The image of her stays with me long after Jake’s footsteps fade down the hall. I trace the outline of her face with a gloved finger, as if by some miracle the parchment would give way, let me touch the real thing. But it doesn’t. Paper lies. Paper softens the truth.
I want to see her bleed.
Not out of cruelty. No—pain tells truths words never can. I want to know what she is. What hides beneath that too-perfect skin and vacant gaze. If the rumors are even half true, she’s not merely a hybrid—she’s an aberration, a mistake of fate that should never have survived. Half-lycan, half-fae. Bred in secret. Hunted from birth.
And unclaimed.
That last part stings. Not for pity—but because she should have been mine first.
The Phoenix got to her before I even knew she existed. Alex, that self-rig
