Archive of Our Own

“Don’t look so crushed, dear, no one expected much from you anyway.”

Her heels strike the wet pavement in quick, precise notes. A flick of long fingers sends her men into motion, dragging the hare from the shadows. He thrashes, teeth snapping at wrists, nails raking uselessly against the hands that seize his skin. Rope slips and coils around his wasted body, tugged tight again. He shrieks, buckles, writhes. Futile, all of it. His end is already written, and she has the luxury of patience.

The moment before the hunt is always sweetest. That fragile heartbeat when prey still clings to hope, still believes in the fantasy of outpacing her after daring to outwit her.

“Hold still,” she croons, voice sugared, smile serrated. Her right hand rises, a ring glinting on her middle finger, pulsing with an unnatural blue. A gentle press of her other hand makes it click. That small, cruel sound freezes him. His breath catches. Then, with a desperate wrench and a brutal kick, he tears free and bolts into the rain.

“They never stand still,” she sighs, voice laced with false pity. “Such a tedious lack of discipline.” His silhouette vanishes into the dark, but her words trail after him, silk over steel. “Do try your very best. The hounds adore a challenge.”

Wind snatches his scarf, snapping it like a banner. Then the night splits open with claws and snarls as her beasts surge past. Caitlyn only watches as they give chase.

It does not take long for the first gunshot to crack, echoing between stained brick walls. Like rats, they always scramble upward, clinging to the false promise of height. Slate roofs, rusted ladders, crumbling cement ledges. Her men wait for them there, shadows against the skyline. Bullets shear through desperate hands reaching for purchase, tearing away any illusion of escape.

It must be spectacular. Always. Martyrs have their place, but examples breed order. When the hare’s gaze locks with hers, she sees no adversary, no tragic symbol. Only a pest. And pests are meant to be tamed or culled.

This clarity was forced on her. When Jinx slaughtered half the council, her mother among them, Caitlyn inherited more than grief, and learned there are hungers far stronger than righteous duty. Rage burned hotter than hope, sharper than compromise.

She had tried hope once.

Tried to sit, smile, and wait for change to be bargained across polished tables, over marble floors that gleamed with corruption. She had seen power bought, justice traded, ideals wither in the grip of coin.

So she chose another path. Left the chambers with nothing but her two hounds and a suitcase full of wrath, and she began again, not as their enforcer, but as their reckoning. The undercity bent to her will because it had to. Because no one else could shape it.

Now Zaun moves under her hand, and Piltover will follow.

“What a brave little attempt that was.”

Her smile curves faintly, as her hand slides over the hound’s sleek coat. The fur still burns from the chase, muscles shifting like iron cables beneath her touch. Terribly efficient, her dogs. One scrap of fabric is enough to anchor them to the scent of fear. One tracker, one bared throat, that is all she ever needs. Yet she prefers the spectacle of numbers. A river of dark bodies, pointed ears, and rolling growls that swell into a tidal wave.

Now, with the man pressed against the wall, they halt in unison. Eyes blazing, necks snapping in sharp warning each time he twitches. Drool threads from open jaws. Not from fatigue but from hunger held in leash. They’re a stilled ocean, a frozen tsunami, raw destructive supremacy at her fingertips. More obedient than any men, but with a devotion no machine could give her.

They are her army, her shadow, her gospel made flesh. And she adores them for it.

“Please, please, I won’t tell anyone, I…”

The pleading gnaws at her patience. Mercy does not live in her lexicon. They all beg in the end, their defiance crumbling into pitiful gasps. Courage rots quickly when death breathes down the neck.

Filthy little rats.

Her gaze lifts to the Doberman at her side. Its pupils are still blown wide from the chase, the very image of their nightmares, but the sweetest shape of her own dreams.

“Do look at them. Beautiful, isn’t it?” Her fingers wander along the brindled rust of a head, tracing the pattern with something like reverence. “So eager to be set free.” Her thumb toys at the ring, just before it clicks. “You should have thought twice about unleashing your tongue.”

The rest unravels in carnage. His scream catches, then collapses into a wet gurgle as teeth bury deep and tear free. The sharp crack of bone echoes against the walls, followed by the fleshy rip of muscle unraveling in strands. A shoulder wrenches from its socket with a hollow pop, limbs pulled in opposite directions until the body no longer resembles a man but a carcass reduced to parts.

The dogs work with terrifying precision. One seizes the throat, another locks on the arm, a third wrenches at the gut where blood still surges hot. Each strike is answered by another, organs spilling in the rhythm of their hunger. The heart, stubborn, keeps pumping for a few beats, feeding their violence with every pulse, until even that engine falters. What remains is shredded silence, the only sound the rhythmic tearing of jaws grinding bone to splinters.

She does not look away. Not when ribs split like brittle wood, not when skin gives way in sheets, not when the head rolls slack, mouth still half-open. She watches until the body ceases to be a body at all. Until the pack, satisfied, turns from violence to ritual, tongues rasping over each other’s muzzles, crimson washed away in slow, methodical strokes. The growls fade, the tension drains, and what stands before her is no longer a weapon but a collection of animals again, almost gentle in their communion.

She is glad, then, that she never surrendered to shimmer’s temptation. The idea had been intoxicating at first. What ruler wouldn’t dream of beasts made larger, faster, more vicious than nature could conceive? A pack of living weapons, veins glowing violet, rage engineered to consume anything it touched. For a time, she entertained the fantasy. She remembers the litters: pups born wrong, their spines bent under the weight of their own fury, eyes wild with a hunger no command could tame. They shredded cages, shredded each other, shredded themselves. Their lives burned quick, extinguished within weeks, rage consuming the very bodies it was meant to empower. Monsters, yes, but undisciplined, unreliable, pathetic in their shortness. Shimmer gave her strength without control, power without purpose. Worthless.

Her dogs, though… Her dogs endure. Faithful. Terrifyingly beautiful.

Weapons, yes, but weapons that worship their wielder.

And Caitlyn has always preferred worship to chaos.

With the last click of her ring, the pack falls into rhythm, bodies easing, jaws slackening. They drift toward her in a loose circle, flanking her step for step as she walks back toward their den.

Hextech, unlike shimmer, had proven a true refinement. Jayce would be livid if he saw what she had shaped from his generosity. He had been so proud the day he presented her with the ring, his mind ablaze with possibility. Always so eager to tell her how Arabesque could be made smarter, how one day he could make her speak. He adored that dog, Caitlyn’s dog, as if she were a blank canvas waiting for his invention to fill her.

He had called it progress when the hound lifted her slender muzzle to him, ears pricked as if she truly understood the promise of her future lineage.

But Arabesque had never needed words. None of them did. Dogs were already perfect in their silence. They did not exist to mimic the hollow chatter of people or impersonate human affection. All Caitlyn required was a voice carried further than the reach of her throat. The ring, the collars, nothing more.

Come. Follow. Track. Guard. Kill.

The hare’s shredded body was testament enough.

Freedom’s a sharp thing to hand a careless mouth.

Once the hounds are settled, a few words spoken to her subordinates, she leaves to reach the center of her operations for tonight, two dogs at her side. Once again, she’d done what nobody expected of her: reunite what is left of the chembarons. Tomorrow, they would crawl under her boot, or be the next meal of the pack.

Rain darkens the pavement as she walks, and picture how they will gather as if for a banquet, some even bringing their spouses, thinking it’s an evening of civility. They already fear her. But fear alone is not enough. It must become obedience. Some barons will bend easily: pay tribute, keep quiet, follow her lead. Others will resist. Those will die, and their deaths will serve as warning.

It isn’t shimmer she wants for herself. It’s the control it offers. The chaos of the trade has gone on too long, feeding corruption above and despair below. She means to end it. Every vial, every shipment, every ledger needs to be hers to command.

Then finally, she could end the insane loop of that purple drug. Stop the production, burn the papers, crush the bubbling tanks and drown the earth under poison. After the purge, maybe something could be built over the ruins of that lost city of Zaun.

The old foundry looms ahead, its heavy doors opening at her approach, iron hinges groaning. Her men straighten as she enters. Even here, the sight of the dogs makes shoulders stiffen and gazes drop.

Inside, voices falter. Her advisors gather near the long table, papers and ledgers spread out like nervous offerings.

One captain hurries forward, words tumbling over themselves. “We...we’ll be ready for tomorrow, but the barons will not like being summoned so soon, and after tonight...”

“Calm down,” Caitlyn cuts, unbuttoning her gloves. “It doesn’t suit you.”

He swallows, falters, steps back. Another voice, bolder, dares from the edge of the room. “If I may… This business with the hounds. Tying yourself so closely to their… brutality. Some wonder if it is wise.”

Her eyes slide toward him, and Caitlyn is glad her monsters don’t give them a show. They stare back too, slender figures always in her shadow. She lets the silence stretch until the speaker shifts uneasily.

“Shall I remind you,” she says at last, voice soft as glass, “which of you is more easily replaced?”

The room falls silent, the only sound the steady breath of the hounds. After a few words, she sets off again, cloak trailing, every step a reminder that tomorrow’s banquet will not be theirs to shape. It will be hers.

It is late when she crosses the threshold. The house greets her in silence, her two hounds halting at the door. They watch as she turns the key behind them. Her lover cannot stand them, hates their presence with a fervor Caitlyn could crush if she wished. But some battles are not worth fighting. Compromise, for once, has its place.

The rooms are dark. She moves quietly through them, slipping into the bedroom only long enough to collect a stack of papers from the nightstand. The shape in the bed is curled deep in satin, breath heavy with sleep, tangled in purple sheets as though the world outside does not exist. Caitlyn pauses, smile flickering at the corners of her mouth. Her fingers drift through tousled hair, light enough not to stir the sleeper, before she turns away.

The study is chaos as always, ink-stained pages, half-empty glasses, ledgers piled without order. Disorder here is the price of clarity elsewhere. She sits, sorting through the familiar mess. Tomorrow looms too large to allow rest. Every line, every angle of her plan must be traced again. She must be ready, two steps ahead of them all.

So absorbed, she does not hear the careful tread on the old parquet. Only when something clicks behind her does her body jolt.

But a cup settles onto her desk, porcelain meeting porcelain in a soft clack.

She exhales.

There, standing with hair a hopeless tangle and the most adorable drained expression from doing nothing all day long, stands Vi.

Grateful, Caitlyn wraps one hand over the cup, another brushing the muscled arm covered in tattoos. Maybe she wasn’t as quiet as she thought in the bedroom… Or maybe Vi wasn’t really that heavily asleep after all.

“You do know how I take it,” Caitlyn says, her smile carrying the faintest softness. Vi could have stayed in bed. But one of her greatest qualities is her big heart. One of her biggest weaknesses, too. She replies with a shrug:

“Habit.”

A steady tapping starts at the door. One of the hounds, scratching, its paws drumming a patient rhythm. The sound tightens Vi’s shoulders instantly. Her lips twist into open disgust before she checks herself, stealing a wary glance at Caitlyn. In an instant the expression is gone, buried under practiced calm. Caitlyn says nothing. She sips her tea instead, pretending to study her notes as if she hadn’t noticed.

“Good habits are rare,” she murmurs at last. “Keep this one.”

The words ease some of the tightness from Vi’s shoulders. She drops onto the meridian by the wall, stretching out, tattooed arms folding behind her head. Caitlyn returns to her notes, pen scratching faintly in the hush of the room.

“You should go back to sleep, love,” she adds.

“I’m not tired,” comes the reply, far too firm for someone hiding a yawn. She settles into the cushions, watching Caitlyn’s pen dance across the page. After a beat, she asks, half-curious, half-teasing, “What are you always writing this late, anyway?”

Caitlyn’s pen stills. She glances up, a faint smirk playing on her lips.

“You ask too many questions when you’re awake.”

Vi grins.

“You don’t answer half of them anyway.”

Caitlyn hums, turning a page, eyes back on her notes.

“You don’t ask, I don’t answer. It’s our little arrangement.”

Vi tilts her head against the chaise, watching her with a faint smile.

“Yeah, well… you could take a break from conquering the world for five minutes.”

The cue is plain, but Caitlyn lets the silence stretch before she makes her choice. With an amused sigh she rises, takes only a single book in her hand, and crosses to the meridian. She slips into Vi’s arms, letting herself be pulled close, her body folding easily against the warmth that waits for her.

Is it tomorrow’s gathering that makes Vi seek this comfort, or the ache of leaving her family unanswered for so long? Caitlyn cannot say. What she knows is that Vi’s heat stills her mind, softens the relentless churn of strategy until sleep begins to press its claim too soon. Perhaps, after the chembarons bend, after order is secured, she will let Vi see them. Perhaps.

A soft snore answers her thoughts, with the steady rise and fall beneath her cheek.

“Don’t drool on the silk, it’s imported,” she murmurs, half-joking, one hand pushing at Vi’s head only to drift into her hair, stroking absentmindedly.

“They all look at you, you know,” she adds after a pause, her voice quieter now, nearly thoughtful. “Wondering why I keep you.” Her fingers still for a heartbeat, then resume their slow rhythm. “Let them wonder. They’ll never touch what’s mine.”

The muttered reply is lost to sleep, already gone.
And soon, Caitlyn follows.

The sky is only beginning to bleed red and orange when Caitlyn wakes. Strong arms are still wrapped around her with care, arms that could snap her in two if their owner ever dared. But fear is a powerful leash, even when the collar is not fastened. She slips free without effort, the weight of Vi’s warmth falling away as she moves toward the shower. Her neck aches from sleeping half upright on the meridian, but she doesn’t regret it. Small moments like that remind her she can still feel half the woman she once was.

By the time the water has cooled her skin and she is fastening her earrings, the sun is cresting. Vi stirs.

“Leaving already?”

Caitlyn meets her own eyes in the reflection on the glass.

“The world doesn’t wait for me to rise.”

Vi exhales a sleepy smile. “It feels like it does.”

The rare sound of Caitlyn’s laugh breaks the silence, gone before it lingers.

“Flatterer.” She smooths the front of her blouse with the flat of her palm, perfecting the line. “Come along. You can carry my coat.”

She can afford to wait a moment longer if it means Vi walks with her. Half a cup of coffee drained in a single swallow, and Vi is already ready to meet the day.

At their exit, the two Dobermans greet them with slow wags of their tails, slender muzzles nudging against open palms. Caitlyn lets one press its head into her hand, fingers slipping behind the ears, while the other turns expectantly toward Vi. She does not recoil outright, but Caitlyn feels the way her body tightens, sees the faint curl of her lip. The words slip out before she can stop them:

“Keep them away from me.”

Caitlyn doesn’t look at her. She simply nudges the dog forward with a fingertip, eyes fixed ahead. Her tone is light, almost airy, as if the remark were hardly worth noticing.

“Tread carefully, love. I’ve undone people for less.”

The hounds pad on, ears pricked, utterly content in her shadow. The warning does not need to be repeated.

The foundry rises out of the morning fog like a carcass of iron and soot, its broken chimneys scarred against the sky. The closer they walk, the louder the place hums: the thud of crates being dropped, the faint hiss of steam escaping pipes left to rot decades ago. Men and women move through the yard with nervous energy, carrying ledgers, rolling barrels, adjusting the flow of workers like ants reassembling a nest.

Caitlyn steps inside without breaking stride. At the threshold, the Dobermans halt and settle by the doors. Their absence inside is deliberate. Everyone nearby gives them a wide berth, unwilling to test whether their obedience would hold without her word.

Inside, the air is warmer, heavy with coal-dust and sweat. The foundry floor has been converted into a hall of activity: long tables stacked with papers, maps pinned on walls, corners turned into makeshift offices where her advisors whisper over figures. The clang of hammers never quite disappears; it bleeds in from the workshops, a constant reminder of the city’s bones being reforged under her command.

Caitlyn moves through it without hurry, her presence slicing the space into order. Vi drifts into the crowd easily, shoulders rolling loose, posture casual in a way Caitlyn has never bothered to mimic. She glimpses her later, leaning against a table, trading words with a pair of guards who laugh too loud at something she says. Vi remembers their names. Vi remembers them all. It is useless sentiment, Caitlyn thinks. But Vi listens. She asks. She gathers scraps of talk about Jinx, about Ekko, perhaps still hoping for a rescue that never comes. But if it steadies her, Caitlyn allows it.

From the upper balcony, she surveys the hall as the first shafts of sun spill through broken windows, painting the dust in copper.

The gathering begins, lit by high windows and the pale shimmer of lamps strung across the rafters. Boots strike against rusted stone, and the chembarons step into her web.

They come dressed for civility, though most wear the pretense poorly. Velvet hides daggers, perfumes wrestle with the stink of smoke, and gold buckles flash like bribes under the light. Some bring their spouses, jewels on their arms, trying to prove refinement where there is only rot. Their laughter clings to the air, breaking at the sight of Caitlyn standing at the far end of the hall.

She greets them as they arrive, one by one. A hand offered. A shoulder clasped. Her gloved palm brushing an exposed wrist or the crook of an elbow. They smile, they bow, they whisper the words they think will please her. Behind her, a silent aide carries a silver tray. After each touch, she peels the glove behind her back, drops it into the tray, and accepts another, sliding new leather over her fingers.

The routine repeats until every guest has been touched. The room fills with clinking glasses, murmured schemes, the faint nervousness of predators caged together. And Caitlyn moves through them like a shadow, her gloves changing, her ritual unbroken.

No one notices.

Finally, the crowd settle, the last murmurs fading as Caitlyn prepares to step forward. She can feel the weight of the moment, the hum of anticipation, her words already lining themselves in her mind. Then, movement at the edge of the hall catches her eye.

Vi.

She is standing too close to one of the guests, a woman with sharp eyes and a smile just a little too practiced. An old acquaintance, perhaps, or someone who has chosen this evening to remember her manners. Vi leans in, laughing louder than the moment deserves, her shoulders loose, her grin careless. The guest’s hand rests on Vi’s arm, fingertips lingering, pressing a shade longer than courtesy allows.

Heat lances through Caitlyn. Jealousy coils low and tight, leaving no room for her prepared words. Her stride is smooth, unhurried, but her pulse races like gunfire. By the time she reaches them, her smile is dazzling, every tooth bared in perfect charm. Her eyes, though, never leave the woman.

“Careful,” she says, voice silken, every syllable cut sharp. “Admire the artwork, don’t touch the glass.”

The guest laughs, delighted, as though Caitlyn has offered a clever joke for their private amusement. Vi doesn’t.

Caitlyn already imagine her fingers tightening on the woman’s throat, pressing until the smugness breaks. Her jaw almost locks, but she swallows it down. There are bigger things waiting. Bigger prey to bring to heel.

She turns her gaze not to the guest but to Vi.

“It’s your cue to leave, love.”

The words cut through the laughter. Vi stiffens, and covers it with a shrug, casual to anyone watching. She steps away, slipping through the crowd without guards, without dogs at her back. Caitlyn watches her go, her eyes following until the door closes behind her.

Vi only knows something is coming, something heavy, but not the shape of it. She knows better than to run, though. The hounds are outside, waiting, and Caitlyn has never needed chains to keep her in place.

The hall hums on, glasses clinking, voices rising again. She turns back to her assembled guests, her smile blooming once more as if nothing had passed. Her voice carries easily, silken yet sharp enough to cut through the din.

“You’ve all grown comfortable,” she begins. “Each of you, ruling your little corners, feeding on shimmer’s profit as though it were endless. But that era ends tonight. From now on, you will trade under my hand, or you will not trade at all.”

The room erupts. Voices rise, chairs scrape back, fists strike tabletops. “Impossible!” “You dare—” “We’ll never bow!” The outrage churns hotter with every word, but the sound dies on its own when they realize the exits are no longer theirs. At every archway, every gap in the rusted walls, dark shapes stand shoulder to shoulder, a wall of bodies low and poised. Triangular heads, pointed ears catching the light. The sea of Dobermans waits, their eyes fixed forward, not moving, not blinking.

No one breathes too loud now.

One by one, the answers come. Some bend quickly, spitting out their loyalty with clenched teeth. Others hesitate, eyes darting to the exits they cannot reach. A few raise their voices in protest, only to fall quiet again beneath the weight of Caitlyn’s smile. Menaces and promises hang in the air like the same coin shown from both sides.

She does not move until the last has spoken. She lets the weight of it settle, every choice recorded in the hush of the hall. Then, when the balance is clear, when she knows who belongs to her and who does not, her goons step forward, spilling the contents of two heavy sacks onto the stone floor. One bag to the left, one to the right.

Dozens of gloves scatter in a heap, each identical, each carrying the trace of skin that has already been touched.

The room stills. The chembarons stare, first at the leather, then at Caitlyn.

One heartbeat. Two.

Then the dogs surge.

The sound is thunder in the hollow space, claws scrabbling, snarls tearing through the shouts as the hounds throw themselves at their marked targets. The chosen are dragged from their chairs, screams breaking under the weight of teeth. Blood spatters across silk and velvet, warm and sudden. The new allies sit frozen, wide-eyed, their bodies rigid as the carnage unfolds within reach.

The dogs do not mistake them.

Caitlyn watches while the sea of triangular heads moves, carrying out the verdict she alone had written. Blood pools under tables, drips from broken velvet sleeves, seeps into the cracks of old stone. The air reeks of iron and fear.

A man steps forward, smoothing his coat as if the gesture could erase what has just been carved into his sight. He dips his head, lips curved in something like admiration.

“Impressive. Ruthless. I must admit… I admire your methods.”

Caitlyn doesn’t blink. Her expression remains unreadable, the stillness of a hunter who no longer needs to chase.

“We’re not so different, you and I,” he presses.

Her gaze cuts to him, eyes cool as frost. “How precious. A rat comparing itself to a hawk.”

His smile stiffens. “Caref...”

“Careful is for the weak.”

She turns from him, her cloak brushing against the stone as she walks away. Behind her, her lieutenants step forward to take her place, voices rising to explain what she does not need to waste her breath on: the tributes, the quotas, the rules she alone will dictate from this day forward.

She slips into a narrow side room, the door closing behind her. Silence greets her there, the kind she prefers. She moves to the desk, opens the lower drawer. Neat rows of metal boxes wait inside, each engraved with a name. Most are empty now.

She lifts them out one by one, stacks them on her desk, the names of the dead laid bare. A smaller number remain closed, their weight heavier than steel. Inside, she knows, are the gloves. Their scent. The power to end any pact she has just allowed.

More than she expected have bent the knee. More have chosen obedience than rebellion.

A surprise. A useful one.

The drawer shuts with a snap. No more lingering, no more counting victories. Time is too precious to waste on gloating.

She steps back into the raw morning air, boots striking sharp against the cobbles outside the foundry. Two of her Dobermans fall in at once, their gait light and eager, shadows tethered to her stride. One noses at her hand, sleek head butting until teeth catch the edge of her glove. With a distracted flick she lets it slip. The pair tug at the leather together, tails twitching, low growls turning into their own private game.

Caitlyn does not smile. Her mind is elsewhere, crowded with an image that has refused to leave her since the hall: Vi, laughing too freely, too close, her head tipped toward a guest whose touch lingered too long. A guest who still lives. A guest who bent the knee.

The thought is acid in her throat. Each step toward her home sharpens it, anger layering over jealousy until her jaw aches with the effort of restraint. The hounds gambol with her glove at her heels, oblivious, but her pace never slows. By the time the house comes into sight, the storm in her chest is near breaking.

The door swings under her hand, and the slam of it closing behind her carries all the weight of her temper. No need for the hounds. No need for threats beyond her voice. Words, when chosen well, bite deeper than teeth.

The house is dim, but Vi is easy to find, the faint glow from the window painting her in a wash of tired light. For a moment, Caitlyn just looks at her, at the tattoos curling along strong arms, at the broad shoulders that seem far too eager to shrug off her command when given half a chance. Heat coils in her chest, twisting with jealousy.

“You enjoyed yourself today.” Her voice is steady, each word laid out with surgical precision.

Vi startles slightly, but covers it quickly. “Yeah.” The word is blunt, careless, but when their eyes meet the defiance gutters, leaving only hesitation. “I… did.”

Caitlyn steps closer, her heels soft against the floorboards. She tilts her head, studying her like a specimen under glass, voice light as if she were making idle conversation.

“Mhm. Especially with Irene. I saw how you smiled at her.”

At the name, Vi’s shoulders twitch. She draws a sharp breath, lips pressing into a line before she sniffles faintly and looks away, gaze fixed stubbornly on the floor. Caitlyn circles behind her, her presence folding over her like a second skin. Hands settle gently on Vi’s shoulders, almost tender.

“You didn’t pull away,” Caitlyn murmurs, leaning close, her breath brushing against the curve of Vi’s neck. “Not quickly enough.”

“It was nothing—”

The protest dies as Caitlyn’s fingers press harder, nails digging into warm flesh, the tenderness vanishing in an instant. Nails bite into Vi’s skin until she feels the tension in muscle and tendon shudder beneath her grip. There is no gentleness now, only possession, only rage honed into control.

“It was everything.” Her voice lashes out, no longer measured. Each word is torn from her chest like a verdict. “You are not there to be admired. You are there to adorn me.”

Her grip tightens, forcing Vi to twist under the pressure, until Caitlyn’s eyes bore into hers. Fire burns in them.

“When you forget that, you make me look weak.”

She almost spits the last word, as if the very idea is poison. With a violent pull she drags Vi to face her fully, nails leaving crescents of pain behind, their bodies too close now for retreat.

“And” her words break, each one hammered out like iron striking iron “I am NOT weak.”

The silence that follows is thick, charged, the weight of her claim hanging in the air like smoke after gunfire.

Her palm slides up until her fingers clamp just beneath Vi’s jaw. She tilts it, not hard enough to bruise, but enough to make it bite into the tendons of her neck, forcing her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet hers. Caitlyn’s smile doesn’t waver. It sits there coldly, a blade held flat.

“Smile for them if I tell you. Sit where I place you. Laugh when I allow it. But do not, ever, forget who you belong to.”

For a heartbeat, Vi’s gaze stays obedient, but the moment the last sentence leaves Caitlyn’s mouth, something shifts. Her pupils flare, her shoulders tense, arms thickening as her fists knot at her sides. The air tightens with the promise of a strike. Caitlyn sees it before it’s born.

Her hand leaves Vi’s jaw in a slow glide, slipping along her cheek, her temple, her hairline until it rests at the back of her head. Fingers curl there, deceptively gentle, as if in comfort. She leans in, voice low and silken, brushing the shell of Vi’s ear.

“Do you ever wonder,” she whispers, “how fast your sister would run?”

Vi’s breath catches. Her eyes widen, horror flooding them, the fight draining out before it can break free.

Caitlyn’s hand closes, a fist in her hair, and with sudden force she yanks Vi’s head back, exposing her throat, controlling the angle of her gaze. She gasps, the rebellion snuffed out in the dilation of her pupils.

“I do.”

It always hurts a little when Vi shatters the polished mask she wears for Caitlyn. When the obedient posture falters, when the warmth she can fake so well slips, and the truth shows through: that she is captive. That every step she takes inside this house is on a leash braided of fear. That the moment she crosses the door without Caitlyn’s will, the hounds will be loosed on Jinx, and Caitlyn will tear her sister to pieces.

Vi knows it. She has always known it. Caitlyn has never needed to shout it. The threat lives in the walls, in the eyes of the Dobermans when they glance at her, in the ring that clicks and calls them. She is the only stone that stopped Caitlyn’s vendetta. The last weight holding the blade above Jinx’s throat. And she is not ready to say goodbye to the last of her family, even as her little sister makes no move to come for her, no attempt at rescue.

So it’s been months now that Vi plays nice. Months of measured smiles and bent shoulders, of rehearsed touches and quiet laughter. Sometimes, when the night is long and Caitlyn’s head is heavy against her shoulder, they almost make it believable. Almost fall into convenience, into the fragile pretense of being a couple instead of a captor and her hostage. Pretending that Cassandra Kiramman’s murder never broke everything once and for all, that it never killed the old Caitlyn and buried the old Vi.

But the pretense cannot hold forever. Vi is still soft inside, still desperate. Still a little girl who wants her sister back more than anything. And when she reaches that breaking point, she splinters like old wood, the strength gone from her voice.

“Please…”

The word leaks out of her before she can stop it. A plea.

Caitlyn’s fingers uncurl slowly, then press outward, shoving Vi back enough to break the contact. She turns away, spine straight, the movement sharp with frustration. Frustrated that Vi couldn’t keep her role today, that she still has to bare teeth to make her behave. It’s easy with everyone else. With Vi, every correction drags across her ribs, tightens her heart until it aches.

Behind her, there’s a step, a reach.

“Please… let me—let me make it right.”

Caitlyn doesn’t turn. Her voice is dry, almost brittle.

“My mercy isn’t for sale.”

“No, I just—” Vi closes the distance anyway, arms sliding around Caitlyn’s waist, lips brushing the side of her neck, the whisper a ghost of heat. “Don’t be angry.”

A small sound escapes Caitlyn, not quite a laugh, dry, jagged.

“You think skin pays debts?”

“I’ll do anything,” Vi murmurs, the plea barely audible now, mouth still against her skin.

Caitlyn tilts her head slightly, the words falling like ice between them.

“I don’t sell forgiveness. Your hands are useless here.”

Vi holds on tighter, her arms locking around Caitlyn as if she could anchor them both in place. The heat of her breath trembles against Caitlyn’s neck, desperate, coaxing, anything to soothe.

“Don’t… don’t push me away. Please.”

Caitlyn’s eyes close, lashes trembling. For one fragile second, she wants to lean into it, to allow Vi’s warmth to undo the knot in her chest. But the moment is poisoned. Vi broke the role, cracked the mask, reminded them both of what they are.

She inhales slowly, steadying the ice back into her veins. Her hands hover at her sides, fingers flexing

“Cait…” Vi presses her lips harder to her skin, pleading through touch now. “I’ll give you everything. Just tell me what you want.”

The words slice back over Caitlyn’s shoulder, her eyes hard as steel.

“I could almost mistake that fear for devotion.”

She peels Vi’s arms off her waist one finger at a time, and walks away without another glance.

Night settles like a heavy curtain, the city’s distant noise swallowed by thick walls and the stillness of the house. In the bedroom, the dark is oppressive, the silence thick enough to choke on.

Vi lies beside her, staring at the ceiling. She shifts once, hesitates, then finally inches closer, heart pounding with each careful breath. Her lips brush Caitlyn’s shoulder first, tentative, then climb to the slope of her neck. A soft kiss, then another, lingering. She tilts higher, grazing Caitlyn’s mouth, pressing hope into the dark, as though she could stitch the evening back together with the gentleness she has left.

Caitlyn doesn’t move. Doesn’t reject her. Not immediately. Her lips part, her breath catching faintly, a murmur escaping that could be mistaken for approval. Vi breathes deeper, her hands trembling slightly where they hover against Caitlyn’s ribs. For a heartbeat, she believes.

Then Caitlyn’s teeth close on her lower lip, sharp enough to sting, sharp enough to make Vi jolt, her eyes flying open in shock. Pain mixes with the sudden rush of fear, and when her gaze meets Caitlyn’s, the breath stops in her throat. The blue eyes are steady, unblinking, reflecting nothing but cold fire.

“You misunderstand textures, love.” The words are velvet stretched over barbed wire, voice too close, too soft to be anything but threat. “Some things are for me to take, not for you to bargain with.”

Her hand rises and presses to Vi’s chest, a single palm over her heart. The movement is slow but inexorable, pushing Vi back into the mattress. Here, she lies still, the sting on her lip burning, breath shaky with rejection. Caitlyn watches her in the dim light, profile half-shadowed, unmoving. For a long moment it seems she will leave it there.

Finally, she shifts, rolling onto Vi and pinning her to the mattress with the weight of her body.

Her hair spills forward, shadowing her face as she hovers above, looking at the woman she once loved.

Still loves. Perhaps.

Her cheek rests against Vi’s chest, and she listens to her heartbeat beneath her.

She feels the way Vi melts, the way the tightness in her features gives way to something weaker, easier. As if all she had wanted was permission to pretend again. To slip back into their roles, to rest in the comfort of familiarity, to believe for a moment that peace has returned. Caitlyn lets her. She indulges the way Vi clings, the way she tilts her head up as if she has soothed her anger, as if she has won something. It costs her nothing to allow it.

Vi is good company. A balm against the void of silence, a distraction that keeps her nights from being hollow.

But Caitlyn knows the truth, as bright as the ring resting on her finger.

Nothing lasts. The roles will crack again, Vi will falter once more, and the leash will tug. That is the way of things. And beyond this fragile reprieve lies the shadow she has never let go.

One day, the hounds will run again. One day, the leash will snap, and the last Kiramman debt will be paid in blood.

And when that day comes, it will be Jinx’s turn.