The two wolves are waiting outside my dorm when I open the door Monday morning.
"Grayson's orders," the taller one says before I can ask. "We're your escorts now."
"My escorts." I grip my bag strap until the leather bites into my palm. "You mean my babysitters?"
"Call it whatever you want." He shrugs, falling into step beside me. "We go where you go."
So they do. They follow me to breakfast. To my first class. To the bathroom, where they wait outside the door like gargoyles with attitude problems. By lunch, I've stopped trying to lose them.
By dinner, I've stopped noticing them at all. Because my mind is somewhere else entirely.
I'm in Supernatural History class when I catch myself staring at the back of Rhys's head for the fifth time in ten minutes.
His dark hair curls slightly at the nape of his neck. His shoulders shift when he writes, muscles moving beneath his uniform jacket. I force my eyes back to my notes but the words blur together.
Vampire-human hybrids don't shift.
I spent last night confirming it, scrolling through article after article until my eyes burned. They inherit the bloodlust, the sensitivity to sunlight, sometimes the extended lifespan—but never the transformation.
Their human blood dilutes the vampire traits. It doesn't add new ones.
There's no reason a vampire halfblood would know what Rhys knew in that elevator, no reason he'd understand exactly how the pain moves through a body caught between forms.
Unless he's not a vampire halfblood at all.
I watch him now with different eyes. The way he pushes the rare steak around his plate at lunch, never actually eating it, while the other vampires tear into theirs with obvious relish.
The way his jaw tightens when someone cracks a joke about hybrid abominations—a muscle ticking once before his mask slides back into place.
The way his eyes flash amber when he's angry—the same amber as mine.
He slides into the seat directly in front of me, close enough that his scent invades my space. Cold and expensive and something darker underneath. Rhys leans back in his chair until his shoulders nearly brush my desk.
Then he passes a note backward without turning around.
I unfold it under my desk, pulse jumping in my throat. His handwriting is sharp, aggressive, each letter carved into the paper like he's angry at the alphabet.
‘Your brother keeps you on a short leash, apparently. Does the mutt enjoy her cage?’
The audacity of this asshole. I grab my pen and press hard enough to dent the paper.
‘Does the vampire prince enjoy pretending he has fangs when we both know what's really underneath?’
I tap his shoulder and pass it forward, watching his shoulders go rigid as he reads. Then his hand crushes the note into his fist, knuckles going white around the crumpled paper.
He doesn't turn around for the rest of class, doesn't move, doesn't breathe as far as I can tell. Good, let him sit with that.
The bell rings and he's out of his seat before the sound fades. I'm three steps behind him, my wolf escorts trailing at a distance.
He catches my arm in the corridor—grip cold, bruising—and drags me into an alcove before I can protest.
My escorts hang back at the hallway entrance. They won't interfere with vampire business, won't risk an incident that could escalate into something political.
"What game are you playing?" His voice is low, barely controlled.
"I'm not playing anything." I meet his glare without flinching. "Yet."
"Yet." He steps closer, backing me against the wall. "What does that mean?"
"It means I'm observing. Collecting information." I tilt my chin up, refusing to shrink. "Waiting to see what happens next."
His eyes flash amber—just for a second, just long enough to confirm everything. Gray bleeds to gold bleeds back to steel, but I saw it.
"You're making a mistake." Each word comes out carved from ice.
"Am I?" I keep my voice steady even though my heart is trying to crack through my ribs. "Because from where I'm standing, I'm the only one in this conversation who isn't hiding something."
His hand slams against the wall beside my head and I flinch—can't help it—but I don't look away. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Then explain it to me." I hold his gaze. "Explain how a pureblooded vampire knows exactly what a hybrid transformation feels like. Explain why your eyes just turned wolf-amber. Explain—"
"Stop." The word comes out strangled.
"Why did you help me in that elevator when you should have let me suffer?"
Silence stretches between us as his chest rises and falls too fast, and his hand is still braced against the wall, caging me in. This close I can see the crack in his mask—the fear underneath the fury.
"I could destroy you," I say quietly. "One word to the right person, and everything you've built comes crashing down."
"Then why haven't you already?"
The question catches me off guard and I don't have an answer—not one I'm willing to admit out loud.
"I haven't decided what to do yet," I say instead.
He laughs, but there's no humor in it. His hand drops from the wall as Rhys steps back, putting distance between us, and his expression shutters into something cold and controlled.
"When are you planning to return my jacket?"
The shift is so abrupt I almost get whiplash. "What?"
"My jacket." His voice has gone flat. "The one you've been sleeping in. I can smell it on you."
My cheeks burn with immediate mortification. I have been sleeping in it—the scent helps me fall asleep, not that I'd ever admit that to him. "I haven't decided that either."
Something flickers in his eyes. Not anger this time, something darker. Hungrier.
"Keep it, then."
He leans in, close enough that his breath ghosts across my cheek.
"Every time you put it on, you'll think of me. Every time you breathe in, you'll remember what I did for you in that elevator." His voice drops to a whisper. "And you'll wonder what else I could do."
He pulls back and walks away before I can respond. I stay pressed against the wall, heart pounding, his scent still clinging to my skin. My wolf escorts appear at the entrance to the alcove, looking bored.
"You okay?" the taller one asks.
"Fine." My voice comes out steadier than it should. "I'm fine."
I push off the wall and start walking and they fall into step behind me, oblivious to the bomb that just detonated in that alcove.
I have something for Rhys Vance—his secret, buried under my tongue like a weapon I didn't ask for.
And he just made it very clear that he's not going to beg me to keep it.