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His usual mask of control melts, and he looks at me like I’m the answer to the question that’s haunted him his entire life—why am I here? His gaze says it before his mouth ever could. It’s for you.

He reaches for my hand. “You’re here.”

“As if you’d let me be anywhere else,” I answer, trying to make my voice light enough to hide the nerves.

His lips twitch into a grin. “I wouldn’t. Not anymore.”

The doors to the ritual room open and heat rolls out like breath from a beast. Candelabras fill the chamber, flames dancing among the iron.

Men surround the space in a wide circle. Above, more men line the balconies, cloaks draped over their shoulders, hoods up over their heads. Masks shine in the firelight, silver and blank, still faceless witnesses.

All their attention is on me.

Edwin’s hand tightens around mine. We move forward together, meeting Liam at the altar where he waits in his cloak and mask.

He lifts his hands ceremoniously. “I’m honored to usher in the next generation of the Crotavere family legacy that began the Serpentium Order more than a century ago. Edwin Crotavere and Zaiya Zapera, Sovereign and Seraph.”

Hearing my name in that sentence makes my pulse stumble. It’s unreal and inevitable at the same time. A prophecy written for me long before I knew it existed.

Liam lifts his mask to reveal his face, then pushes his hood down. His warm smile is at odds with the occasion. Throughout this process, his voice has been an anchor, one small piece of the familiar amid all this secrecy.

I step forward to hug him. It’s not in line with the formality of this ceremony, but I don’t care. This is my Order now.

His embrace makes the space lose its menace. Liam is like another father to Edwin, and I couldn’t thank him enough for accepting me.

Then, all around us, the men remove their masks. Hoods fall back. Faces appear one by one, and the room changes as if a spell has broken.

I recognize more of them than I expected. Men who shook my hand at church and smiled like harmless neighbors. Men who smiled at me in town and watched me at Ophidia. Business owners. Lawyers. Men I’ve seen on the news.

Men whose decisions ripple through countless lives beyond Shadow Bluff without ever touching their own.

The secrecy suddenly feels larger than this room. This isn’t a collection of strange men hiding beneath a hotel. It’s a network threaded through everything I was raised to trust.

And now they all know who I am.

They’re looking at me.

And then, all together, they bow.

A gesture that says I belong.

All my life, I was taught to lower my eyes for men like these. Now they’re lowering themselves to me. I was taught to be small. That I was a possession. Nothing more than a future wife, a body preserved for someone else’s purpose.

Now I have recognition.

I have power.

“Remove her from her old life,” Liam says as he hands Edwin a knife.

It makes me flinch, shame warming my face as soon as it happens. My body remembers the pain, the blood draining from me. Being helpless.

Edwin turns to me and lowers his gaze to the green ribbon tied at my throat, the one I’ve worn like a collar for weeks.

I lift my chin and offer him my neck. I’m sure he can see my heartbeat throbbing there, but I refuse to look away. The blade slides along my throat before he slips it under the ribbon and cuts it free. It falls to the floor like an empty shell.

“Bring her into this life.”

Liam presents a velvet jewelry box. When he opens it, an emerald necklace lies there, heavy and luminous, every stone sparkling.