Aurora's POV
"You're wrong," Catherine said, her voice low and even. "They didn't teach me obedience. They taught me how to scale."
She stopped an arm's length away from me.
Up close, her presence was overwhelming. Not chaotic. Not unstable. It was focused, honed, refined into something that could cut cleanly through anything it touched.
The convergence responded to her immediately.
Not because she commanded it.
Because it recognized her.
"You see people, their faces, names and even how they bond."
Her gaze flicked briefly to Stefano, standing rigid at my side, his hand tight around mine, grounding me even as his own power bristled beneath his skin.
"But I see systems," she said. "Structures that keep rebuilding themselves no matter who bleeds inside them."
"You think I don't?" I demanded. "You think I haven't watched the entire packs rot from the inside out because someone decided the ends justified the means?"
