CHAPTER 52: FOLLOW MY HEART OR MY HEAD

Eleanor’s POV

I stared, my mind struggling to catch up. Become a... a registered rider? For the Serpent’s Kiss? The track that was now a haunted, monster-infested sacrificial ground? They couldn’t be serious.

Meanwhile, a wave of pure, predatory excitement crashed over me from Beatrice. Yes! Finally! A real hunt! I can’t wait to feel their bones snap and tear their shadowy flesh apart!

Her bloodlust was so vivid it made me feel nauseous.

Mira voiced the exact panic I was feeling. "You can’t be serious. We don’t have a single ounce of experience with anything like this! We wouldn’t be able to help; we’d just get in the way."

Keith’s gaze was unnervingly calm. "That’s not entirely accurate, Miss Mira. The only person here with no experience is Miss Eleanor."

My head snapped toward Mira. She could drive a car, sure. But race?

Mira’s face had gone pale. "That... that was a very long time ago," she said. She was refusing to meet my eyes. "I’m not that person anymore. I won’t be as good as I was."

A very long time ago? What was she talking about? The pieces weren’t fitting together.

"You can be trained," Keith stated, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "And Miss Roxy can help with that. You will benefit greatly. The more rogues you kill, the more money you earn." He gestured around us. "Furthermore, this apartment belongs to you. This one, and two others like it in this estate."

Roxy didn’t hesitate. "I’m in." Of course she was. This was probably her idea of a perfect life.

Beatrice was practically howling with glee at the prospect, but my own fear was a cold, hard knot in my stomach.

The more rogues they kill, the more money they earn? They were offering us apartments in this luxurious estate? It was too much.

I had to refuse. I couldn’t do this. "I... I won’t be able to do it," I said, my voice small but firm.

Keith simply adjusted his approach. "You don’t have to worry about it clashing with your personal assistant duties. We can reassign that title."

That wasn’t the point. "I don’t want another job," I insisted, shaking my head. "I’m sorry to disappoint, but I can’t."

A heavy silence fell over the room. I braced for an argument, for pressure, for a display of the power I knew they wielded so easily.

But it was Kieran who spoke, his tone surprisingly light. "It’s no problem," he said, a charming, easy smile on his face that didn’t quite reach his intense blue eyes. "Whenever you change your mind, you know where to find us."

With that, they stood. Keith dropped a set of files on the table—contracts, I assumed—and without another word, the three brothers turned and left the room, the door clicking shut behind them with an air of finality.

The three of us were left in stunned silence. Then, Roxy let out a low chuckle and reached for the platter of treats, popping one into her mouth. After a moment, Mira hesitantly did the same, her movements slow and thoughtful.

"If this isn’t the best news I’ve heard all year, I don’t know what is," Roxy said around a mouthful of food before chugging down a glass of water.

"You just love how dangerous it is, don’t you?" Mira asked, her voice quiet.

Roxy grinned. "It comes with a lot of compensation."

I turned to Mira, the question that had been burning inside me finally spilling out. "Mira... do you really know how to race?"

She didn’t look at me, her fingers fiddling with something under her shirt. "When I was in senior high, all the way through university... I was in a racers group. A proper, underground one." She finally met my gaze, her eyes shadowed with something I couldn’t name. "But it’s been too long. I didn’t tell anyone because... it’s not a part of my life I really want to remember."

As she spoke, I noticed her grip tighten around the necklace she always wore hidden beneath her clothes.

"You have to join, Eleanor," Roxy stated flatly, wiping crumbs from her lips.

"Why?" I asked, the word sounding weak even to me.

"Don’t you want to learn how to control yourself?" she shot back, her gaze sharp. "Or do you want what happened at the Serpent’s Kiss to happen again? In the middle of a supermarket next time?"

The image she painted sent a fresh wave of ice through my veins.

"Roxy, don’t push her," Mira interjected, her voice gentle but firm. "Her entire world just got turned upside down. It’s going to take time for her to adjust."

"We don’t have time," Roxy countered, her frustration evident. "If she goes all white-eyed and terrifying in public, surrounded by humans, they won’t lock her up. They’ll demand her head."

She is right The memory of that cold, ancient fury was a stain on my soul. "It happened because I let Beatrice, my wolf, take control," I admitted quietly. "I was scared, and I gave in."

"I understand you didn that to protect yourself. That’s exactly why you need to do this," Mira said, turning to me with a soft, understanding look. "If you want to prevent that, you have to learn how to be in control with your wolf, not just hand her the reins. A wolf’s primal urges are powerful, and yours... Beatrice hasn’t been trained for years. It’s going to be difficult to find a balance." She gestured around the lavish, empty apartment. "And you know you can’t go back to your old apartment. We need the protection, the resources. What if someone else comes for revenge?"

I let her words sink in. Everything she said was logical. It was all terrifying, but it made sense. My old life was gone, shattered the moment i realized what i was.

Mira placed a hand on my arm. "I won’t pressure you. You still have the right to refuse. But for now," she said, offering a small, weary smile, "can you at least eat? These treats aren’t going to eat themselves."

Looking from her concerned face to Roxy’s impatient one, I felt the resistance inside me crumble. I was exhausted, scared, and utterly lost. But I wasn’t alone. With a slow, shaky nod, I reached for a treat from the platter and followed their lead.

***

The rich food sat heavily in my stomach as I stared at the contract, the dense legal text blurring before my eyes.

Mira was curled in an armchair, quietly reading her copy, while Roxy was reading her and still eating at the dining table.

Just sign it, Beatrice grumbled, a constant, restless pressure in the back of my skull. I want to run. I want to hunt. I want to rip up skulls and bones

Her primal urge was a stark contrast to my own swirling anxieties. Roxy was right; I was terrified of losing control again, of becoming that white-eyed vessel of destruction in a crowd of innocent people.

The thought of being hunted, captured, or executed was a cold knot of dread in my chest.

And yet... a tiny, stubborn part of me, the part that had spent years dreaming over racing magazines was screaming that my dream was right here. In this insane, monstrous package, was a chance to do what I’d always fantasized about.

So what was I so scared of?

Failure.

It was always failure. In my studies, when a concept didn’t click, I’d get frustrated, cry, then get back up and push through because I was passionate about it. I loved the challenge. But this? This was different.

Failure here didn’t mean a bad grade. It meant death. Or worse, getting someone else killed. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to get back up from that.

My heart hammered a frantic, hopeful rhythm: Go for it. You won’t be alone.

My head retaliated with cold, hard logic: This is a suicide mission. You’re not a racer.

The internal war was exhausting. The words on the page swam together, and my eyelids grew heavy.

The stress of the day all crashed down on me at once. I drifted off to sleep right there on the long couch, the unsigned contract slipping from my fingers.

**

I was jolted awake by the shrill, insistent ringing of my phone. The screen was still cracked from the night’s chaos. Groggily, I stretched to grab it from the table.

"Hello?" My voice was thick with sleep.

The shout on the other end brought me fully, painfully awake.

"So you finally decided to answer! You choose to be ignorant and selfish, blocking our numbers!" It was my father, his voice vibrating with a familiar, cold fury.

My heart sank. "Why are you calling me?"

"Why? You ask me why? I haven’t forgiven you for what you did to Priscilla, or to her fiancé! We know what you did to him because he kept refusing your advances. Do you know she had to beg Dickson not to report you to the authorities for publicly harassing him!"

The memory of that day flashed behind my eyes. "You never even asked for my side of the story,"

"There’s video evidence, Eleanor! There is no ’your side’!" he roared. "If you don’t want to be arrested, you will get your behind down to Priscilla’s wedding today and apologize. I wouldn’t have called you, but she insisted. She wanted you there. I can’t believe she still wants you here after everything you have done to her. You should be grateful you haven’t been arrested for attempted murder!"

My father’s voice was a relentless hammer in my ear, each word designed to break me down. But as he shouted, a cold clarity settled over me.

Of course Priscilla wanted me there. It was never about family harmony or forgiveness. It was about having a captive audience for her favorite pastime: my public humiliation. She wanted me there as the shamed, disgraced sister, the spectacle to be pitied and whispered about.

A hot surge of the same defiance that had made me slash a trafficker’s face and leap across a city alley flared inside me. I would have refused. I would have told my father to take his threats and his favoritism and shove them.

But I couldn’t.

The video. If it got out, it wouldn’t just be my reputation. A scandal like that, a public harassment charge... it would reflect badly on the Vexxon company. After they had just saved me from a legal nightmare, I couldn’t drag their name through the mud.

"I’ll be there," I said, my voice flat, cutting through his tirade. Before he could recover and launch into another round of verbal assault, I added, "And if you keep screaming like that, you’re going to get old faster."

I didn’t wait for a reply. I ended the call, my thumb moving swiftly to block the new number he’d used.

I was going to that wedding.

But the Eleanor they were expecting wouldn’t be showing up. Priscilla wanted a spectacle of shame? Fine.

But she wouldn’t be the one directing it. Not this time. I didn’t know how yet, but I would walk into that lion’s den and I would not let them tear me apart.