Irina’s POV

Alpha Nicolas.

The words hit me like a physical blow.

I stepped back.

Two steps. Three. My heel caught the edge of the rug and I almost went down.

My hand flew up and pressed against my mouth.

Sofia was still sitting in the chair. Her eyes red. Her hands knotted in her lap. But something had changed in her face now. The panicked, crumbling expression from the hallway was still there—but underneath it, something else had surfaced.

Resolve.

That terrified me more than the crying had.

"You’re going to kill *him.*" My voice came out muffled against my own palm. "You want to *kill* Nicolas."

"Someone has to." Her voice was quiet. Flat. Like she’d said those words to herself so many times they’d worn smooth.

"Sofia—"

"He’s sending more men out." She lifted her chin slightly. "You heard him at breakfast. Iron Thorn first, then whoever’s stupid enough to stand beside them. His words." Her jaw tightened. "Do you know how many times I’ve heard that? *We’re expanding. We’re taking the next territory. We’re crushing the next family.*"

I lowered my hand.

Stared at her.

"He controls forty-two packs." Her voice cracked slightly on the number. "Forty-two. An entire continent bending the knee. And it’s still not enough for him. It’s *never* enough."

"Sofia—"

"My brother’s name was Pavel." The words came out without warning. Like they’d been held behind a wall for a long time and had finally found a crack. "He was twenty-three. He was a warrior in the pack, on the eastern border. He loved terrible jokes. He couldn’t cook anything. He kept a photograph of our mother in his front pocket."

She stopped.

Pressed her lips together.

"Two years ago, Nicolas decided he wanted the Volkov territory expanded north." She exhaled.

The room was very quiet.

"Pavel died in the third week of fighting." Her voice had gone completely flat. Emptied out. "A bullet. Nothing dramatic. He was twenty-three years old and he died for a piece of land his alpha wanted to add to a king’s collection."

I couldn’t speak.

"I’ve been in this palace for three years," she continued. "Three years of watching him send men out and counting the ones that don’t come back. Three years of listening to the reports. Thirty men. Forty. A hundred. Numbers. Just numbers to him."

She finally looked up at me.

Her eyes were dry now.

That was somehow worse than the tears.

"I’m not naive," she said. "I know what I am. I know what I’m planning. I know what happens to me if I fail." A short pause. "But someone has to try."

I shook my head.

I didn’t even know what I was denying. Just—all of it. Everything she was saying. The weight of it.

"You can’t." The words came out small. Useless. "Sofia, you can’t just—he’s the *alpha king.* You can’t—"

"I know I probably won’t succeed." Her voice was completely calm. That was the thing. She wasn’t shaking anymore. Wasn’t crying. She’d moved past that somehow, into some place on the other side of fear. "I know I’ll probably die trying. But I have to try. I have to *do something.* I’ve been folding his napkins and bringing him coffee for three years and watching men like my brother get sent to die and I can’t—" Her voice fractured. Just slightly. "I *can’t* just keep folding napkins."

I pressed the back of my wrist against my mouth.

My chest felt like something was sitting on it.

*She’s going to get herself killed.*

That was the thought. Clear and immediate and certain.

She was going to try something, and she was going to fail, and Nicolas was going to find out, and—

I’d seen what he did to people who moved against him.

I’d seen his eyes go black.

"Sofia." My voice came out strange. Low. "If he finds out—"

"I know." Simple. Resigned.

"He’ll kill you."

"I know."

"Your whole family—anyone who knew about this—"

"I know, Irina." The first time she’d used my name without the miss. She didn’t seem to notice. "I know all of that. I’ve thought about nothing else for six months."

Six months.

She’d been carrying this for six months.

I stared at her.

She stood up.

I didn’t realize she was moving toward me until she was already there—her hand closing around mine, both of her palms wrapped around my fingers. Warm. Tight. Desperate.

"You’ve been suffering since you got here." Her voice dropped low. Urgent. "I’ve seen it. Every single day. The way you flinch when a door slams. The way you go still when he walks into a room. What happened to your hand. What happened to—"

She stopped herself.

But I knew what she’d almost said.

"I see everything," she whispered. "That’s what servants are good for. We’re invisible, so people forget we have eyes." Her grip on my hand tightened. "You came here against your will. You were dragged out of your old life and dropped into his, and you’ve been trying to survive it ever since. Don’t tell me you’re *happy* here. Don’t tell me this is what you want."

My throat closed.

I didn’t say anything.

"He marked you." Her eyes were fierce. Red-rimmed still, but fierce. "He put his claim on you like you were *property.* And you wake up every morning in his palace and eat at his table and—" Her voice broke slightly. "You deserve to be *free.* You deserve to choose your own life."

The word hit me somewhere old and soft.

*Free.*

I thought about the morning. The dining room. Nicolas’s voice, easy and casual: *I’m going to take their heads and hang them from the city walls.*

I thought about the bathroom mirror. Glass on white marble. Maxim’s face staring back at me.

I thought about every room I’d ever been locked into.

Sofia’s hands squeezed mine.

"You can go anywhere," she said. "Without him, without a mark, without being anyone’s claimed mate—you could *disappear.* Start over. Go somewhere they’d never find you." Her eyes searched my face. "Don’t you want that? After everything. Don’t you *want* that?"

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

She reached into the pocket of her skirt.

Pulled out the vial.

The same vial I’d found. Or—no. Another one. Identical. She’d had two. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

She pressed it into my hand.

My fingers closed around it automatically. Before I thought about it. Before I could stop them.

The glass was small against my palm. Cold. Almost weightless.

"I can’t get close to him," Sofia said. Her voice had dropped to barely a whisper now. Just breath and shape and the barest thread of sound. "I’ve tried to figure out a way. For months. But I’m a maid. I bring linens. I don’t bring his food, I don’t pour his drinks, I don’t—" She shook her head. "I can’t get *close* enough."

She looked at me.

"But you can."

The words landed in the center of my chest and stayed there.

"You’re already close. You eat breakfast with him. You—you’re in his *bedroom.*" She swallowed. Hard. "Nobody watches what you do around him. Nobody questions it. You’re his mate. You’re supposed to be there."

My hand was shaking.

I could feel it. The tremor starting somewhere in my wrist and working its way up.

"One morning," Sofia said. Quiet. Intent. "One cup of coffee. One glass of water. And it would be over." She looked at the vial in my hand. Then back up at me. "And you would be free."

Free.

The word again.

It pulled something in my chest—something primal and desperate and aching. Something that had been caged for so long it had forgotten what open air felt like.

I stared down at the vial.

The powder inside barely moved. Pale. Still. Innocent-looking.

*One cup of coffee.*

Nicolas’s green eyes flashed in my mind. The way they’d looked this morning over the rim of his cup. That cold smile. *What do you think?*

His hands. The shape of his fingers pressing bruises into my wrists.

His voice. *I’m going to take their heads and hang them from the city walls.*

Then—the other thing. The thing I didn’t want to think about.

His mouth, soft against mine this morning. Barely pressing. Like he had all the time in the world.

"I—"

The word came out cracked down the middle.

I stared at the vial. At the small, still weight of it. At what it meant. What it would mean.

My throat worked.

"I don’t know," I whispered.