LOGINSIMONE"If you don't mind, sister, I'll take my leave now." I drained the last of the wine I'd taken from a passing servant's tray, my eyes still locked on Olivia's across the hall.She'd been reborn. Everything about tonight was starting to make sense now, piece by piece, in ways I wished it didn't. I wasn't going to let her win a second time.I caught the tight, knowing smirk curling at the corner of her mouth, and something about it frightened me, not fear of her fists or her claws. Fear of what my best friend might still be capable of, now that she remembered exactly how much she'd already gotten away with once."Olivia," he murmured,"......is so pretty, don't you think?" a voice said from somewhere behind me, and I realized belatedly I'd missed most of whatever sentence had come before it. My focus had been elsewhere all night.A hand closed gently around my wrist, and I startled, jerking back to the present.It was him. The same man who'd done nothing but watch me, quietly
SIMONE I made myself look around the room, casual, unhurried checking whether anyone had caught the flinch, the cold sweat that had run down my spine a second too late to hide. No one seemed to be watching. Good. Then Leo's arms came around me, and I flinched again, too fast, too immediate to pass as anything but what it was. "Are you okay, Simone?" His voice was warm, threaded with a joy that sounded, infuriatingly, real. He was too good at this. Too believable. I hadn't noticed the first time around, back when I'd had no reason to look for the seams. "Oh yeah, Leo. It's just..." I let the sentence trail, let him fill in the blank however suited him best. "Just nothing, Simone. Whatever that good for nothing wolf said to you, don't listen to her." He'd seen me speaking with Olivia, then. He was too good at pretending to be good. This was the same man who'd walked out of a room while her claws opened my stomach, who'd let me scream and hadn't turned back once. "I'd like to
SIMONE Two weeks had passed since I'd agreed to be Leo's date for the Crescent Festival two weeks of training soldiers under a excuse of "border unrest," two weeks of smiling at Leo while I quietly rebuilt everything I hadn't thought to build the first time. Tonight, all of it led here. I walked into the hall, and nothing had changed. The same crystal chandeliers hung glittering overhead, the same smoky incense curled through the air, the same marble floor stretched beneath my feet like it remembered me even if I wished it didn't. Wolves from packs across the region filled the room, their voices a low murmur beneath the string quartet. I walked the red carpet exactly as I had in my past life; chin high, spine straight, gown trailing behind me like a whisper. Except this time I knew what waited at the end of it. I knew the shape of the trap even if I didn't yet know every hand that had built it. The moment I crossed the threshold, heads turned. The ceiling had been le
SIMONE I walked back to the dining table, Flora's eyes tracking me the entire way, searching my face for something she couldn't quite name. I let her look. Let her wonder. "Dad, let's train more soldiers," I said, turning my full attention to my father. "We never know what could happen." He raised an eyebrow, mild surprise crossing his face. "That's a sudden request, Simone." "Better prepared than sorry." I kept my voice light, casual. "But Simone," Flora started, brow furrowed, and I could already hear the question forming behind her teeth. Why now? What aren't you telling us? "Just trust me on this one," I said, softer than before, and something in my tone must have carried enough weight that she let it go, though her eyes lingered on me a moment longer, unconvinced. "I'm so sorry, but..." Rose appeared in the doorway, wringing her hands. I already knew what was coming. I'd heard this exact apology before, in another life, delivered with the same nervous flut
SIMONE I gasped awake, sitting bolt upright in bed, my chest heaving like I'd just run for my life. Sweat clung to my skin. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt, and for one disorienting second, I braced for the pain, the claws, the blood, the shattered glass ceiling above me. None of it came. Just soft morning light and the smell of clean sheets. I sat there a long moment, waiting for my body to catch up to the fact that it wasn't dying. My hands were shaking. I pressed one flat against my ribs, half expecting to feel the wound still there, and felt nothing but skin, whole and unbroken. It didn't make sense. None of it made sense, the softness of the sheets, the birdsong outside, the fact that I was breathing at all. The door flung open before I could get any further than that. "You're finally up." Rose swept in, already reaching for the curtains. "Better hurry, your father's expecting you down for breakfast, and you know how he gets when the meat goes
SIMONE "Did I interrupt something?" Olivia stood frozen in the shattered doorway, glass glittering around her boots like she'd stepped out of a nightmare wrapped in silk. Both our eyes snapped to her, and for one suspended second, nobody moved. Wind poured in through the broken wall, stirring her dark hair, guttering the candles low. She wasn't supposed to be here. She wasn't allowed to be here. None of that mattered anymore, not with the paper crushed in my fist, the words on it burning through my mind like acid. "How dare you, Leo." My voice cracked as I turned on him. "You want to enslave my people. The Evergreen pack." The remorse he'd worn only minutes ago flickered just once, a shadow crossing his face before he smoothed it away. Then it was gone, and something colder took its place. A stranger's face, stitched onto my mate's body. "Wow." A low, humorless chuckle. His eyes stayed locked on mine, and whatever had flickered there a second ago didn't come back. "So you







