Kira stepped out of the bathroom stall, her legs feeling like lead. Every step back towards the backstage area was a struggle against the heat still burning under her skin.

She needed to find Jessica. She needed to find a way to stop the bleeding of this event before there was no one left in the hall.

However, as she pushed through the curtains of the backstage vanity room, she stopped dead in her tracks.

Sandra was there. She was leaning casually against the vanity, her arms crossed over the front of a flashy designer dress. She was staring at her own reflection, but her eyes shifted the moment Kira entered.

A smug smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she watched Kira through the mirror.

"Hello, Your Highness," Sandra said. Her voice carried that particular lilt, friendly on the surface and mocking underneath. "Everything alright? You look a bit... pale."

The grief and exhaustion Kira had been carrying out of that bathroom stall evaporated. What replaced it was a defensive spike of anger. It flared up, hot and sharp.

She did not have time for Sandra’s games, not when her world was crumbling just a few yards away.

"What are you doing here, Sandra?"

Sandra scoffed and turned around to face her fully. Then, she reached into her clutch, pulled out a tube of lipstick, uncapped it and began applying it slowly.

"Why are you acting so surprised?" Sandra asked. She pressed her lips together, checking the result in the mirror. "You sent invitations to almost every pack in the region, dangling the mighty Wolfe name like bait. Of course I came. I wouldn’t miss watching you fail so spectacularly."

Kira’s jaw tightened so much it ached. She felt the sting of those words because they were true—the event was failing, and she was the one standing in the wreckage.

She turned on her heel, ready to walk out.

"I do not have the time for you or your stupid games, Sandra," Kira threw over her shoulder.

"Wait."

Something in Sandra’s voice made Kira’s hand pause on the fabric. The mockery was gone. What was left behind it was quieter, and somehow that was worse.

But she did not turn around. She pulled the curtain an inch.

"I didn’t come here to start trouble." Sandra’s voice dropped. "I have something to tell you."

Kira did not want to turn around. Every instinct screamed at her to keep walking, to find Jessica and face the mess waiting in the auditorium. But the heavy silence pulled at her. Slowly, she looked back over her shoulder.

Sandra was watching her with an expression that Kira had never seen on her face before. It was not smug, and it was not angry. It was almost pitying.

"I’m only going to say this once," Sandra said, stepping away from the vanity. The distance between them shrank. "I know you think I’m the enemy because of my history with Derek. But you’re playing a game you don’t even fully understand yet."

Kira frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Sandra’s eyes flicked toward the curtain, quick and careful, checking it the way people checked over their shoulders when they were not sure who was listening. Then she looked back at Kira and lowered her voice further.

"Watch your back at Dravengard," she said. "And watch the people inside that palace even closer. They are not what they seem to be, Kira."

Kira felt a chill wash over her that had nothing to do with the air conditioning in the room.

She stared at Sandra at first, unable to utter a single word. Her mind raced, trying to find the lie, trying to find the trick, but Sandra’s eyes remained serious.

She tried to laugh. It came out thin and brittle, not even convincing to her own ears. She lifted her chin anyway. "Stop it," she said, her voice regaining some of its strength. "Stop joking. I told you, I do not have time for your games."

Sandra’s lips curved, but there was no humour in it this time. "I told you, it is no joke. Do not trust anyone in Dravengard. Not even—"

The curtain suddenly swung open.

Jessica stepped inside, cheeks flushed from hurrying through the hall. Her eyes darted between Kira and the tall, elegant, Lycan woman she had never seen before. Confusion flickered across her face, quickly followed by concern when she felt the thick tension buzzing in the small space.

"What is going on in here?" Jessica asked.

Her eyes stayed sharp on Sandra, but she took half a step forward. It was an instinctive move of a friend moving to shield her best friend from a perceived threat.

Kira looked at Jessica, then back at Sandra, who had already pulled a mask of indifference back over her features. She knew she could not explain this—not now, not with her heart still trying to climb out of her throat.

"It is nothing," Kira said quickly.

She reached out and wrapped her fingers around Jessica’s wrist. "Let’s go."

Jessica blinked, startled by the urgency in Kira’s grip. "Kira—wait, what was—"

Kira was already moving, pulling Jessica with her toward the door, not looking back. Her pulse was hammering too loudly in her ears, and Sandra’s words were already lodged somewhere behind her sternum, pressing uncomfortably against everything she had been trying not to think about for weeks.

Do not trust anyone.

She had heard them before. The words played on a loop in her head, over and over.

She tried to shake the feeling off, tried to convince herself that Sandra was just trying to get under her skin because she was jealous. That had to be it.

She pushed through the door and the noise of the hall hit them both at once. But it was a different kind of noise now, not the polite, expectant murmur of an audience waiting for their King to show. This was louder and sharper, with an edge to it that made the hairs on Kira’s arms stand up.

Near the side entrance, a cluster of people had formed, pressing outward from a single point at the centre.

Alpha Braxton was there, standing firm with two of his gammas beside him, and Kira’s own bodyguards had closed ranks alongside them, forming a line between the crowd and the main floor.

On the other side of that line, a large Alpha in a dark suit was making himself very loud and very impossible to ignore, his voice carrying clean across the hall over everyone else. His companions stood solidly behind him.

"I want her here now! This moment! Bring me the Queen!"

The air was thick with the scent of aggression and pheromones, a sure sign that a fight was seconds away from breaking out.

Jessica exhaled beside her. "Goddess. This is getting out of hand."

The Alpha’s eyes were still sweeping the room when they landed on Kira, standing in the entrance to the backstage corridor. His gaze locked onto her and went dark.

He raised one hand and pointed directly at her, his voice dropping into something harder and colder than the shouting had been.

"You!" he bellowed. "Who do you think you are to deceive us like this?!"

The hall went very quiet.

Every face in the room turned toward Kira.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Her heart dropped into her abdomen. She knew exactly what was coming. She knew that what followed next would be nothing but chaos.