Dr. Chen. The questions she'd asked, the directions she'd guided conversations, the medication she'd prescribed. All of it went into Dimitri's files, pieces of a puzzle he was methodically assembling.

By the time they finished, Anya was exhausted. Reliving two years of therapy sessions that had apparently all been lies was more draining than any physical training.

"That's enough for today." Dimitri closed his laptop. "You did good. This helps."

"Does it? Because it feels like all I did was confirm that I'm naive and easily manipulated."

"You're not naive. You're human." He paused. "Or wolf pretending to be human. Whatever. Point is, you trusted someone who presented themselves as trustworthy. That's not weakness. That's normal."

"Normal people don't get turned into weapons."

"Normal is overrated." He stood, stretched. "Get some rest. Tonight's going to be complicated."

"Why? What's tonight?"

"Pack meeting. Everyone wants to meet you. The female who's supposedly our mate, who the Sokolov pack is willing to start a war over, who fights like a trained operative but claims to be a waitress." His smile was sharp. "You're going to be very popular."

"That sounds terrible."

"It will be. But it's necessary. The pack needs to accept you as Luna if this is going to work."

"I'm not Luna."

"Not yet. But you will be. Eventually." He moved toward the door, paused. "Fair warning. Some of them won't like you. Will see you as a threat or a liability. But you've got Alexei's protection, and that counts for a lot."

"And if his protection isn't enough?"

"Then you prove you're worth keeping around." He looked back at her. "You're good at that, I think. Surviving. Adapting. Becoming what you need to be. So do it again. Become our Luna. Even if you're still figuring out what that means."

He left, and Anya sat in the suddenly quiet office, trying to process everything.

Dr. Chen was alive. Her entire therapeutic relationship had been surveillance. Her organization had been inside her head for two years, probably longer.

And in less than forty-eight hours, they'd decide she was a liability and eliminate her.

Unless she eliminated them first.

Her comm unit vibrated. The check-in signal.

Again.

She ignored it.

She was done following their orders. Done being their weapon. Done pretending she was anything other than a wolf who'd been forced to pretend to be human.

If they wanted her dead, they could come try to kill her themselves.

And they'd have to go through three very protective, very dangerous Alphas to do it.

Somehow, that thought made her smile.