Chapter 3

Waterfall City didn’t sleep. It hunted.

Even from my family’s penthouse, I could feel the city’s attention like fingertips on my skin—pressing, prying, hungry for a story that tasted like blood.

My phone buzzed nonstop. Anonymous accounts. Crestfall students filming reaction videos. Pack wives sending my mother “concerns” disguised as sympathy.

I didn’t open most of it.

One notification slid through anyway, bright as a blade:

ALGER REYNOLDS SPOTTED WITH CRESTFALL HUMAN SCHOLARSHIP GIRL — SOURCES SAY “HE’S PROTECTING HER.”

A photo loaded beneath the headline.

Alger in a charcoal coat, one hand at Poppy’s waist, guiding her into a private car. Poppy looking up at him like he was salvation. A small velvet box in his other hand.

A gift. A statement. A public claim.

My stomach clenched. Not from heartbreak—something colder.

He wasn’t sorry.

He was doubling down.

My father read over my shoulder, lips thinning. “He’s shaping the narrative,” he said. “If he can make you the villain, he becomes the hero.”

My mother’s eyes were tired. “Pris… if you keep provoking him—”

“He provoked me,” I said, voice flat. “He pushed me into the ocean.”

My mother flinched. She still hadn’t heard that part in full detail. Not yet. She wanted to believe there was a misunderstanding because the alternative was too ugly.

My father didn’t look away. “Then we respond like Fontaines,” he said calmly. “We don’t beg. We don’t plead. We move.”

I nodded once. “Ralap,” I said.

My mother’s spine stiffened. “That man is dangerous.”

“Good,” I replied. “So is Alger.”

That night, my father hosted a private dinner—elders, donors, a human councilman who pretended not to smell the tension between wolf bloodlines. Everyone asked about my health. Everyone asked if it was true I’d “targeted” a human girl at Crestfall.

I kept my voice soft. My gaze distant.

“I don’t remember,” I said.

It was amazing how quickly people believed an Omega was fragile if it made them comfortable.

After the dinner, I stood alone by the window, watching the river thread through the city. My fingers kept touching the bruised spot on my shoulder where Alger’s hand had struck.

My phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

I stared at it for a long moment, then answered. “Yes?”

Silence—one controlled breath.

Then a man spoke, calm as steel.

“You used my name,” he said.

My pulse steadied instead of spiking. That alone told me this was the right kind of dangerous.

“Ralap Callahan,” I said.

“Correct,” he replied. “And you told the city you’re my girlfriend.”

“I needed a shield.”

“A shield,” he repeated, and I could hear the faint amusement, like he’d expected honesty more than apologies. “Against Reynolds.”

I didn’t deny it.

Ralap’s voice lowered. “Reynolds doesn’t like losing,” he said. “He will come for you.”

“I know.”

“And if you stand under my banner,” Ralap continued, “you stand in my war.”

The words should’ve scared me.

Instead they felt like structure. Like a fence around chaos.

“I’m already at war,” I said. “He started it on a yacht. In front of cameras.”

A pause. Then, quietly: “You can’t swim.”

My blood chilled.

“How do you—”

“I know things,” Ralap said. “It’s my job to know things.”

I gripped the phone. “Why are you calling?”

“Because you invoked me,” he said. “And because if Reynolds is out of control, he becomes a threat to the city. To the truce Crestfall is supposed to represent.”

“So I’m a political problem,” I said, biting.

“No,” Ralap replied.

Just one word.

Not rehearsed. Not diplomatic. Clean.

I inhaled slowly. “Then what am I?”

Ralap’s answer came after a beat, quiet and lethal.

“You’re an opening,” he said. “Reynolds has been protected by reputation for years. If he finally cracks in public, he bleeds. And if he bleeds… he can be removed.”

My mouth went dry.

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

Ralap didn’t pretend. “A public move,” he said. “Tonight. Let the cameras see you choose.”

I stared at my reflection in the glass—pale, composed, bruises hidden under silk.

My engagement ring sat on the table behind me, a diamond promise that had turned into a chain.

I slid it off and set it down gently.

“Where?” I asked.

“Blackthorne,” Ralap said, naming the bar where wolves went to be seen. “Come downstairs. Let them find you.”

My heartbeat hitched.

A public hug. A public claim. A knife in Alger’s pride.

“And if I don’t?” I whispered.

Ralap’s voice softened—not kind, but patient.

“Then Reynolds keeps writing your story,” he said. “And you keep drowning in it.”

I ended the call with shaking fingers.

Before I could second-guess myself, another notification flashed across my screen:

LIVE: ALGER REYNOLDS ENTERS BLACKTHORNE WITH POPPY BENNETT.

I stared at the words until they stopped being letters and became a dare.

Perfect.

Let him be there.

Let him see me walk in alive.

I grabbed my coat and headed for the elevator, my wolf purring low in my chest—hungry, focused.

Tonight, I would step into the same room as my fiancé and his human princess…

and I would put my arms around his deadliest enemy.

Let the city watch.

Let Alger break.