Chapter 4
Vivienne's POV
I wake up knees-first.
Not pain — an itch so deep it feels like something's crawling under the skin, pulling the edges of the wound together from the inside. I shove the blanket off before I'm fully awake and press my thumb into the scab.
The pressure sends a bright, hot ripple up my thigh. New skin stretching where it shouldn't exist yet — tight, shiny, pink. Two days ago this knee needed packing. Now the gauze is stiff with dried rust and underneath there's nothing but a closed seam of fresh tissue, warm to the touch.
I press harder. No pain.
That's Beta-level healing. Minimum.
An Unawakened doesn't regenerate like this. An Unawakened heals like a human — slow, messy, scarring. What I'm looking at requires a wolf actively working beneath the surface, knitting muscle and skin while I sleep.
My fingers hover over the new skin for one more second, feeling the heat radiating off it. Then I pull back.
Don't. Not now. The Alpha Command residue from Marcus has faded to a stale chemical film — close-range contact might still catch it. Half a day and it's gone.
I stand. Bend the knee. Walk across the room.
No limp. Good enough.
Maisie hits the bottom of the stairs like a grenade wrapped in pink cotton candy.
I hear Maisie before I see her — feet hammering the stairs like she's being chased, a shriek building in her throat that hits full volume the second she rounds the corner and spots me in the kitchen doorway.
"VIV!"
She slams into me so hard I stagger back two steps. Arms locked around my neck, face buried in my shoulder, the full weight of her hanging off me like a five-foot-four koala with gradient pink hair and a cartoon wolf pup hoodie.
Her white canvas sneakers — completely insane footwear for Washington State's eternal rain — kick against my shins as she bounces in place without letting go.
My back screams. Every wound lights up under the bandages like someone's pressing hot coins into my skin.
I bite the inside of my cheek and hug her back, carefully, one hand on her head, the other around her waist, and something in my chest loosens — just a little — for the first time since I climbed out that window.
She smells like strawberry shampoo and Helena's laundry detergent and safety. She smells like every summer I ever spent at her house pretending the North didn't exist.
Don't cry. Do not cry in front of Maisie.
"Oh my God, oh my God." She pulls back but doesn't let go, hands gripping my shoulders, eyes scanning my face with the frantic precision of someone doing a medical exam. "You're so thin. When did you last eat? Your face — Viv, your actual face looks like you haven't slept in a year. Are you sick? Mom said you just randomly transferred and I was like what, and she wouldn't tell me anything, which means something bad happened. Is it Marcus? Is he being—"
"Maisie."
She stops talking. Her mouth stays open for a second, then closes. Her eyes are shiny.
"You look terrible," she whispers. Then she pulls me in again, gentler this time, chin hooked over my shoulder, and I feel her take a shaky breath. "I missed you so much. You never visit. You never call enough. I hate the North. I hate that you're always up there alone with—"
She doesn't finish that sentence. She doesn't have to. Her arms tighten around me and she smells so much like the person I'm supposed to be protecting that my throat closes up and I have to press my face into her ridiculous pink hair for three seconds until I'm sure my voice will come out steady.
"I missed you too, Mais."
She sniffs. Pulls back. Wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand, and just like that, the tears switch off and the energy switches on — Maisie runs on a battery that recharges every six seconds.
"Okay." She points at my hoodie — day three — with a look of absolute devastation. "We need to talk about this."
"It's a hoodie."
"It's a crime scene. You need clothes." Her voice drops into the register of someone making a life-or-death tactical decision. "And shoes. And a bag. You walk into Thornfield dressed like that and they will literally eat you. Like literally. With teeth."
"They're wolves, Mais. They all have teeth."
"See, that's exactly the energy that's going to get you killed. You're doing that thing where you're funny instead of taking the threat seriously."
"I'm always funny."
"You're never funny! That's the problem!" She grabs my hand and squeezes it, hard, and underneath the dramatics her grip says something different — I'm glad you're here, please don't leave again, I won't ask questions you don't want to answer but please be okay.
I squeeze back.
I look down at myself. Three outfits, all Arctic-weight. I look like I escaped a walk-in freezer.
Maisie grabs her bag off the counter, already pulling up directions on her phone. "There's this shopping complex right near campus — all the big families sponsor it, literally everyone hangs out there. I'll show you where everything is, who sits where, which stores to avoid because Serena Blackwell's people basically own them—"
She's still talking. I stopped listening at everyone hangs out there.
One lap through that place. Every family, every circle, every alliance — laid out like a seating chart.
"Fine. Lead the way."
Maisie screams for the third time this morning. Helena's coffee mug rattles on the counter two rooms away.
Maisie's browsing scarves in a boutique when I drift to the next aisle — overpriced candles, four hundred dollars for lavender and sage — and it hits me.
Two scent signatures from the back corridor. The first: Aged whiskey and gunmetal, rich, lazy, the kind of confidence that comes from never being questioned. Alpha.
Expensive cologne on top, but my nose is already underneath it — control. Deep, ambient control. A Blackwell crest on his jacket cuff when I catch his reflection in the store mirror.
The second scent empties my lungs.
Ozone. Cold mint. Sealed behind pharmaceutical-grade suppressant thick enough to register as a wall.
My nose doesn't stop at walls.
I peel through the layers automatically — the chemical ice, the manufactured flatness — and underneath I find what he's hiding. Warm sandalwood. Buried so deep that any normal wolf would never reach it.
The gland on my neck fires. One hard throb radiating down my collarbone into my ribs. Heat pools at the base of my spine and my knees soften for half a second before I lock them, lock everything, jaw clenched until it aches.
Something tugs at the back of my skull — not a memory, not quite. More like the ghost of one. A scent I've encountered before but can't place, filed somewhere my conscious mind doesn't have access to.
A voice drifts from the corridor — the Alpha, aged whiskey and gunmetal rolling off him like smoke. "Serena needs a birthday gift. She wants you to pick it. You know how she gets about that."
A pause. Then: "She can pick her own gift."
That voice.
Low enough to settle in the sternum. Controlled the way a weapon is controlled — each syllable released with precise force and nothing left over.
Something in my chest folds over on itself. Not recognition — I've never heard this voice before. I haven't. But my body is reacting like it has — like somewhere in the dark, in a place I can't reach while I'm awake, that exact frequency has already vibrated through my spine. Already pressed against the back of my neck. Already said things that weren't words.
Where have I —
I kill the thought.
"Come on, man. Just grab something. It's easier than the fight."
Footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate. Coming toward my aisle.
My gland throbs again — harder this time — and my fingers tighten on the candle I'm pretending to look at.
He rounds the corner.
