4. Remnants

4

Remnants

After Icon Matters, Isobel caught up with Gabriel and Elijah outside the hall where their Acro Duo class was usually held. Since the three of them had formed a group and Professor Lye didn’t want to “mess with anyone’s chemistry,” they weren’t forced into any other pairings and were allowed to retreat to their corner of the hall to work on the last choreography assignment they had been given.

Usually, Gabriel and Elijah could hyper-focus during tasks like this, no matter how much was going on, but even they seemed to be a little unsteady. It was once again so subtle that she couldn’t even put it into words, but she could feel something . Something small, something off. Like a high-pitched ringing or a faint rattle. She thought she knew it was there, but it was so faint that she couldn’t help second-guessing herself.

Kostas and Santoro, who were also in her Acro Duo class, had paired up and moved to their corner of the hall, putting Isobel on edge. She worked to block them out, as well as Silva, who had partnered with Wallis and positioned himself as far away from Isobel as possible.

She wouldn’t allow herself to feel bad for Silva.

He had been blackmailed into posing as her fake boyfriend. He knew exactly what the deal was, and he had no right to be upset that she ended it because “it” wasn’t real.

Still, she was a little worried about how he stared at her … and the sudden, piercing, heated look in his eyes. It reeked of hatred, and it didn’t feel stable.

“Did you guys break up with James and Ellis?” she asked as they paused at the end of the choreography to take a quick break, Elijah reaching for his water bottle while Gabriel scrubbed a towel over his face before hanging it on the hook that nobody else was allowed to use.

She deliberately turned her back to Silva.

“This morning,” Elijah confirmed. “They were good about it. It wasn’t a serious thing with them anyway. We were just having fun.”

“They moved on quick.” Isobel could still feel Silva’s eyes heavy on her back. “They were all over the Kozlov twins in first period—don’t the humans have the same no-dating rules as we do?”

“Flirting isn’t dating.” Gabriel shrugged.

“So, will you keep flirting with them?” she asked … for the audience’s sake.

Not at all for herself.

Elijah arched an elegant brow at her, dropping his water bottle back into his bag and pulling at the neckline of his shirt, trying to get it to stop sticking to his skin. “Do I look like I flirt, Sigma?”

“I could see you flirting,” she hedged. “Maybe with a scientific manual of some kind? I could see you stroking its spine by the fireplace, fingering its pages.”

He looked amused, so she continued. “I could see you flirting with a documentary on binary code—snuggled in with some wine and fondue.”

His firm lips twitched, giving her a flash of the reaction she craved.

“Do I look like I eat fondue?” he asked blandly.

“Did you really just say fingering?” Gabriel interrupted.

Isobel, whose cheeks began to burn, ignored him, keeping her attention on Elijah. “Not fondue. Souls, maybe.”

“Souls,” he repeated dryly.

“And tears,” she added. “And dreams. And hopes.”

“Tears and dreams and hopes,” he parroted. “Right.”

“You look like you’d eat me alive.”

When his expression suddenly went blank, she let her smile break free, battering her lashes at him. “That, Mr Reed, is how you flirt.”

“How was that flirting?” Gabriel asked, looking unimpressed.

“It’s tailored to the person.” Isobel looked between a frozen Elijah and a frowning Gabriel. “You should be great at it, in theory. Because of your little perception thing.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes, but he hadn’t made any move to end their break—and that was how Isobel knew she was entertaining him.

“How’d you keep James around, anyway?” she asked him, lifting a brow and planting her hand on her hip. “You don’t flirt, you don’t fondue.”

“ He doesn’t fondue.” Gabriel jerked his chin at Elijah.

Isobel scoffed. “You won’t even share a hook, and you expect me to believe you’ll share a fondue?”

She felt a jolt of adrenaline when Gabriel’s lip tipped up slightly at the corner. It was almost as addictive as watching Niko stuff his handsome face with food.

“My personality,” Gabriel answered, the tilt to his lip evening out, his expression as frighteningly blank as ever. “That’s what kept her around.”

“Oh?” Both of Isobel’s brows shot up this time. “Can I see it?”

He chuckled, rising suddenly. “Come here, puppy.”

She squeaked and tried to run away, but Elijah was there in a second, scooping her up with one arm and carrying her back to their spot like she was nothing more than a ragdoll. “Back to work, Sigma. You can stir up trouble later.”

They were growing quite talented at dancing over that line of playfulness for the public. The spectacle of Isobel’s close relationships with the Alphas was something the Ironside fans loved to debate. Some swore that they were flirting. Others swore it was more of a sibling-like chemistry. Some people claimed she was secretly in love with different Alphas and that different Alphas were secretly in love with her. Many people believed that she was in a secret relationship with one of them, and most of the internet was divided over who it could be.

They were getting more and more attention, clips of them regularly going viral. They needed to encourage the momentum and stoke the fire … but never push it too far. It was their job to keep the fans guessing, to keep playing along that line, never resting in the middle for too long. They couldn’t be too flirty or too platonic. It had to be both and neither at all times.

She ducked into the bathrooms to change after class because she was too sweaty after the acrobatic partner dance they had been rehearsing. She headed to the dining hall during the short morning break to grab another coffee, knowing she would find Cian there. He utilised most academy breaks to dose up on caffeine.

He picked up his head as soon as she entered the hall, glancing at the entrance before reaching for a second takeaway cup. She sidled up to him, looping her arm through his and leaning into his body.

“Tired?” he asked, ducking his head to catch sight of her expression. “You smell like you worked hard.”

She stiffened slightly. “I smell bad?”

He chuckled. “I didn’t say that.” And then his voice dropped into her head. I’m addicted to the scent of your sweat.

Finally, someone who knows how to flirt , she responded.

He laughed out loud, almost spitting out the sip of coffee he had taken. After wiping his mouth, he extracted himself from her and gripped her chin, tilting her head up so that he could read her better. “You went to your acro class, right?”

For a moment, she was confused, and then she realised he was asking if she was sweaty from exercise or something else.

“What?” She nervously swatted his hand from her chin. “Of course. Is this mine?” She glanced at the second cup.

“Who else?” He smirked and handed it to her, and they made their way out of the hall. “Are you coming to class or going to see Teak?”

Isobel checked her phone. Teak had been sick and unable to attend their last few sessions. “She hasn’t cancelled yet, so I guess she’s finally better?”

“I’ll walk you there.” Cian dropped his arm over her shoulders, steering her toward the family centre, which was just a small building attached to the restricted area of the academy. He left her at the row of hedges sectioning off the administration area, and she entered the room with semi-private booths inside, all of them with a computer to video call families back home.

The room was empty. It often was because, of course, the majority of settlement homes weren’t set up with webcams and fast Wi-Fi, or smartphone plans. Past the row of booths was a door to a few private meeting rooms. She knocked at the one she was supposed to meet with Teak in, and the door opened to reveal the bond specialist.

She looked terrible . Her usual dusky-rose skin tone had a strange, sickly pallor, her eyes dull, and her lips pulled down.

“Isobel,” she sounded numb, “please, come in.”

“If you’re still sick, we can?—”

“Sit, sit.” Teak waved her off, sinking into one of the armchairs, her posture loose and exhausted. There were a bunch of used tissues bundled onto the table beside her, and the light in the room was off. As soon as Teak sat down, the sunlight from the window spilled over her expression—pallid and red, splotched and swollen. Had she been … crying?

Teak forced a wobbly smile, that dull, dead look still in her eyes. “Congratulations on signing with Orion,” she said, the sincerity in her tone forced. “You and the Alphas have had quite an impact on Ironside—I don’t think anyone has ever managed to persuade them to change the rules before. Certainly not in their favour.”

“I’m not sure it’s entirely in our favour,” Isobel replied carefully, Teak’s strange countenance making her nervous. The nerves slowly turned into fear, prickling along her skin. She didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t like it. “We’ll be forfeiting most of our earnings.”

“Better than your lives.” Teak’s emotionless smile was … frightening.

“Where’s Charlie?” Isobel asked hesitantly. Usually, Teak’s partner sat in on their sessions.

Teak’s expression spasmed slightly. “She caught what I had. She’s sick. Why don’t we speak freely, Isobel? Have you fully formed the bond with all the Alphas?”

“Don’t tell her anything,” a voice whispered, making Isobel’s eyes widen, her head turning slowly to the side, fear and dread swamping her. It was suddenly hard for her to breathe.

Charlie.

Charlie?

The Beta woman was suddenly leaning up against the wall behind Teak. She was dressed in cotton pyjamas, her silver-ringed, dark eyes sad. Her darkly tanned skin still appeared to have the flush of life, her short, dark hair still bouncing and shining. Her silver piercings, scattered along her lobes, her nose and her eyebrow, should have been glinting in the sun that shone through the window, slanting over her expression. But they weren’t. Isobel had no idea why that detail stuck in her head.

Charlie was …

“Isobel?” Teak prompted, her eyes narrowing slightly. She couldn’t see Charlie.

She couldn’t hear Charlie.

She would never see or hear Charlie again … because Charlie … was dead.

“Don’t tell her anything,” Charlie reiterated quietly.

Isobel took one deep breath, and then another, carefully packing away her grief and panic, treating it so delicately it could have been a bomb she was attempting to diffuse. She stared at her knees and spoke slowly, her voice sounding garbled to her own ears, like she was trying to listen to the sound from underwater. “Why?”

Charlie and Teak spoke at the same time.

“Because your session is being recorded,” Charlie whispered.

“Because I can’t do my job if you aren’t honest with me,” Teak said.

“She’s completely under their control,” Charlie rushed out. “They’ve been sending her pieces of …” She wavered, her face contorting, and then suddenly she was gone.

Isobel’s hands were numb as she clasped them in her lap, still unable to lift her eyes. Holy shit.

Her mother took Charlie’s place, standing there with a quiet, empathetic look on her face.

“You’re okay, Illy,” she whispered.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Isobel choked out, overwhelmed.

“I’ll stay with you,” her mother promised. “You can do this.”

“You have to,” Teak snapped, pulling in a sharp, wobbly breath, her tone suddenly changing. Suddenly desperate. “Please, Isobel, just—” She cut herself off, suddenly laughing. “What am I doing?”

Isobel looked up, seeing the hysteria, the devastation, the madness in the other woman’s eyes. She reached out to Teak with her ability, but the hungry, awful void that loomed at her from the other side of the room was too vast, too horrific, too monstrous. Even if she only took a little, it would make no difference, so she built her wall back up again, more solidly than was really necessary, twisting her shaking fingers together. The feeling was too familiar, too triggering.

She could almost feel Niko on the other end of that void, being ruthlessly sawed from her soul as pieces of her hair fell around her prone body, brushing against her skin with the softness of feathers, yet somehow feeling like razor blades.

“Pack it away,” her mother whispered.

So she did.

“Are you on medication?” she managed to ask, her throat tight. “For your illness?”

She wasn’t sure if Teak was the anchor or the tether in her bond, but if she was the tether, she would die without the surrogate pills. Even if she was the anchor, she would be forever changed. Isobel knew that look in her eyes. She had seen it in Niko. In her father.

Teak had lost her bond and was falling through the darkness with no end in sight. The fall would twist her and the darkness would taint her—and that was only if she lived.

Isobel almost lost control of her emotions, then, but managed to wrangle them back, shoving them down. Teak was staring at her like she knew there was a second meaning to her question.

She searched Isobel’s face and then finally nodded. “I … am. I have medication. Don’t worry about me.”

Teak was the tether. She was taking the surrogate pills.

The officials could be using them to control her and using Charlie’s death to torture her. What would happen if she proved useless in these sessions with Isobel?

“We formed the bond,” Isobel finally said, after considering the situation. It wasn’t ideal that she couldn’t discuss this with the Alphas first since it impacted all of them, but she couldn’t just walk out of the meeting. She couldn’t do anything to tip off the officials that she was aware she was being recorded, or that Teak was under their control. Teak would likely be punished—and there wasn’t much more they could take from the bond specialist except her life.

Isobel couldn’t let that happen.

She owed her life to Teak, and the lives of her mates. She had to do what she could to protect the other woman and what remained of her life, as painful an existence as it may be now.

Teak began to shake her head, almost like she was pleading with Isobel suddenly not to talk, but Isobel continued anyway.

“We didn’t need to scar each other, so there are no bond marks,” she lied carefully. She wasn’t an expert on bond magic, but giving them a tangible target on her body to harm the bond seemed like a bad idea. They had already cut into her veins and cut off her hair. She didn’t want them going for her tattoos next. “Eve Indie stole pieces of our bond before it was formed, and when those pieces were returned to me, the bond just magically completed without us having to do anything at all.”

Teak knew she was lying.

“A-and what s-side effects are you getting?” Teak stumbled, reading something off her phone like she had a list of questions she had been given and she needed to remind herself.

“None,” Isobel lied again.

“You can’t hear each other’s thoughts? Feel each other’s emotions?”

“I guess we have a better sense of each other, but we can’t read each other’s minds or anything. I guess because the bond was damaged before it was formed, we didn’t get many of the benefits.”

“Have you been tampering with the cameras?” Teak asked suddenly. She was gaining back the smallest note of confidence in her voice, perhaps realising that Isobel was lying.

“No?” Isobel arched a brow. “What do you mean? Like turning them to face the other way or something?”

Teak didn’t specify her question, moving on to a new one. “You don’t seem to have much alone time with any of the Alphas, like Theodore Kane or Cian Ashford, even less since you moved in with them.”

Isobel shrugged, her body stiff. “We have this bond, but we’re not in relationships or anything. We’re literally just a group of friends. The only difference is that we can’t be away from each other, or I’ll get sick. I haven’t needed to sleep beside them or anything now that I live with them because I’m always around them.”

“So you’re not romantically involved with any of them? Not even Theodore? Or Cian? Or Oscar?”

Isobel forced her eyes to roll, a soft scoff leaving her lips. Damn , her acting skills really had improved. “No, we just flirt for the cameras sometimes to spice things up. We’re close friends, but nothing more than that. Our focus is winning the game. We can’t afford to be distracted.”

Tears were falling freely down Teak’s cheeks, but she nodded, encouraging Isobel to continue. “And you haven’t had any side effects since you came to France and formed the bond?”

“None at all.” Isobel finally allowed her eyes to wander, crawling over the wall-mounted shelf behind Teak. It was the only place they would have been able to hide cameras, possibly tucked behind one of the ivy plants, and if one was placed up there, it would have a clear view of her, but it wouldn’t be able to see Teak very well.

She flicked her attention back to the bond specialist, not daring to examine the shelf for too long. Teak was reading her phone again. “So you’re really going to try and win as a group?” she asked. “This isn’t a tactic of some kind?”

“Well, it can’t be.” Isobel forced a laugh. “We signed a contract. But no, there’s no alternative plan. We’re out of options,” she said honestly. “Obviously, going home to separate settlements after graduation isn’t possible with the bond. We have to win, and we have to do it as a group. We’re all in on Orion. We will win. We’ll be the biggest thing Ironside ever produced, and after all of this is over, they’ll be thanking us. They’ll never want to let us go.”

Teak nodded, some of the tension leaking from her shoulders, though she was also still leaking tears. “You don’t think you’ll want to settle down at any point?” she asked. She looked so pale, even a little green, like she was about to be sick. “Choose one of your mates to marry? Have kids?”

“Not interested,” Isobel said firmly. “It’s not like that with any of them. We don’t want romance; we want to be famous. We want to make money, not babies. Besides, our contract forbids all of that.” She waved her hand, diminishing it to a non-issue.

She bluffed and acted her way through the rest of Teak’s questions before saying her goodbyes and walking calmly all the way to Lyrical Dance, her second lesson with Professor Lye for the day. She joined Theodore and Kilian along the side of the room as Lye introduced their guest choreographer. Both Alphas immediately frowned at her, sensing her muted turmoil even though she had put in significant effort to push it down. She had finally come around to accepting the fact that ever since fixing the bond with Niko, she had lost the ability to block them from her emotions completely—and they had gained the ability to block her flawlessly. She subtly shook her head at them, indicating she didn’t want to talk about it.

Not yet.

She couldn’t even allow herself to think about it. All the lies she had told would be for nothing if she couldn’t hold it together long enough to make herself appear unaffected for the rest of the day.

She repeated the same subtle shake of her head as they all took seats in the auditorium for Influencer Intensive. Professor Chen started his presentation without any sort of introduction—the man was another human official, and he didn’t like to waste time.

Every one of the Alphas had turned up to class this time, and usually, she sat somewhere in the middle of the group, with them all guarding her from every angle. Now that they were being more relaxed about security, they had deliberately spread out. Elijah, Gabriel, and Niko were in the row of seats ahead of her, Kilian, Cian, and Theodore. Oscar and Moses were sitting behind them with an empty row in between, their feet up on the backs of the chairs. Their group reserved the entire left wing of the auditorium as though an invisible boundary had been drawn.

Theodore had been sticking to her like glue for over an hour now. He wasn’t throwing her concerned glances or asking her questions, but he was always touching her in small, subtle ways. She had become drenched in his scent, warmed by the constant heat of his body hovering over her.

As usual, the human group sat centre stage in the middle section, spreading out along the front row with their chosen fan girls and boys for the period.

Should we have a meeting over lunch? Elijah’s voice echoed through the bond.

She considered it before biting her lip and replying. No, but tonight. We have to keep things casual. The officials can’t see me doing anything out of the ordinary.

What the hell happen— Moses began to question, but Elijah quickly cut him off, a subtle note of command carrying along his tone.

Don’t ask.

Isobel flinched slightly, blinking her eyes. She was sure that if the words had been spoken out loud, they would have been in Alpha voice.

Elijah didn’t like not knowing things, but being able to feel the sickening mix of grief, fear, and nausea that poured through the bond from Isobel and not having the slightest idea what put it there was an unfamiliar brand of torture. He pulled up her location history and casually retraced her steps during lunch, slotting in headphones so that nobody would disturb him and he could pretend he was just going for a walk.

Slowly, the picture came together.

Teak had called in sick for weeks, but today she finally turned up.

The officials had gotten to her somehow—in a devastating way if Isobel’s emotions were anything to go by. This could only mean that the officials knew about the text message Teak sent last month. They knew Teak had warned them and saved their lives.

And they had taken revenge.

They would use Teak now that she had earned Isobel’s trust by saving her life. They would monitor Isobel’s sessions, using Teak to get information about their bond.

He felt a little jolt of pride at the intelligence of his mate, who had obviously figured it out and was acting accordingly. There was a lot he liked about the Sigma, but he respected her ability to keep a cool head, and respect wasn’t something he gave out easily.

Of course, there were also plenty of things he didn’t like about her. Namely, the way she kept fucking Theodore, Kilian, and Cian.

He didn’t like that at all.

He pulled out his headphones and headed to the music room for sixth period. Luckily, it was his private piano lesson with Isobel, so he didn’t have to spend another hour guessing at her state of mind. They were all now splitting their sixth and seventh periods into private or small group sessions. Elijah usually tutored Isobel for an hour, and then Mikel took her and a few others for private vocal lessons. Now that Kalen and Mikel were both training the human group as well, their time had grown more scarce, but they were managing to balance things.

For now.

“Sorry, I’m late.” Isobel shook the light spattering of rain from her coat before hanging it up by the door.

Elijah blinked, glancing at the window. When had the weather changed? It had been a perfectly clear day only ten minutes ago.

He pulled out his phone, sending a quick message to Mikel.

Elijah: Is this you?

“Let’s get started.” He gave her a short smile, trying to put her at ease.

It didn’t work. She was deep into her own head.

He checked for a reply on his phone.

Mikel: Fucking Tilda won’t stop texting me.

It was one thing for some of the more volatile Alphas to feel unbalanced from the damaged bond, but Mikel usually had better control. This didn’t bode well.

Elijah: What does she want?

Isobel dropped onto the piano stool, glancing up at the sheet music he had set out for her—the same song they worked on last week.

His phone vibrated again, but this time, Mikel had sent through an image. A screenshot of the messages he had been ignoring for days, according to the timestamps.

Tilda: Were you fucking your student while you were fucking me?

Tilda: You’re a disgusting pervert.

Tilda: I know you were fucking her.

Tilda: Did she dress up in a little schoolgirl costume for you?

Tilda: Did you spank her naughty, slutty little ass?

Tilda: You know you could never play with the Sigma like you played with me.

Elijah’s brows jumped up. Okay then. He texted Mikel back.

Elijah: What the fuck is she trying to do?

Mikel: She’s trying to restart our relationship.

Elijah: She’s going a weird way about it.

Mikel: She’s going the perfect way about it. Or at least she would be if I had any interest in her.

As Isobel lifted her hands to the keys, Elijah noticed her fingers shaking. He checked the Eleven app, making sure the cameras were deactivated the way they were supposed to be, before he set his hands on her shoulders, pulling her back against his thighs. Her head fell to rest against the hard planes of his stomach, momentarily arresting him as he watched the silky slide of her pretty golden hair brushing across the dark material of his pants.

He kept his grip deliberately light on her shoulders, even though he wanted to gather up her hair and tug her head further back. Far enough to bend her pretty spine.

If she was his, he could distract her from these awful emotions in a matter of minutes. She would still end the session in tears, though.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t his—or at least not just his, or at least not “his” outside of their souls being tied together—and she wasn’t ready for that sort of thing. She needed softness and comfort, and not just as part of aftercare.

Softness and comfort weren’t his forte. He wasn’t even sure if they were in his repertoire.

Say something, dickhead .

“Close your eyes,” he murmured.

He didn’t check to see if she had obeyed. The sound of his voice had her body softening, her head turning slightly like she wanted to nuzzle up against him. Her scent was a cherry tree stripped bare, fruit turning sour, brittle branches stripped of their coat. It was peeled bark and bleeding sap, overpowering her usual sweetness. He smoothed his hands along the tight black cotton of her crop top to the edges of the sleeves that were capped right at the tipping point of her dainty shoulders.

Her sigh was devastated.

Kilian would have asked if there was any way to help her.

Theodore would have distracted her with his stupid smile.

Cian would have fucked her on top of the piano.

What could Elijah possibly give her that she wasn’t already getting somewhere else?

He dug in his fingers, massaging away the tension lining her muscles. He knew she liked this, at least. Her blissful, torturous reactions to Mikel’s ministrations every morning after their small group sessions had been taunting him for a while now. Her head rolled back against his stomach, threatening to distract him again with the brush of her hair over his thighs. He wasn’t sure why that was such an erotic sight, but it filled him with fantasies of pushing her between his legs while he sat at his desk, and without warning, he was suddenly thinking about shoving into her throat and how she would gag and cry, and garble pleas for him to be kinder and gentler with her—like one of her other boyfriends would be.

His cock began to harden, and he dragged himself back to reality. That was the only comfort he could conceive of giving her, and it wasn’t comforting at all, only a distraction. Probably an unwelcome one too. This was exactly why he hadn’t pushed their relationship past the point of friendship, despite the kiss they had shared and the memory of her sweet little pussy clenching around his fingers.

He was too fucked up.

All he knew how to give was sex and dominance.

Here she was, broken and devastated, and he was thinking about fucking it out of her.

But the massage seemed to be helping, so he smoothed out every niggle of tension he could reach in the graceful line of her neck, the top of her spine, and the span of her shoulders, manipulating her into pliancy.

He wasn’t sure when she began to cry, but it started so softly, so silently. He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t seem able, and when her cries turned into sobs, he quickly pulled her off the stool and into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his waist, climbing his body, her arms clinging tightly, her head burrowing into his neck, immediately soaking his shirt. She didn’t seem to care that he wasn’t soft and caring. She just took what she needed as he stood there stiffly, holding her up. She used his body for warmth, used his neck to soak her tears, and his scent to comfort herself.

His heart hurt , thumping with awkward, painful, audible thuds in his chest. Something about the fragile, vulnerable tremble in her limbs and the quiet, keening sorrow she tried to muffle against his skin had him almost unravelling.

“Did they hurt Teak?” he asked quietly, flattening her as tightly to his body as he could. Probably hurting her.

She nodded, barely.

“C-Charlie is d-dead. I s-saw her. They were recording the s-session.”

Fuck.

Elijah fell to the piano stool. She clung tighter, hiking higher up his body, like she could somehow crawl inside him and live there, safe from the rest of the world. Like she thought he was the kind of person who could keep her safe.

“Shit,” he said softly. “How is she—surrogate pills, of course. They must be using the supply to control her. You did so well, sweet girl. You probably saved her life today.”

What life there was left to save . He couldn’t say it out loud.

“This is all our fault,” she wailed, slamming her fist against his back. She didn’t even seem to realise she did it.

“Warning us was her choice,” Elijah said calmly. “We didn’t force her to do that. She did the brave thing. The right thing. We’ll figure out how to help her.”

“My father could help her,” Isobel hiccupped, apparently delusional with grief. “I could make a deal with him.”

“Absolutely not.” Elijah tried to pull back to see her face, but she wouldn’t let him.

“I don’t need your permission,” she huffed, voice muffled.

“What deal could you possibly offer him?” Elijah deliberately reeled in his influence, pulling it carefully back like a string, one handspan at a time, until he was sure he wasn’t smothering her in Alpha dominance, and his tone sounded reasonable.

It wasn’t easy.

“I don’t know.” She hit his back again, devolving into an immature fit. He liked that she felt safe enough with him to just give up on all pretence of control over her body and emotions, but a part of him also wondered if she was doing it deliberately because it made his cock twitch and his hand itch to spank her in return for each little blow.

No , she wasn’t that devious.

Not yet, anyway.

“He always wants something,” she said, still in a huff, still annoyed that he had dared to try and talk sense into her. “I’ve never had the upper hand before, but now I do. He has an illegal ability. He was involved in a double homicide back in his home settlement. He took away my mother’s memory of me so that she had nothing left to live for, and she died —” She cut herself off with a choking noise. “I know everything. His Alpha voice doesn’t work on me anymore. I have you guys. The bond made me stronger, made it so that I can resist him now. I have the upper hand,” she insisted.

He loosened a breath, his lungs filling with her scent. It wasn’t any sweeter, but it had lost the damaged edge. She was determined now. She wasn’t going to wallow in helplessness for long. That wasn’t her. Why did her bullheadedness make her so fucking attractive?

“I’m not sure I’d call that the upper hand,” he said, not even realising as his hand slipped through the silky mess of her hair to cradle her skull. “But it definitely changes the dynamic. And I don’t think the bond has made you resistant to his Alpha voice. I think half of your mates could overpower him in Alpha dominance, and since you’re our mate, you can also resist him. You’ll probably be able to resist other Alphas weaker than us, as well. But that’s just my theory. He still hasn’t tried to make contact with you?”

She pulled back, her hands slipping to his chest. “No … I …” Her eyes were unfocussed, her forehead crinkled in confusion. “I …”

Isobel wasn’t in the music room anymore, cuddled into Elijah’s lap, his strong hand cupping her skull.

She was … in a car … and it was hurtling toward the edge of a cliff. There was a screaming boy in the passenger seat and a sobbing woman in the driver’s seat.

“Mom! Please! Please stop!” the boy begged, pulling desperately at the door handle. It somehow snapped off in his hand, and his terror swelled like a physical thing, expanding inside the car until it shivered across the windows and rattled the back of Isobel’s teeth.

“Mom!” he wailed.

She closed her eyes, trying to pull herself from the too-real vision.

It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not ? —

“What the fuck?” Cian’s voice interrupted her internal chant.

She blinked her eyes open again and found herself standing beside the car as it teetered on the edge of the cliff.

All ten of the Alphas had been pulled into the vision with her—almost like a punishment for her trying to escape.

“What kind of sadistic fucking side effect is this?” Gabriel spluttered, staring at the little boy desperately clawing at the car window. The car was about to go over. Theodore jolted forward, but Cian caught his arm, shaking his head.

“It’s not real,” Elijah said softly.

“It’s my memory.” Cian’s eyes were wide with horror, fixed on the car as the woman finally turned and spoke to the boy, and he wound down the window, climbing out.

“Now you,” he called back through the window, doing a small bounce on his feet that screamed of uncontainable panic. “Mom, hurry! Please!”

She didn’t move. She just stared at him, her hands on the wheel, tears falling fresh, a strange sort of finality descending over her features.

Her mouth opened, and the car creaked, jolting violently forward before tipping over the edge. The boy chased it to the edge, falling onto his knees and screaming down into the valley below.

Cian’s face was ashen, his breathing choppy as the little boy grabbed handfuls of grass and dirt, slamming his fists into the ground and screaming, “No!” over and over and over, until his body was depleted. And then he just sat there, aquamarine eyes full of water, golden skin smudged with dirt.

“I would have forgiven you,” he cried. “It would have been okay, Mom. You didn’t have to. You didn’t have to.”

Isobel didn’t know what to do or say. It was too much, too sudden. They all seemed to be in complete shock. Not even Moses had a sarcastic comment about the sadism of the bond—or the gods, whoever was driving this. She tried to move to Cian’s side—the real Cian—but with her first step, the vision wavered and faded, replaced by Elijah’s cold eyes, now wide with shock and dismay.

“We’ve got a lot to talk about tonight,” he rasped out.