VANESSA'S POV
The obsidian box sat on Adrien's desk like a poisonous insect. The air in the study still hummed with the echo of the violation, the psychic stench of the Crimson Sun's probe. My thumb throbbed where the rose's thorn had pierced it, a tiny, steady pulse of pain that anchored me to the moment.
The fear was still there, a cold knot in my stomach. But it was being smothered, forged in the furnace of Adrien's silent rage and my own simmering defiance. They had sought to make us feel small and watched. Instead, they had handed us a weapon: their arrogance.
Adrien's voice cut through the heavy silence, low and sharp as a blade. "Kael."
His Beta, who had been staring at the bloody rose with a look of pure hatred, snapped to attention. "Alpha."
"The perimeter is no longer a line
