Chapter 16 #2
Pull on the pink pajamas—pants and a button-up top, modest but comfortable—and run my fingers through my hair until it's somewhat manageable.
No point styling it.
No point pretending to be anything other than what I am: a girl who almost died and is now wandering through enemy territory in borrowed clothes.
I leave the bathroom.
Cross the bedroom.
Open the door.
The hallway beyond is just as luxurious as everything else—polished floors, tasteful artwork on the walls, the kind of understated elegance that screams old money. Sconces provide soft lighting at regular intervals, casting warm pools of illumination that guide the way.
I don't have my blades.
The realization surfaces as I step into the corridor, and I wait for the panic to come.
It doesn't.
If they wanted me dead, I'd be dead.
The mantra has become strangely comforting.
I start walking.
My bare feet are silent on the marble—years of ballet training making me naturally light-footed, incapable of clomping around even when I'm not actively trying to be stealthy. The corridor stretches ahead of me, doors on either side, all of them closed.
I follow the scent.
It's easy to track now that I know what I'm looking for—that particular combination of spiced leather and dark rum that belongs to Kai. It's stronger in some areas, fainter in others, leaving a trail through the house like breadcrumbs leading somewhere specific.
The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness.
His eyes.
Dark gold, shot through with amber, watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
Did he believe me?
Does he know the truth now?
Does he understand that his father—the man who raised him, trained him, made him into the weapon he is—ordered his death?
I don't know.
Can't know until I face him.
The scent leads me down a staircase—grand, sweeping, the kind of thing you see in movies about wealthy families with dark secrets—and through a series of rooms that blur together in my peripheral vision. Living spaces, dining areas, what might be a library.
I don't stop to examine any of them.
Just keep following the trail.
Until I reach an open doorway.
And stop.
The room beyond is... unexpected.
It's a game room of some kind—pool table dominating the center, dark wood and green felt, expensive and well-maintained. A bar lines one wall, stocked with bottles I recognize as high-end spirits. Leather couches arranged in a conversation area. A fireplace—unlit—with an ornate mantle.
And standing at the pool table, cue in hand, is Kai.
He's dressed simply—dark dress pants, white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His feet are bare. His hair is slightly disheveled, like he's been running his hands through it.
He looks... tired.
Vulnerable.
The observation catches me off guard.
I've seen Kai exactly twice now—once in the forest when I saved his life, once in the theater when I was dying—and both times he's radiated power, control, the absolute certainty of someone who knows their place in the world and expects everyone else to fall in line.
This Kai is different.
This Kai looks like someone who's had the foundation of his existence ripped out from under him and is trying to figure out how to stand without it.
Good, the vicious part of me whispers. Now he knows how it feels.
But another part—smaller, quieter, the part that remembers being twelve years old and watching her parents die—feels something that might be sympathy.
He doesn't notice me at first.
Too focused on the shot he's lining up—the black eight ball positioned near the corner pocket, a triangle of colored balls scattered across the table from a previous break. A whiskey glass sits on the edge of the table, half-empty, the amber liquid catching the light.
He takes the shot.
The balls scatter.
He frowns at the results—nothing pocketed, the eight ball now in a worse position than before.
"If you aimed half a centimeter to the left," I say, breaking the silence, "you would have gotten a perfect shot."
His head snaps up.
Our eyes lock.
Dark gold meeting mismatched blue-and-green.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
I can feel him assessing me—cataloguing my appearance, my posture, the fact that I'm standing in his doorway barefoot and weaponless and completely at his mercy.
Then he huffs.
A short, sharp sound that might be annoyance or might be amusement.
"Why don't you come and prove that, then?"
The challenge hangs in the air.
Prove it.
Show me you're not all talk.
Show me you're worthy of the attention you've demanded.
I can't help but smirk.
Because this—the banter, the challenge, the subtle game of dominance—is something I understand. Something I can navigate even when everything else is falling apart.
I push off the doorframe and cross the room.
My feet are silent on the hardwood. My hips sway slightly—not deliberately, just the natural motion of someone who's spent years training her body to move with deliberate grace. I feel his eyes track me, feel the weight of his attention like a physical pressure.
Good.
Look at me.
See what you almost missed.
I reach the pool table.
Pick up a cue from the rack on the wall.
Chalk the tip with precise, practiced movements—four rotations, even strokes, the kind of meticulous preparation that probably looks obsessive to anyone watching.
"Rack them," I say.
He raises an eyebrow.
But he does it.
Gathers the balls, arranges them in the triangle with an efficiency that suggests he's done this a thousand times. Places the cue ball at the opposite end of the table and steps back.
His glass of whiskey is right there.
Within reach.
I shouldn't.
I definitely shouldn't.
But something about his expression—the careful neutrality, the controlled distance—makes me want to poke. To prod. To see what happens when I push past the boundaries he's clearly set.
I pick up the glass.
Take a sip.
The whiskey is smooth—expensive, aged, probably worth more than my monthly food budget at the academy. It burns pleasantly on the way down, warming my chest from the inside.
Kai's eyebrow climbs higher.
"Your charm isn't going to work on me," he says, voice flat. "You're still my enemy."
I set the glass down.
Meet his eyes.
"I know."
A wink.
Then I lean over the table, line up my shot, and break.
The crack of the cue ball hitting the triangle is sharp, satisfying. The colored balls scatter in a cascade of controlled chaos—and six of them drop into pockets. Corner, side, corner, side, corner, corner.
One-two-three-four-five-six.
Even number.
Safe.
I straighten, unable to suppress the smirk.
Kai's expression has shifted.
He's staring at the table—at the devastation I just wreaked with a single shot—and there's something almost like respect flickering in his dark gold eyes.
Or annoyance.
Hard to tell with him.
"Your turn," I say sweetly.
The game continues.
We move around the table in a strange dance—circling each other, taking shots, watching each other with the wary attention of two predators who haven't yet decided if they're allies or prey. I steal more sips of his whiskey. He doesn't comment on it.
The balls drop one by one.
Stripes and solids, a visual representation of the chaos I've brought into his carefully ordered existence. I'm better than him—not by much, but enough to matter. Every shot I make is precise, calculated, the result of years spent mastering control over my body and everything it touches.
The eight ball goes in last.
My shot.
Clean and perfect, exactly where I aimed.
Game over.
I straighten, setting the cue against the table, and for the first time since I entered this room, I let myself smile.
Not the manic grin I use as armor.
Not the sharp, threatening expression I deploy when I want people to back off.
Just... relief.
A simple, genuine release of tension that I didn't realize I was carrying.
Kai is watching me.
His expression is unreadable, but I can see the question forming behind his eyes.
"Why aren't you going to jump on the rooftops?" he asks, voice carefully neutral. "Or mock me for losing?"
I consider the question.
Consider him.
Consider the careful distance he's maintaining, the walls he's built around whatever he's feeling, the way he's clearly waiting for me to gloat, to push, to be the enemy he's prepared himself for.
"A," I say, ticking off points on my fingers, "I'm kind of tired. That whole almost-dying thing really takes it out of you."
A twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Almost a smile.
"And B..." I trail off, searching for the right words. "You may be my enemy, but mocking someone who's hurting after someone they love betrays them is rather ruthless."
The words land harder than I intended.
I see it in the way his jaw tightens.
The way his eyes flicker with something raw before he shuts it down, forces it back behind the mask he wears like armor.
We stand there.
Two enemies in a pool room.
Surrounded by expensive furniture and the lingering scent of whiskey and the weight of truths neither of us asked to carry.
"What would it take," he says quietly, not quite looking at me, "to have an alliance with you?"
The question catches me off guard.
Alliance.
Not surrender.
Not submission.
Not the demand for complete control that I expected from an Alpha of his caliber.
Just... partnership.
A working relationship between two people who have every reason to hate each other but somehow keep ending up on the same side.
I shrug.
"I just don't want to be lonely anymore."
The words come out simpler than I intended.
Smaller.
Without the armor I usually wrap around my vulnerabilities.
Kai looks at me.
Really looks—not assessing, not calculating, just... seeing.
I don't know what he finds in my expression.
Maybe the exhaustion that goes deeper than physical. Maybe the grief I've been carrying for ten years. Maybe the desperate, aching need for connection that I've been denying for so long I almost forgot it existed.
I smile.
Not the manic one.
Not the sharp one.
Just tired.
I walk over to the nearest armchair—a plush single-seater, probably worth more than my entire existence—and sink into it. His whiskey glass comes with me, cradled in my hands like a talisman.
The ice has mostly melted.
The amber liquid swirls when I move the glass, catching the light, refracting it into patterns that are almost hypnotic.
One-two-three-four.
My eyes track the movement.
"I'm lonely," I admit, and the words taste strange on my tongue. Foreign. Like a language I forgot how to speak. "The thrill of Ruthless Academy gets old when it's all you have. The violence, the survival, the constant need to prove you deserve to exist... it stops being exciting. Starts being..."
I trail off.
Search for the right word.
"Empty."
The glass continues to swirl.
"Now I can't dance." The statement is flat. Matter-of-fact. The kind of calm that comes from accepting something devastating as permanent. "Can't send my letters. Can't do anything that used to make life feel worth living. So then... what's the point?"
The question hangs in the air.
What's the point?
It's not rhetorical.
It's the question I've been asking myself for weeks—months, maybe. The question I tried to answer with poison and violence and one final performance in front of the men who wanted me dead.
I lower the glass onto the side table.
Lift my legs.
Curl into myself on the chair—knees to chest, arms wrapped around them, chin resting on top. The position is defensive. Childish. The pose of someone trying to make themselves small enough that the universe might forget to hurt them.
"But death was sad too."
The words come out quiet.
Fragile.
"All I did was float. Exist in this... void. And I saw my parents."
My eyes close.
The memory surfaces—warm light, wood-paneled walls, my father's lap and my mother's arms and the feeling of being loved in a way I haven't experienced since.
"I guess it wasn't satisfying either. At least, if that was even death."
I keep my eyes closed.
It's easier this way.
Easier to say the things I need to say when I can't see his reaction, can't watch him decide I'm weak, can't witness whatever judgment is forming behind those dark gold eyes.
"I don't know why your family killed mine."
The statement lands in the silence like a stone in still water.
"What sin we committed to deserve such an ending. You're my enemy. Nothing changes that."
My voice is steady.
Calm.
The calm of someone who's accepted a truth so fundamental it's become part of their architecture.
"But I don't have the energy to give a fair fight against you. Not right now. Not like this."
A pause.
A breath.
"But one thing I'd never tolerate is betrayal."
I open my eyes.
Halfway.
Just enough to see him through my lashes.
He's moved while I wasn't looking—leaning against the pool table now, arms crossed over his chest. His expression is difficult to read, but he's listening. Paying attention in a way that suggests my words matter.
That I matter.
At least enough to hear.
I smile.
It's a tired smile.
A genuine one.
"If your dad thinks you're worthy enough to betray..." I let the words settle, let them find their target. "I guess he's afraid of you really getting the confidence and security to surpass him."
His jaw tightens.
His eyes flicker with something—pain? Anger? The complicated tangle of emotions that comes from realizing your own father sees you as a threat to be eliminated rather than a legacy to be proud of?
I close my eyes again.
The exhaustion is pulling at me now—heavy and insistent, dragging me back toward the darkness I just escaped from. My body is still healing. Still processing. Still trying to recover from a poison that should have killed me.
"So I'll help you."
The words come out slurred.
Distant.
Like I'm speaking from somewhere far away, somewhere the waking world can barely reach.
"Alliance. Be your Omega if it means you get to prove to him that he should be afraid of you."
I feel myself sinking.
Drifting.
The chair is comfortable—too comfortable—and my body is demanding rest in ways I can't ignore. Sleep is inevitable, but I make sure I say my last words.
"Then... we're enemies again."