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Isobel wanted to check her phone as soon as she woke up the next morning, but she was sandwiched between two very hard and immovable bodies: Gabriel and Elijah. They were currently doing their best to imitate a sandwich press.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out why.

It was Friday. They were due back at the Stone Dahlia again.

“Guys,” she squeaked.

They only pressed closer.

“You’re basically just hugging each other at this point,” she managed to say between short breaths. “I’m disappearing between you both.”

They eased up a little, and Isobel quickly slid out from between them, rushing into the bathroom. Of course, Gabriel followed her. Right into the shower, where he quickly pinned her to the wall. He pulled her head back and demanded, in a sleep-roughened whisper, to hear who she belonged to.

Twenty minutes later, she skidded to a breathless stop by Niko, who was getting antsy by the front door.

“You’re late,” he grumbled, eyeing her still-wet hair and flushed cheeks.

“What are you going to do about it?” she grumbled right back, making his lips twitch.

“Not a good day to challenge me, little m—maniac. ”

She stuck out her tongue at him and kicked into a run. “Try to keep up!” she tossed over her shoulder.

“Try to run in a straight line,” he shot back, pitching his voice low.

She almost stumbled but managed to catch herself.

The bond was a little too strong if it was broadcasting just how rough of a claiming Gabriel had just laid on her.

They ran to the chapel, even though the Rosales family were all still in the hospital, where Maya and Luis had been given beds until new accommodations could be found for them.

They stopped on the road, staring up at the mostly intact chapel and the charred residence that hung off it like a diseased limb.

“Good aim,” Niko noted.

Isobel shoved her elbow into his side, but he was too busy admiring the burned wreck.

“I hit you,” she hissed.

“Yeah, right, ow.” He rubbed the wrong side of his ribs. “Should we head back?”

“You guys do that to me on purpose, don’t you?” she pressed, narrowing her eyes on his broad back as they turned back the way they had come. “There’s no way you can’t feel me.”

He only scoffed out a quiet laugh in response, tacit as ever.

Kalen snagged her as soon as she was through the door, calling her into his office. He looked like he was already halfway out of the dorm himself, gathering the folders he kept on all the human students he was still teaching and piling them into his soft briefcase.

As soon as he was packed up, he dropped the case and rounded his desk, backing her into his office door and ducking to catch her eyes.

“You slept well again,” he noted, tipping up her chin with a firm hand. “Even after the incident at the chapel.”

“Yeah … I think I had a nightmare at some point—probably to be expected, I mean, it was another chapel on fire, you know?”

He nodded, waiting for her to continue, knowing there was more.

She shrugged. “But it was just a normal nightmare. No debilitating, soul-deep fear.”

“Good.” He tugged her face up higher, bending to press his lips to hers. She clutched his jacket, leaning into him, but he eased away with a frustrated groan. “Fuck, I don’t have time. I didn’t mean to do that.” He kissed her again, quick and firm. “The journalist is coming tonight.”

“Amina?” Isobel straightened immediately, hope searing her chest. “I don’t have to take another private date?”

“Well, other than Amina, no. I’m worried about this glass box thing, if the doctor is going to follow through with that and how you’re going to talk to Amina, but I guess we’ll just have to figure that out on the spot.”

“So what’s her deal?” Isobel whispered eagerly.

Only Kalen, Mikel, Elijah, Gabriel, Oscar, and Moses had been included in the planning of things—and even within that small group, she had a feeling that they had their own narrow roles and weren’t openly communicating about the journalist or their possible escape plans.

Kalen scowled. “She refused to give me any details over the phone, but she was definitely expecting a call—not from me, specifically, but from someone with the USB. She knew who I was just from the sound of my voice and asked if I’d be the one meeting her, but I can only be sure that your red room specifically isn’t being recorded.

I told her she needs to meet with you. I told her she’d need to bribe her way to the top of your list, and she said she’d organise it for tonight. ”

He dug into his pocket and held out his hand, the USB in his palm. “Keep this safe. Don’t mention a word of this to anyone, not even the others. We can’t risk talking about it. This has to work.”

“Ok—”

He stamped her lips again, dragging his mouth to her ear. “I like the smell of your sweat, princess. Makes me want to throw you down on that coffee table and fuck you stupid again, but I can’t, you know why?”

She bit down on her lip and shook her head, all her willpower reserved for trying not to throw herself at him and climb him like a tree. He moved out of the way, glancing back to the coffee table. Isobel blinked at the massive crack through the centre of the wooden top.

“Oops,” she managed .

He chuckled, opening the door and stepping a respectful distance away from her. “Don’t be late for class, Carter.”

Isobel grumbled to herself as she tried to mask her limp, lagging a few steps behind the Alphas as they made their way to the Stone Dahlia.

It started with Gabriel in the shower, and then it was Oscar after her run, cornering her as she was debating what to wear for the day and thoroughly ruining the option she had picked out as he tore it off her, planted her butt on a shelf and stamped his ownership into her.

And then it was Cian and Kilian, luring her into Mikel’s office at the back of their studio, promising they would work out the kinks in her muscles and breaking Mikel’s massage table instead.

Then it was Theodore, throwing her onto her bed the second she came home from practice in the afternoon.

And now?

Now, she was limping .

You guys could at least try and look contrite , she tossed through the bond.

What’s contrite? Oscar returned immediately, making her snort.

But you’re limping so adorably. Cian dropped back to loop her arm through his, and they fell silent.

This is it. Kalen’s voice in her head had them all tensing in preparation. We’ve told you only what you need to know up until this point. Tonight is going to be a turning point. Today should reveal precisely how we need to move forward.

Nobody reacted to the words as they approached the receptionist, who told them once again to wait for Yulia Novikov to escort them inside.

Isobel tensed as soon as she saw the other woman, and it took every ounce of her willpower not to grab the receptionist’s laptop and use it to bludgeon Yulia to death.

You hurt my best friend .

She wanted to scream the words and finally see fear in those ice-blue eyes.

Instead, she plastered on a tight smile and took some comfort in the fact that, while Sophia hadn’t woken up yet, Bellamy had reported that she was breathing a little easier.

The forming of their bond seemed to have healed more than the burns she got during her Death Phase.

There was a chance she would speak again.

“We’ve decided to shake things up once more,” Yulia informed them, looking almost giddy. “I’ve received some advice from our head psychologist, and I believe it will be beneficial to see how you each perform under different stressors.”

Like they were experiments instead of people.

“First of all, I’ve been instructed to show you all Isobel’s new performance room—to put you all at ease, as I understand tempers ran a little high last week.” She filled the hall with her fake, tinkling laugh and attached herself to Kalen’s arm.

Isobel pictured the way Kalen had claimed her hard enough to crack the coffee table, and it still did nothing to dim her sudden fury.

“We were using this room for other purposes,” Yulia continued on, not even waiting for a response.

“But felt that it might just be perfect for our star attraction, hm?” She barely bothered with a quick glance over her shoulder at Isobel.

“We’re going to go for a little tour of the room, and once you’re all nice and at ease, we’ll take you down to the second fighting level. ”

“We’re fighting?” Theodore asked.

Isobel was shocked when Yulia flashed him a smile, her eyes trailing his chest. “Yes, Mr Kane, you’re fighting. All eight of you, with the exception of the professors here.” She patted Kalen’s chest, still eyeing Theodore for a moment more, before returning her attention to the path before them.

“Here we are.” She unlocked a door between two long hallways, leading them into a small dressing room. “Nice and private,” she announced with a flourish. “As with all of our kink rooms, there are no recording devices in the dressing rooms or the performance rooms.”

“Kink room?” Kalen snapped, the first words he had spoken to her.

Yulia chuckled at him. “Yes, try not to put a table through the wall just yet. This performance room is very unique.” She circled the couches and table arranged like a normal waiting room and opened the opposite door, waving them through.

It was a narrow space, so Isobel stepped in first, Oscar and Moses close behind her like they had taken it upon themselves to be her bodyguards.

There was a pole in the centre of the room, three full-length, mirrored walls surrounding it.

There was just enough room for someone to dance on the pole, and no room for anything else.

Isobel spun back to the door, her mouth parting in shock at the wall surrounding the door.

It was covered in racks of latex, crops, paddles, blindfolds, chains, handcuffs, ropes, and a number of other things that she didn’t even recognise.