Vivienne’s eyes scanned her like a doctor checking a patient.
"Look what the prophecy dragged out."
Sienna didn’t flinch. "And you’re the one who left when the house started burning."
Nathaniel coughed to cover a laugh.
Vivienne smiled, genuinely this time. "We’ll get along fine."
Far away, in the capital’s marble-and-shadow stronghold, another Wolfe stirred.
Selene Wolfe.
She stood in the old vault's ceremonial room. A dark blue robe covered her. She looked at the relics that once controlled power between the Hayes, Sinclairs, and Wolfes.
Ezra’s message was clear in her head.
She had been silent too long.
A gold-tongued diplomat. A strategist cloaked in civility. But it was time to return to the board.
"If the bond succeeds," she murmured, "our supremacy is no longer guarantee
