Vivienne couldn’t sleep.
Not after the dream.
Not after the blood.
Not after the look in Rafe’s eyes when he said he would kill her if it came to that.
That truth lingered longer than the cold.
She paced her room like a ghost, hands knotted in the hem of her robe. The moonlight made everything look gentler than it was—the books on the shelf, the bed she hadn’t touched, the roses pressed between glass on the far wall.
But nothing could soften the shape of the thoughts that stalked her.
They didn’t believe in her.
Not really.
They feared her. Hand-fed her truths only when forced. Drew lines around her choices like borders on a map they never intended to let her redraw.
She stopped in front of the mirror, not to look at herself but to look through herself. Her reflection felt distan
