Before Sylvia could start running away with her phone, the device rang.
She looked down.
Tom Lancaster ❤️
Her brain stopped.
The name sat on the screen with the calm violence of a military declaration, and Sylvia, who had previously believed herself capable of responding to emergencies with dignity, simply stared at it as if the phone had grown teeth.
Rina took advantage of Sylvia’s momentary confusion, her genetics as an alpha, and the training that came from being one of Arion’s siblings.
She plucked the phone from Sylvia’s hands and answered before Sylvia could rediscover movement.
"Hello, Toooom," she said in the sweetest tone possible.
Sylvia’s soul left her body.
On the other end of the line, there was a pause.
"Princess Gregoriana," Thomas said, his voice dry and very clearly irritated that it was not Sylvia on the phone. "Can I ask why you are calling me that and where Sylvia is?"
"Oh, this hurts my soul." Rina placed one hand over her chest, looking personally wounded. "You don’t like me enough for a nickname?"
"No."
Sylvia, who had started reaching for the phone, froze.
Rina’s eyes widened with delight.
The brutal simplicity of the answer had pleased her.
Which meant Sylvia was doomed.
"Well then." Rina started to distance herself from Sylvia, who recovered just enough to lunge after her phone. "It doesn’t matter. I will date Sylvia too."
Sylvia made a strangled sound.
Thomas went silent.
The silence of a commander receiving an unexpected battlefield development and deciding which part of it needed to be eliminated first.
Rina’s smile sharpened.
Sylvia pointed at her with both hands, mouthing, Stop.
Rina did not stop.
Rina had never stopped anything in her life when continuing was funnier.
"Princess Gregoriana," Thomas said slowly.
"Yes, Thomas?"
"Do not."
"Oh." Rina’s eyes brightened. "So there is a nickname boundary, but there is also a Sylvia boundary?"
Sylvia clutched the back of the sofa for support.
"Rina," she hissed.
Rina waved at her.
Thomas’s voice dropped slightly. "Is Sylvia beside you?"
"Beside me, behind me, around me. She is very fast when panicking, but I am an alpha and tragically superior in short-distance phone theft."
"Give her the phone."
"No."
Sylvia stared at her. "Rina!"
Thomas’s silence became colder.
Rina looked delighted.
She wandered around the sofa, forcing Sylvia to circle after her like a deeply humiliated moon orbiting a chaotic planet.
"You know," Rina said, "she was overthinking your short replies."
Sylvia stopped.
Her entire face went white.
Then red.
Then a shade of horror rarely found outside state disasters.
"Rina."
Thomas said nothing.
Rina continued because she had no mercy and too much royal immunity. "She thought you were losing interest because you reacted to everything but did not write first."
Sylvia covered her face with both hands.
"I am going to move to another continent," she whispered.
Thomas’s voice came quieter now. "I was in meetings."
"Yes, I told her that," Rina said cheerfully. "But you know how it is with new love. It can easily fizzle out." She wanted something very clearly, and that was to see how jealous Thomas Lancaster could get.
Sylvia covered her face with both hands.
"I am going to haunt you," she whispered.
Rina ignored her with the bright confidence of someone who had royal immunity, alpha blood, and no respect for emotional privacy.
"And Sylvia is very sweet," she continued, strolling farther away as Sylvia followed her around the sofa with increasing despair. "Very pretty. Very attentive. Very easy to steal if someone leaves her emotionally unattended."
Thomas did not answer.
The silence changed.
It was not colder this time.
It was still.
So still that even Rina’s smile sharpened with interest.
Sylvia lowered her hands slightly. "Rina, stop."
"Oh, don’t worry," Rina said into the phone, her voice turning soft and falsely generous. "I would be very good to her. I would write first. I would send flowers. I would take her to dinner. I would never leave her staring at a heart reaction for two days, wondering if the strongest commander from Rohan had lost interest or simply forgotten how language works."
"I did not forget," Thomas said.
Sylvia closed her eyes.
There were several ways a person could die of embarrassment, and apparently she was determined to sample all of them before sunset.
"No?" Rina asked sweetly. "Then what happened?"
"I was busy."
"With meetings," Rina said.
"Yes."
"And Sylvia was busy imagining you had emotionally retreated to a military bunker."
"I did not retreat."
"Oh?" Rina leaned against the back of the sofa, eyes bright. "Then advance."
Sylvia’s soul, which had only recently returned to her body, left again.
Thomas went quiet.
Rina waited.
Sylvia stared at her in horror, one hand still half-lifted, as if she could physically stop whatever disaster Rina had just thrown into the air.
Then Thomas said, very calmly, "Advance?"
Rina’s smile widened.
It was not soft anymore.
It was bright, reckless, almost feverish, the type of smile that appeared on people who had found a sleeping beast and decided, for reasons no sane court would approve, to poke it with a jeweled stick.
"Yes," she said. "Advance. Unless Rohan commanders only do that with maps."
Sylvia’s mouth fell open.
"Rina."
Rina’s pulse was visibly alive in her throat now. She was enjoying this.
She had the sharp, electric look of someone who had just discovered that Thomas Lancaster, the man half the royal circle called the Bolder because his face had the emotional range of granite, could be made to crack.
And Sylvia was the crack.
Thomas’s silence sharpened.
Sylvia felt it through the phone, through the room, through her own ribs.
"I am not discussing Sylvia with you," he said.
"Oh, but you are," Rina whispered. "You called. You are still on the line. And you sound very interested in whether I am standing close to her."
Sylvia’s heart stumbled.
"Rina, give me the phone."
"In a moment."
"No, now."
Thomas’s voice dropped. "Princess Gregoriana."
Rina’s smile flickered.
Adrenaline, not fear.
"Oh," she said softly. "There he is."
A sound came from outside.
A firm knock against Sylvia’s door.
Sylvia froze so completely that even her thoughts stopped.
Rina turned toward the door, eyes wide with delighted disbelief. "You’re fast."
Sylvia looked at the phone. "I never told you where I live."
Thomas’s voice came through the speaker, low and controlled.
"Your driver reported your safe arrival. Princess Gregoriana’s security is in the corridor. It was not difficult."
Another knock.
Sylvia’s face burned.
Rina slowly handed her the phone, grinning like she had survived a battle and won a kingdom.
"Sylvia," Thomas said.
She swallowed. "Yes?"
"Open the door."