9
Vivienne’s POV
The bone china cup hit the saucer with a sharp, clean sound that cut through the breakfast room like a crack in glass.
My hand was shaking.
I set the cup down.
Pressed both palms flat against my knees and held them there until the trembling stopped.
Outside the window, the white rose garden sat in the morning light, neat and undisturbed — Margaret’s roses, every one of them.
Father Theodore had given standing orders: not a single stem removed, not a single root dug up.
Six years of weekly pruning, more care than most living things received in this house.
I looked at them for a moment.
Then I turned back to my mother.
“Say it again,” I said.
My voice was steady.
I was very deliberate about that.
“Use the exact words.”
Renata smoothed an invisible crease from her skirt, the gesture she always made when she was deciding how much to soften something.
“The Alliance summoned her as a combat instructor.
Your father signed the paperwork yesterday.”
I stood up from the table.
Slowly.
No rush, no drama.
I pushed my chair back and rose, and I walked to the window, and I looked at those white roses in their careful, tended rows.
“He didn’t ask me.”
Not a complaint.
A statement of fact.
A precise summary of what the last six years had actually been.
I had spent six years building something in this house.
Not inherited, not given — built, piece by piece, from nothing.
After Savannah was gone, after the pack had processed their shock and moved on, I had stepped into the space she’d left and I had worked.
Made myself useful, made myself indispensable, made myself the daughter Theodore Cole looked at when he needed something done.
Earned the look he used to reserve for Savannah, for Margaret’s memory, for the idealized version of his bloodline that I was never supposed to be part of.
Six years.
I left the breakfast room and went to my bedroom.
Sat down at the vanity.
The woman in the mirror was composed, precise, the silver streak in her honey-gold hair catching the light like something edged in cold metal.
I looked at her and she looked back at me.
*You are not going to let her take this.*
I picked up my phone.
Celeste answered on the third ring, and I could hear the wariness in her voice before she said a single word.
She always heard my calls the same way — like something she’d been expecting but hoping would arrive later.
“Vivienne?”
“Hello, darling.” I leaned back in the chair, softened my voice into something easy and warm.
“Have you heard?
Our old friend is back.”
A pause.
Not long — maybe two seconds — but I knew Celeste well enough to know what two seconds of silence from her meant.
Something shifted in her breathing, a small, involuntary hitch, and then: “…You mean Savannah?”
“The very same.
The Alliance’s new combat instructor.” I let that land.
Let it settle.
“Based at Iron Ridge training compound.
Living on Shadow Fang territory.”
“How long has she been—”
“A few days.” I watched my own reflection in the vanity mirror as I spoke.
“Long enough to make an impression.
Apparently she put three wolves on the ground in the training yard her first afternoon.”
Silence again.
Longer this time.
“Vivienne.” Celeste’s voice came back careful, the way someone walks across ice they’re not sure will hold.
“Maybe we should just — I mean, it’s been six years.
Maybe she doesn’t even remember.
Maybe she’s moved on, maybe she—”
“Maybe she what?” I kept my voice pleasant.
I was very good at pleasant.
“Maybe she’s forgotten that she woke up in room 302 of Pinewood Lodge and not you?
“She was a trained wolf, Celeste.
Even without Diana, even drugged — you know what their recall is like.
She remembers more than you want her to.”
“We don’t know that—”
“We don’t know that she *doesn’t*.” I stood up from the vanity and walked to the window.
The rose garden below, all that careful maintenance, all those perfect white petals.
“And now she’s here.
On the same territory as Declan.
In the same compound, every single day.” I let that sit for a moment.
“What do you think happens if she starts putting pieces together?
What do you think Declan does when he finds out the chain was never yours to begin with?”
The silence that followed was a different quality.
Not hesitation.
Something more like the sound of a person standing at the edge of something and realizing how far down it goes.
“Celeste.” My voice dropped, the pleasantness stripped back to something cleaner and harder underneath.
“Everything you have right now exists because of that night.
His guilt, his obligation, the access he gives you — all of it sits on one story.
One story that she can take apart if she decides to look closely.”
“I know that.” Celeste’s voice was strained now.
Thin.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then stop telling me to let it go.” I turned away from the window.
“I used six years building a position in this family.
You used six years building a position with Declan.
She has been back for *days*, and he is already paying attention to her in ways I don’t like.” I crossed back to the vanity and picked up the phone again, holding it tight.
“We are not going to sit here and wait for her to remember things.
We are not going to hope she’s too busy to look backward.”
A long breath from Celeste.
Then, quietly: “What are you thinking?”
The moon had been rising while we talked — I could see it now through the window, clearing the tops of the pines, spilling silver light down across the rose garden below.
All those white petals glowing pale and still.
A beautiful, silent thing.
“Come see me,” I said.
“We need to make a proper plan.”