“Atlas doesn’t own the university!” she shouted, her voice echoing off the stone walls.
“I have a scholarship.
I have a roommate, Nessa, who is probably calling the police right now because I haven’t answered her texts.
You can’t keep me here.”
“I can do whatever I want with what I own,” he said, his voice dropping into that dangerous, possessive register.
Ariella stepped closer, her chest brushing his.
She didn’t care that she was in a slip.
She didn’t care that he was an Alpha.
The fire in her soul was roaring now, pushing against her ribs.
“Didn’t you say I could go to school?
If you’re so pompous of yourself, then own me at the university,” she challenged, her golden eyes blazing.
“If you’re so powerful, if Ironfang is such a ‘fortress,’ then send your guards.
Send Silas with his stupid cane.
Send the twitchy girl.
But if you keep me locked in this room like a breeding bitch, I will find a way to kill myself.
And then your ‘perfect investment’ will be nothing but a corpse.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Grimshaw’s nostrils flared.
His hand shot out, his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her head back so she had to look at him.
His touch wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t meant to hurt—it was meant to ground her.
“You think you’re the first person to try to threaten me with their own life, Ariella?” he whispered, his face inches from hers.
“I’ve watched men pull their own hearts out rather than face me.
You don’t scare me.”
“I’m not trying to scare you,” she breathed, her lips almost touching his.
“I’m telling you the price of keeping me.
You want a wife?
You want a Hayes bride to legitimize your throne?
Then let me have the one thing they couldn’t take from me.
My mind.”
Grimshaw looked at her for a long time.
He looked at the defiance in her eyes, the way her body was vibrating with a power she didn’t even know she had.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, and for a second, the Alpha mask slipped.
He didn’t want a bride.
He wanted her.
“Fine,” he said, the word a low growl.
Ariella blinked, surprised.
“What?”
“You will attend your classes,” he said, his grip on her hair tightening slightly before he let go.
“But you will not be alone.
Silas will be your ‘personal assistant.’ Mina will be on the roof of every building you enter.
And if you speak to a single male who isn’t authorized, if you step one foot off that campus without my convoy…”
“I know,” she said, a small, triumphant smirk touching her lips.
“I jump out of a moving car one time and suddenly I’m a flight risk.”
“You’re not a flight risk, Ariella,” Grimshaw said, turning toward the door.
“You’re brooding little war.
And I’m the only one who knows how to fight you.”
He paused at the door, looking back over his shoulder.
The sunlight hit the scar on his neck, making him look more like the “Boogeyman” than the Alpha.
“Elle will bring you clothes suitable for a student.
We leave in an hour.
Don’t make me regret this, little bird.
Because if you do, the university won’t just lose a student.
It will lose its wings.”
The door shut.
Ariella let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
Her legs felt like jelly, and she sank onto the edge of the bed.
She had won.
A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
But as she looked at the stack of clothes Elle brought in—a pair of high-waisted black jeans, a combat-boot-style heel, and a dark green sweater that matched the moss on the cliffs—she couldn’t shake the feeling that she hadn’t actually escaped.
She had just traded a small cage for a larger one.
And somewhere out in the Fracture, the legend of the Ash-Walker was waiting.
Ariella touched her neck, where the Rogue’s gloved hand had rested in the snow.
She had a feeling that the real war hadn’t even started yet.
***
The blacked-out SUV felt less like a vehicle and more like a rolling war room.
She was dressed in the clothes Elle had provided—a sharp, dark ensemble that made her look less like a victim and more like a threat.
Her golden eyes were fixed on the window as the gates of Mooncrest University loomed ahead.
This campus had been her only sanctuary for three years.
It was the place where she wasn’t just a “Hayes”—she was a student with a 3.9 GPA and a future.
But as the convoy of three Ironfang vehicles swept past the stone pillars, the students on the sidewalk stopped and stared.
They weren’t looking at a student.
They were looking at a parade of predators.
“You’re brooding, Ariella,” Silas remarked, his silver cane resting between his knees.
“It’s a lovely look on you, but it might intimidate the professors.
We wouldn’t want them to fail the Alpha’s wife out of sheer terror, would we?”
“I’m not his wife,” Ariella snapped.
“I’m a signature on a piece of paper, copy that.”
“A signature that currently has six snipers positioned on the surrounding rooftops,” Silas said, his blue eyes twinkling with a dangerous light.
“Mina is already in the clock tower.
If anyone so much as looks at you with an unkind thought, they’ll have a tranquilizer dart in their neck before they can blink.”
“That’s not protection, Silas.
That’s a hostage situation.”
“In the Fracture, they’re often the same thing.”
The convoy pulled up directly in front of the Student Union—the heart of the campus.
This was where the “A” Litter usually spent their mornings, asserting their dominance over the other pack-students.
As the door opened, the air of the campus hit her—pine, old books, and the unmistakable scent of them.
Atlas.
Asher.
Arlo.
They were there, standing near the fountain, surrounded by a group of sycophants.
They looked exactly as they always did: untouchable, arrogant, and perfectly groomed.
Until they saw the Ironfang sigil on the lead SUV.
Ariella stepped out, her boots clicking against the pavement.
She didn’t look for them, but she felt their eyes.
She felt the moment Asher’s switchblade stopped spinning.
She felt the moment Atlas’s Alpha aura spiked in a defensive wall.
“Ariella?”