By morning, the world had made a joke out of her.
Nora sat on the floor of the Ark with her back against the couch and her phone in both hands.
The screen glowed like an accusation.
A clip.
Kaelen on one knee.
Her hand lifted.
His freeze.
The way the air changed when she spoke.
Someone had cut the audio and replaced it with music.
A pop song.
A beat drop timed to his kneel.
Text slapped across the video in neon font:
LEASH QUEEN.
Under it, a thousand comments.
> mommy said STAY 😭
>
>
> girl has DLC control
>
>
> is she the disaster or the solution?
>
>
> can she leash my ex too
Nora's stomach turned.
She swiped.
Another edit.
This one slowed down Kaelen's eyes as they lifted to her, framed it like romance.
Caption:
SAY HIS NAME AND WATCH HIM BREAK.
She swiped again.
This one wasn't funny.
A thread of still frames.
Zoomed in on her face.
On the blood at her nostril.
On Kaelen's jaw.
On Rix's grin.
Someone had circled her in red like prey and written:
FOUND HER.
Under it: a pin dropped on a map.
A coordinate.
Not exact—but close enough to make her skin go cold.
"They're triangulating," Zane said.
He was crouched in the corner with his laptop open, fingers moving fast over keys Nora couldn't see.
In the light of the Ark, he looked less like a ghost and more like a man who'd forgotten how to sleep.
His outline flickered at the edges anyway—like the world wasn't sure it still wanted him.
"They already were," Nora said.
Her voice was sure.
Her hands weren't.
The Ark windows were covered, but she could still hear the city.
Drones buzzing like insects.
A distant chant.
A car horn that wouldn't stop.
And under it all, that hum she'd learned to recognize—attention.
The world's attention felt like teeth.
Kaelen stood by the kitchen counter, arms braced, head bowed like he was trying to keep the ceiling from collapsing.
Kaelen's hands were braced on the counter like he was holding himself back by force.
Nora set her phone facedown beside him. "Look at me," she said—not the command, just the request.
Kaelen's gaze lifted. Hot. Controlled. Miserable.
"You're bleeding," Nora said.
"I'm not," he lied.
She found the tiny first-aid kit in her junk drawer and took his wrist. Kaelen went rigid—every instinct screaming at him to claim, to pull her closer.
He didn't. He let her hold him.
Nora cleaned the thin cut on his knuckle with an alcohol wipe. Kaelen hissed, then swallowed it.
"Still," Nora murmured, and watched the word settle into him like a sedative. His shoulders dropped a fraction.
From the couch, Rix stopped pacing long enough to smirk. "Domestic."
"Quiet," Nora shot back.
Rix's grin widened. "Yes, ma'am."
Zane appeared by the sink like he'd always been there, placing a glass of water within Nora's reach without a sound. He didn't touch her. He didn't touch Kaelen. He just made sure the room had what it needed.
Nora took one sip, then held the glass toward Kaelen. He leaned in and drank—careful not to brush her fingers, like he was afraid of breaking the permission.
Nora's pulse stuttered anyway.
Zane's gaze flicked to her wrist. "Your heart rate is spiking," he said softly.
"I know," Nora answered.
Kaelen's jaw clenched. "I can leave."
"No," Nora said, immediate. "You can *stay*. And you can learn."
The word hit him like an offered collar. Kaelen lowered his head, almost imperceptible.
Nora finished the bandage and tapped the tape with one finger—tiny, ridiculous, intimate. "Good," she said.
Kaelen shuddered like the word had weight.
Rix sighed theatrically. "You give him *that* and I get 'quiet'."
Nora didn't look at him. "You get what you earn."
Rix's eyes brightened—delighted. "Dangerous."
Her phone auto-resumed a stupid pop song from the last scroll. A beat drop, bright and careless.
Nora smirked despite herself. "Kneel," she said lightly. Like a joke.
Kaelen froze—then lowered to one knee on her kitchen tile, eyes locked on her like he was asking if this was real.
Nora's breath caught. She didn't touch his hair. She just rested her hand on his shoulder for one second.
A reward.
Then she pulled away before sweetness turned into hunger.
Rix called it domestic, Zane called it metrics, and Kaelen looked at her like she'd just taught him a religion.
Zane's phone vibrated. His eyes narrowed.
"We're being tagged," he said.
And the room snapped back to war.
The day after a fight was always the worst.
His heat hadn't dropped since the garage.
Even with distance, the air around him shimmered.
He looked… controlled.
But Nora knew better.
Blood. Guns. Threats.
All of it pressed his triggers like fingers on bruises.
Rix paced.
Not walking—stalking.
Barefoot, silent, too fast in the small space.
Every few steps he'd stop and sniff the air like the Ark itself had offended him.
"They're close," he said.
His gaze flicked to the door.
His lips pulled back slightly.
Not a smile.
A warning.
"They're talking outside."
Nora's phone buzzed again.
Another notification.
Another share.
Another stranger making a game out of her life.
Zane closed his laptop with a soft click.
"We disappear," he said.
He didn't look at Kaelen or Rix when he said it.
He looked at Nora.
At her face.
At the shadow of purple under her eyes.
At the dried blood she'd missed on her upper lip.
"I can wipe your trail," he continued. "New IDs. New face if you want. New Ark. No camera. No map pin."
The offer sounded like safety.
It also sounded like a coffin.
Nora swallowed.
"And then what?" she asked. "We run forever?"
Zane's jaw tightened.
He didn't like being questioned.
Not because he needed control—
because his whole existence was already slipping.
Running meant fading.
Fading meant he'd become a rumor even in his own head.
Kaelen's voice cut in, flat and brutal.
"We don't run," he said.
He didn't turn.
He didn't need to.
The heat of him filled the room like an opinion.
"We end it."
Nora's stomach clenched.
"You mean—"
"Yes," Kaelen said.
No softness.
No hesitation.
"If they come for you, I kill them."
Rix laughed, low and pleased.
"Finally," he said. "We hunt."
He licked his teeth like the idea had flavor.
Nora looked at the three of them.
Vanish.
Murder.
Predation.
Three roads, all leading away from her.
Away from the life she'd been trying to keep intact.
She lifted her gaze to the whiteboard on the wall.
The rules she'd written in marker, messy and stubborn.
RULE ONE: DON'T TAKE MY SPACE.
RULE TWO: ASK.
RULE THREE: DON'T MAKE ME PERFORM.
She stared at Rule Three until the marker bled into meaning.
Performing was what the world wanted now.
They wanted her to say the words again.
They wanted Kaelen to kneel again.
They wanted to watch her bleed and call it power.
They wanted a leash.
Nora pushed herself to her feet.
"No," she said.
All three men stilled.
Even Kaelen's heat felt like it paused.
Nora walked to the whiteboard and picked up the marker.
Her fingers shook once.
Then steadied.
"We're not disappearing," she said.
Zane's eyes narrowed.
"We're not killing random civilians because they're idiots online," she continued, meeting Kaelen's gaze before he could argue.
Kaelen's jaw flexed.
"And we're not giving them a show," she finished, looking at Rix.
Rix's grin faded into something sharper.
"So what?" Zane asked. "You let them find you?"
Nora capped the marker, then uncapped it again, because her hands needed something to do.
"I make rules," she said.
Kaelen's head tilted slightly.
He understood rules.
Rules were the only thing between him and slaughter.
Zane's expression went blank.
Rules were a trap.
A structure.
A way to control a world that didn't want to be controlled.
Rix's eyes gleamed.
Rules were a leash.
And he liked leashes, when they were hers.
Nora wrote on the board, in big letters:
ARK PROTOCOL — UPDATED.
Under it, she added:
1) IF YOU WANT ACCESS, YOU ASK.
2) IF YOU THREATEN THE ARK, YOU LOSE THE PRIVILEGE OF BREATHING NEAR IT.
3) NO PUBLIC COMMANDS WITHOUT A PRIVATE PLAN.
4) MY BODY IS A RESOURCE. WE SPEND IT LIKE MONEY. NOT LIKE WATER.
Her marker squeaked on the last line.
Nora swallowed hard.
"Like money," she repeated, forcing the phrase into reality. "We don't go broke."
Kaelen's gaze softened a fraction at the word body.
Not lust.
Worry.
The warlord in him didn't know how to protect something fragile without wrapping it in fire.
Zane stepped closer.
"So what's the plan?" he asked.
Nora turned.
"You," she said, pointing the marker at him, "scrub what you can. Flood the net with false leads. Make my pin useless."
Zane's eyes sharpened.
Purpose steadied him, too.
"And you," she said to Rix, "you patrol the perimeter. Not outside—inside the building. Smell anything off, you tell me. You do not eat anyone."
Rix's lip curled.
"Not even a little?"
"No," Nora said. "Not even a little."
Rix looked like he wanted to argue.
Then he inhaled, slow, at her throat.
His pupils flared.
"Fine," he muttered, voice rough. "But if they bleed—"
Nora lifted one finger.
"Rule," she reminded him.
Rix swallowed.
Obedience, offered.
Not as clean as Kaelen's.
But real.
Nora turned to Kaelen last.
His eyes were on her hands.
On the faint tremor.
On the dried blood.
"What do you need from me?" he asked.
Not a demand.
A request.
Nora's chest tightened.
That was new.
She walked closer until she could feel the heat of him without being burned.
"Restraint," she said.
Kaelen's throat worked.
The word tasted like pain in his mouth.
Nora reached up and placed her palm on the back of his neck.
He flinched—then leaned into it like he'd been starving.
Heat surged into her hand.
It hurt.
A deep ache, like her bones had become hot metal.
She didn't pull away.
Kaelen's eyes half-lidded, relief dragging him down from the edge.
"Stay," she whispered.
Not a command.
A promise.
Kaelen exhaled, long and shaking.
"Always," he said.
Behind her, Zane made a sound—soft, almost nothing.
Jealousy didn't look dramatic on him.
It looked like the room dimming by a degree.
Nora didn't turn.
She reached one hand back, blind, and caught Zane's wrist.
He stiffened.
Her fingers wrapped around him like an anchor.
"Don't fade," she said quietly.
Zane's breath hitched.
Then his wrist warmed under her grip, solidifying.
"Not if you're holding me," he murmured.
Rix watched the whole exchange with a predator's patience.
Then he stepped closer, sniffed Nora's hair, and growled under his breath.
"He smells like fire," he said, accusing.
Nora rolled her eyes despite herself.
"Congratulations," she said. "You discovered noses."
Rix's lips twitched.
Then his gaze slid to the faint smear of blood on Nora's finger from last night.
His pupils widened.
A low sound rose in his chest—too animal.
He reached for her—
Nora lifted her marker like a weapon.
"Ask," she said.
Rix froze.
His throat worked like he was swallowing a snarl.
Then, rough and reluctant, he said, "May I… keep you?"
Nora stared at him.
He meant it.
In his world, scent was law.
Being without her scent was madness.
She exhaled and tugged her hoodie off the chair.
She held it out to him.
"You can keep this," she said. "For now."
Rix snatched it like a lifeline.
He buried his face in the fabric, inhaled hard, and visibly calmed.
Kaelen's gaze narrowed at the gesture.
But he didn't move.
He held.
Because she'd given him a different reward.
Because she was still touching him.
Because the Ark was still hers.
The phone on the floor buzzed again.
Not a notification this time.
A call.
Nora stared at the screen.
OFFICIAL LINE — MERCER.
She answered without standing.
"Mercer," she said.
His voice came through clipped and controlled.
"You have a problem," he said.
Nora's mouth quirked. "So do you."
A pause.
Then: "Your location is compromised. Crowds are forming. We can relocate you."
Nora glanced at her rules.
"Ask," she said.
Another pause. Longer.
Then, like the man's pride was being forced through a grinder:
"We request you relocate temporarily."
Nora's smile sharpened.
"Denied."
Mercer's breath flared over the line.
"You can't—"
"I can," Nora said. "Try harder."
Silence.
Then Mercer spoke again, voice colder.
"Tomorrow," he said, "there will be a public pacification event. Religious outreach. You will attend."
Nora felt the room tighten.
"Required?" she asked softly.
Mercer hesitated.
Just long enough to confirm everything.
Then, carefully:
"We request your attendance."
Nora closed her eyes.
Religious outreach.
A sermon.
A smiling saint on a screen.
A new kind of leash.
She opened her eyes and looked at the men in her Ark.
"No," she said.
Not to Mercer.
To the world.
"Tomorrow," she said into the phone, voice steady, "you negotiate."
And she hung up before he could answer.