Rhys’s POV
The mirror in my bathroom shows a stranger.
Gray eyes shot through with amber that won't recede no matter how hard I clench my jaw, how deep I breathe, how many times I press my palms against the cold porcelain and will the wolf back down. Three days since she walked out of that common room, and my control is disintegrating.
I haven't slept. The bed smells like her—warm skin, something floral, the faint copper of wolf blood that used to make my chest tight for the wrong reasons. Now it makes my chest tight because she's not in it.
"You look like shit." Aaron leans in my doorway, arms crossed. "When's the last time you ate?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. Your eyes have been flickering all morning. Davidson asked me if you were wearing contacts." He steps inside, lowering his voice. "This is getting dangerous, Rhys. If someone actually pays attention—"
"I said I'm fine." The words come out with a snarl that doesn't belong in a vampire's throat. Aaron flinches. I turn back to the mirror, gripping the sink until the porcelain groans.
"Is this about the halfblood?"
"Don't call her that."
"Since when?" He catches himself. Studies me with an expression I've never seen on him before—not fear, not concern exactly. Realization. "Oh. You actually—this isn't about the arrangement anymore, is it?"
I don't answer. The amber in my eyes pulses brighter.
"Rhys." Aaron moves closer, voice dropping to barely audible. "Your eyes. Right now. If anyone walked by—"
"Get out."
He goes. Smart man.
I skip practice. First time in four years. My father would have my head if he knew—the Vance heir doesn't miss obligations, doesn't show weakness, doesn't let a girl derail decades of careful performance. But I can't stand on that field ten feet from her and pretend I'm functioning.
From my window I watch the team filter onto the pitch. She's there—clipboard in hand, hair pulled back, moving through her duties with the same stubborn efficiency she brings to everything. No escort. No wolves flanking her. No vampire boyfriend clearing her path.
She's alone again. Exposed. And she chose it over me.
A group of wolves passes her near the equipment shed. One shoulder-checks her—casual, deniable. Her clipboard clatters to the ground. She picks it up without breaking stride, without looking at them, without giving them a single thing.
My hand hits the window frame hard enough to crack the wood.
Three weeks ago I would've been on that field in seconds, promising to dismantle anyone who touched her. Three weeks ago she was mine—publicly, officially, wrapped in my protection whether she wanted it or not. Now she's walking through that gauntlet alone because I put her there.
Use the sister, destroy the brother.
Aaron's words. My words, originally, pitched to him in this very room months ago when Sloane Imler was nothing but a name attached to a strategy. Before the elevator. Before her bones cracked wrong and I dropped to my knees beside her because the sound of a hybrid in pain hit somewhere I'd spent twenty-one years trying to bury.
Before she pressed her lips to the scar on my back and I understood what it felt like to be seen by someone who didn't look away.
I sit on the edge of my bed. Her scent rises from the sheets and the wolf in me howls—actually howls, a sound that vibrates through my ribcage and nearly escapes my throat. I press my fist against my mouth until the urge passes.
She said win me. Not possess me. Not claim me. Not negotiate terms and conditions and arrange a transaction where both parties benefit. Win me. Like I'm something worth competing for and she's something worth earning.
I don't know how to do that. Every relationship I've ever had has been transactional—calculated moves on a board where everyone's playing for advantage. My father taught me that. Love is leverage. Affection is currency. People are tools, and the moment they stop being useful, you discard them.
Sloane was supposed to be a tool. The coach's halfblood daughter, desperate enough for protection to agree to anything, visible enough to drive her brother insane. A perfect weapon aimed at the perfect target.
Except weapons aren't supposed to see through you. Aren't supposed to hold you while you confess the worst thing about yourself. Aren't supposed to make you feel like the monster you've been pretending to be might actually be worth saving.
I pull out my phone. Scroll through our old messages—her dry humor, her refusal to let me have the last word, the midnight text from two weeks ago that just said your pillow smells like you and I hate it followed by don't let that go to your head.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I could text her. Explain. Beg. Pour everything into a message that she'll read with Grayson's evidence still fresh in her mind and dismiss as another manipulation.
Words won't work. She's heard too many of mine, and half of them were weapons.
I put the phone down.
Thursday. She's crossing the quad after her last class, bag over one shoulder, eyes fixed straight ahead. Alone. The wolves give her a wide berth—not out of respect, but because she's no longer worth the effort of tormenting. She exists in the space between factions now, belonging to neither, claimed by no one.
I step into her path.
Her stride doesn't falter. She adjusts her trajectory to go around me, smooth and practiced, the way she navigates every obstacle this school throws at her.
My hand catches her wrist. Gentle. Not a grip—just contact. Enough to stop her forward motion, not enough to hold her if she pulls away.
She stops. Doesn't turn. Her pulse jumps beneath my fingers, and the wolf in me lunges toward that heartbeat with everything it has.
"Give me a chance." My voice comes out rougher than I intend. "A real one. No arrangement. No leverage. Just me, trying to deserve you."
She turns her head. Brown eyes meet mine, and I search them for anger, for contempt, for the cold dismissal I've earned. Instead I find something worse—hope, buried beneath layers of hurt, fighting to stay hidden.
"Earn it." Two words. Quiet. Final.
She pulls her wrist free and walks away. Doesn't look back. Her spine is straight, her shoulders are set, and she moves through the quad like someone who's learned to carry her own weight.
I watch her disappear into the main building and stand there long after she's gone, her pulse still echoing against my fingertips.
Earn it. Not a rejection. A challenge.
I've spent my entire life performing for people who would destroy me if the mask slipped. Performing for my father. For the academy. For a world that would kill me for existing.
She's asking me to stop performing. To be real. To prove that the boy who held her through her first shift and confessed his worst secret against her skin is the same person who walks through these halls in daylight.
I don't know if I can. But for the first time in twenty-one years, I want to try.