LOGINLiam's POV
We got back to the mansion and the moment the car stopped I did not wait for anyone.
I got out, walked around to Ivy's side, lifted her before she could form a protest, and carried her through the front doors. She was too tired to fight me on it, which told me more about the state she was in than anything else could have. Ivy does not stop fighting unless she has nothing left.
Inside, I sat her on the couch in the main sitting room and held her fo
Liam's POVWe got back to the mansion and the moment the car stopped I did not wait for anyone.I got out, walked around to Ivy's side, lifted her before she could form a protest, and carried her through the front doors. She was too tired to fight me on it, which told me more about the state she was in than anything else could have. Ivy does not stop fighting unless she has nothing left.Inside, I sat her on the couch in the main sitting room and held her for a moment. Her arms went around me and she held on, her face pressed against my chest, her breathing still rough from the smoke.I felt the tension I had been carrying since the ambush, since the moment I lost contact with her, since every terrible minute between then and finding her standing on that bathroom sink, all of it came loose at once. Like a rope that had been pulled to its absolute limit finally being cut.She was okay.I was not, if I was being honest, but
Ivy's POVIt was Kel and Rixon.They stood in the doorway wearing full waterproof gear, visors down, water hissing out from the pressure unit Rixon had mounted on his back. The fire hit the wall of water and pulled back, hissing, angry about it. Rixon held his ground without flinching, turning slowly, keeping the stream between the flames and us like he had done this a hundred times before.Kel crossed the room in three strides.He took one look at me standing on the sink in my underwear with a smoking blanket wrapped around me, blood running down both hands, face bruised and tear-streaked, and his expression did something complicated. Like he had prepared himself for bad and still was not fully prepared.He did not say anything. He just pulled off his outer jacket, leaned forward, and put it over my shoulders.I could not even thank him. My throat was too wrecked, too full of smoke and crying, and my hands were shaking t
Ivy's POVI shoved it under the shower tap. Water came out for three seconds, sputtered, and died. I stood there staring at the tap like it had personally decided to ruin my life, which honestly felt accurate at this point.The fire had eaten through whatever kept the water running. Of course it had.I dropped the blanket and rushed to the window. This is the Second floor. I looked down at the ground and did the maths in my head and none of it was good. Jump wrong, I break my skull. Shift into my wolf in a body this exhausted, this soaked in fuel oil, the shift alone would tear me apart before the fall got the chance. There was nobody to call. Not one face in this entire territory I could trust, not one ally, not one person who would show up at that window meaning safety.I sat on the bathroom floor.I cried.I know I'm pathetic but I was tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. I was sitting in my bra and underwear with blood drying on my palms, smoke filling my lungs,
Ivy's POVThe fire did not care about me.It spread across the walls the way fire does when it has been given every advantage, fast and total and completely indifferent to the fact that I was sitting in the middle of it tied to a chair soaked in fuel oil. It did not slow down. It did not hesitate. It just grew and the heat came with it and the smoke dropped low and I realised with absolute clarity that Amy had actually done it.She had actually left me here to burn.I started crying. I pulled at the ropes. They did not move. I pulled again, harder, twisting my wrists until the skin burned, but the rope held and the fire was climbing the curtains now, smoke filling my lungs with every breath, thick enough to taste. I was going to die in Noah's guest room, tied to a chair, covered in fuel oil. That was going to be the end of Ivy.Then my wolf spoke.Not gently. She hit me like a slap, hard from somewhere behind my sternum.“You're not going to die here, maybe by anyone but not by Amy. G
Liam's POVVance worked fast.Whatever he had put inside the cut was spreading through my skin like something alive and angry, moving under my flesh in waves that made every nerve ending in my body decide to scream at the same time, and I gripped the bed sheets and held on and the fabric tore in my fist and I let it tear because the alternative was putting my fist through the wall and Vance was standing too close to the wall."Do not cough," he said without looking up. "Whatever you feel rising, do not cough it out. You force it back down.""Water," I said through my teeth."No.""Vance—""Not yet. Anything liquid right now triggers the spread. Give me two more minutes." His hands moved with the kind of efficiency that only came from years of doing ugly things quickly and cleanly. "I'm putting in a blocker. It's going to prevent the remaining poison from pushing upward. The burning is it working.""It feels like my entire body is on fire from the inside.""Yes," he said simply. "That
Liam's POVKel had my left side and Rixon had my right and neither of them were gentle about it."Move, move, get him inside—""I'm walking," I said."You are barely standing," Kel said. "There's a difference. Stop being difficult."I let them drag me because my legs had decided independently that they were done for the evening and arguing with that decision was going to take energy I did not currently have. The corridor felt longer than it had ever felt. The light was too bright and then too dark and then too bright again and I kept my jaw locked and focused on breathing because breathing was the one thing I could still control.Rixon was already yelling before we were fully through the door."Pack doctor, right now, anyone, get Dr. Lance to the Alpha's quarters immediately, move!"I sat down on the edge of the bed and the room tilted slightly and then settled. Around me I could still hear the aftermath of everything outside, distant shouting, someone barking orders at the gate, the
Ivy's POVI lay on top of the covers fully dressed and I closed my eyes and blocked all of the pack gossip and hallway whispers that pointed and followed me everywhere I walked in this mansion since yesterday. I was not going to give any of them the satisfaction of watching me break
Ivy's POVSleep wasn't coming in this room, in this house, and not with the smell of Noah's pack mansion crawling into my lungs every time I tried to breathe.He had told the guards I wasn't allowed to leave. Not as ala guest but as a hostage. That was what I was now &
Liam's POVIt’s been one week. I was gone for one week and somehow in that time my brother had decided to use the treasury wing as a personal punching bag, Alpha Edmund had taken his security agreement and his wounded pride I
Ivy's POVI didn't understand what was happening. I didn't understand this place, these people, or why two women who had never seen me in their lives hated me with the specific intensity of something personal. All I knew was that my face was still stinging from the slap, my scalp was burning from w







