My dorm room key stops working at six AM.
I stand in the hallway in Rhys's t-shirt and yesterday's jeans, twisting the key once, twice, three times before the reality catches up. The lock's been changed. Through the crack under the door I can see the light from my desk lamp—still on, still burning, my mother's locket and photographs still inside.
"Pack authority override." The residential advisor materializes behind me, clipboard in hand, not meeting my eyes. "Your dorm assignment has been revoked effective immediately. Your belongings will be boxed and available for pickup at the main office."
"On whose authority?"
"Grayson Imler filed the paperwork last night." She's already retreating down the corridor. "Your father was notified."
"And?"
She rounds the corner without answering. The click of her shoes fades into silence and the hallway stretches empty in both directions—neutral territory that just became the only territory I have.
My father's office door is open when I get there. He sits behind his desk with his hands folded and his face arranged into an expression I've memorized since childhood—the careful, guilty helplessness of a man who loves you but won't bleed for you.
"I tried, Sloane." He says it before I sit down. "I called an emergency pack council. Argued that housing decisions require both parental signatures."
"And?"
"Grayson has fourteen council votes. I have six." His thumb traces the edge of his desk. "He also filed a motion to strip your manager position. The council approved it unanimously."
"Unanimously." The word tastes like rust. "You're on the council, Dad."
"I abstained."
"Right." I grip the armrest. "Abstained. Switzerland. Your signature move."
"That's not fair—"
"You know what's not fair? Mom's locket is locked in that room. Her photographs. Her letter." My voice doesn't crack. I won't let it. "Grayson took everything she left me and now he's taken the only place I had to keep it."
My father's eyes go wet. His mouth opens, closes, opens again. "I'll get your mother's things. I promise you that."
"Your promises and Grayson's threats have one thing in common." I stand. "They both end with me losing."
The main quad is bright with October sun, and I'm halfway across it when my phone buzzes.
Rhys: Where are you?
Sloane: Homeless. You?
Rhys: My father's suite. Come. Now.
The guest suite is in the faculty wing—old wood, heavy curtains, the kind of room where important people make terrible decisions. I hear them before I reach the door.
"—Celeste Ashford is from impeccable bloodlines." Lord Vance's voice, measured and pleasant. "The union would stabilize your position and silence the rumors about your... recreational choices."
"I'm not marrying Celeste." Rhys. Tight. Controlled. The voice of someone gripping a ledge with their fingernails.
"This isn't a negotiation, Rhys. The halfblood has drawn attention you cannot afford. An engagement to the Ashford girl redirects the narrative—"
"I said no."
Silence. The kind that carries weight, that fills rooms, that makes floorboards creak under the pressure.
"Your mother sends her love, by the way." Lord Vance's tone doesn't change. Conversational. Light. "She's been unwell lately. The isolation takes its toll. I worry about her safety in that old house. All those stairs. All those... accidents waiting to happen."
I push through the door. Both Vances turn—Lord Vance with the irritation of someone interrupted mid-surgery, Rhys with the wild-eyed relief of someone thrown a rope.
"Miss Imler." Lord Vance's smile is surgical. "We're having a family discussion."
"So was I, about twenty minutes ago. Didn't go well either." I cross to Rhys's side. "What did I miss?"
"My father wants me to marry Celeste Ashford." Rhys's voice has gone flat. "To stabilize the family image."
"Romantic. Does Celeste get a say, or is she livestock too?"
Lord Vance's smile tightens. "You have a sharp mouth for someone who just lost her housing, her position, and her family name in a single morning."
"I've had practice." I hold his gaze. "Turns out when you lose everything, there's nothing left to threaten."
"Everyone has something left to lose." His eyes cut to Rhys. "Don't they, son?"
The threat sits in the air between us—his mother, alone in that house, surrounded by stairs and accidents and a man who choked his own child at seven. Rhys's jaw is locked so tight I can hear his teeth grinding.
"We're leaving." I take Rhys's hand. His fingers close around mine, ice-cold, trembling. "Send the engagement paperwork to someone who cares."
Lord Vance watches us go with the patience of a man who knows he holds every card that matters.
The cottage is the only place left. I lock the door with the brass key and we sit on the training mats in the amber light of late afternoon, shoulder to shoulder, backs against the wall, the wreckage of our lives settling around us like dust.
"He'll hurt her." Rhys stares at the far wall. "If I don't agree to Celeste, he'll hurt my mother. He's done it before. Small things. A fall down the stairs. A medication mix-up. Nothing provable."
"And if you do agree?"
"Then I lose you." His head drops back against the wall. "And I become exactly what he built me to be. The perfect Vance son. The mask with nothing underneath."
I pull my knees to my chest. The cottage smells like training mats and his jacket and every secret we've shared within these walls.
"We could run." The words escape before I think them through. "Leave Blackmoor. Leave all of it. Go somewhere nobody knows our blood or our names or what we're supposed to be."
He turns his head. Studies my face like he's searching for the punchline.
"Would you?" His voice drops. "Give up everything? Your father. Your education. Whatever's left of your life here."
"What's left of my life here, Rhys?" I meet his eyes. "No dorm. No position. No family. My brother just erased me from the Imler name and my father watched it happen." My shoulder presses harder against his. "I've already lost everything. The only thing I chose is sitting next to me."
His arm wraps around my shoulders. I fold into his side, my cheek against his chest, his heartbeat thumping beneath my ear—still too fast, still scared, but steady. Present.
"We don't run." He says it quietly, his lips against my hair. "Running means his mother stays trapped. Running means Grayson wins. Running means every hybrid at Blackmoor who's watching us right now—watching to see if it's possible to survive as what we are—loses the only proof they have."
"So we stay."
"We stay. And we fight." His arm tightens. "Together. Whatever that costs."
I press closer. His chin rests on top of my head, and the cottage holds us the way it always has—small and imperfect and ours.
My phone shatters the silence. A notification from the Blackmoor student feed, and the text preview drains the warmth from my body before I finish reading it.
GRAYSON IMLER — PACK NOTICE: A formal pack gathering has been called for Saturday evening. All wolves of Blackmoor are required to attend. The purpose: to address a betrayal within our ranks. Sloane Imler will answer for her conduct. Attendance is mandatory.
Rhys reads it over my shoulder. His heartbeat goes from fast to violent beneath my cheek.
"Saturday." His voice comes out scraped hollow. "That's three days."
Three days. Seventy-two hours before my brother stands in front of every supernatural at Blackmoor and tries to destroy the boy whose arms are wrapped around me.
"Then we have three days to figure out how to survive it." I tilt my face up to his. "And I'm not letting go."