Possessive feral Alpha.
Can’t even share a sparring ring without his territorial instincts rearranging the furniture.
It should be annoying.
It’s not.
I take one deep inhale.
The air fills my lungs with the scent of stone and freshly cut grass and the faint, chemical undertone of whatever product the Academy uses to maintain the landscaping that frames this building in manicured green perfection. I hold it for a beat—let the oxygen circulate, let the body register that it is present and functional and about to walk into a room that might contain freedom or might contain a trap that makes death look like a preferable alternative.
I let it out.
And take the first step.
Hawk follows.
Our hands are still intertwined—his warm, mine cold, the brass knuckles pressing small circles of cool metal into his palm with each step. We cross the marble pathway together, our footsteps producing different sounds against the polished stone—mine lighter, quicker, the gait of a dancer who compensatesfor the reduced sensation in her left leg with a slight asymmetry that most people don’t notice; his heavier, measured, the stride of a man who has learned to make his body occupy space with intention rather than apology.
Through the serpent-handled doors. Into a foyer that smells like cedar polish and old money and the particular variety of silence that exists in buildings where important decisions are made by people who consider themselves important. The interior matches the exterior’s commitment to excess—vaulted ceilings painted in subtle fresco work that I don’t pause to admire, marble floors so polished they function as mirrors, a grand staircase that sweeps upward with the theatrical curve of something designed to be descended in evening wear.
We follow the room number.
Third floor. East wing. A corridor lined with oil paintings of people I don’t recognize and don’t care to, their gold frames and their stern expressions and their embroidered finery all communicating the same message:this place was built for us, not for you.
Noted.
Filed under: Things That Have Never Stopped Me.
We reach the door at 12:00 exactly.
I know this because my internal clock—the same mechanism that allows me to read the time by the angle of sunlight through a window—registers the alignment with a satisfaction that I don’t permit to reach my expression. The door is mahogany, matching the entrance, with a brass plate bearing a number that corresponds to the one scratched from the invitation’s surface.
I don’t break the contact with Hawk’s hand until we’re standing directly in front of it.
Then I do.
My fingers slide from his slowly—not abruptly, not with the defensive withdrawal I employ in public spaces where hand-holding could be interpreted as weakness. This is different. This is the deliberate release of an anchor before entering uncharted water, the understanding that whatever is behind this door requires me to arrive as Victoria Sinclair first and Hawk’s Omega second.
He allows me to open it first.
The door swings inward without resistance—well-oiled hinges, the kind that cost more than my monthly ration allocation—and the room beyond it reveals itself in stages, each detail adding another layer to the portrait of power and purpose that whoever designed this space intended to communicate.
Large.
That’s the first assessment. The room is large in the way that rooms in buildings like this are large—not accidentally, not as a consequence of available square footage, but deliberately, architecturally, the dimensions calculated to make every person who enters feel slightly smaller than they did in the corridor. The ceiling is high, coffered in dark wood with recessed lighting that casts a warm, amber glow across surfaces that were chosen specifically for their ability to absorb light without reflecting it back. The walls are paneled in the same dark wood—walnut, I think—and hung with more portraits whose subjects stare down from their gilded frames with the particular expression of people who have never been told no.
A massive desk dominates the far end of the room.
The thing is a monument unto itself—carved from a single piece of what appears to be ebony, its surface polished to a depth that makes the wood look liquid, its legs ornate with scrollwork that someone spent weeks producing by hand. It sits on a raised platform—three inches, maybe four—subtle enough to be almost imperceptible but effective enough to ensure that whoever sits behind it is physically elevated above everyone else in the room.
Power positioning.
Oldest trick in the institutional playbook.
Effective, though. I’ll give them that.
The chair behind the desk is turned away—its high back facing the room, the dark leather visible above the desk’s surface, concealing whoever occupies it with the particular theatrical flair of someone who understands that entrances are performances.
