Felicity woke to warmth on both sides.
Solid. Unyielding. Alive.
Victor's presence was a wall at her back, broad and steady, his slow breathing a low rhythm she felt more than heard. In front of her, Voss lay half-curled, one heavy arm draped across her waist like he'd decided, sometime in the night, that she might wander off without him. His hand rested open against her stomach, warm and possessive even in sleep.
She didn't move at first.
She let herself exist there.
The vault was quiet in the way only dangerous places ever were, the kind of silence that meant guards were alert and walls were holding. The world outside was still broken. Monsters still prowled. People still starved.
But here, between them, she was held.
Her tail flicked once, slow and content, before reality nudged her awake properly. The cubs. The thought came instantly, sharp with responsibility. She shifted carefully, easing Voss's arm away inch by inch. He grumbled in his sleep, tightening his hold reflexively before relaxing again. Victor's wing twitched faintly behind her, instinctive, as if he tracked her even unconscious.
She slipped free.
Felicity gathered what she could quietly. A small stuffed mouse she'd cleaned the night before, its stitching frayed but intact. Dried fish strips wrapped in wax paper. A little jingling ball she'd unearthed from a supply crate and fixed so it actually chimed.
She balanced it all against her chest and climbed the stairs to the upper landing, heart thudding a little harder with every step.
The broom closet door creaked when she nudged it open.
Inside, the cubs were huddled together in the dark, tails entwined, eyes bright and too aware for bodies that small.
"I brought you something," she whispered.
The silver-furred girl's ears snapped upright instantly. Her nose twitched, and she scrambled forward with a quiet gasp.
"Felly!" she squealed, throwing herself against Felicity's legs. "You came back!"
The boy stayed back at first, cautious, eyes flicking to the doorway. "We thought maybe the bad ones got you," he said, trying to sound brave and failing.
"They didn't," Felicity murmured, crouching. She handed them the water bottle. They drank greedily, passing it back and forth, droplets spilling down their chins. When they finished, the boy looked up at her, eyes far too old for his face.
"You smell scared," he said seriously. "But you still come back."
Her throat tightened.
"I am scared," she admitted softly. "All the time. But I'll always come back for you. Always."
That seemed to satisfy him. He nodded solemnly and tucked the bottle into their little pile of treasures like it was something precious.
The girl hugged her again, fierce and sudden. "Don't go, Mummy."
The word hit like a physical blow.
Felicity froze, then carefully wrapped her arms around the cub, breathing her in. "I'll be back soon," she promised, voice steady even as her heart cracked and stitched itself back together. When she rose, the girl pressed something into her hand.
A chipped marble, faintly glowing.
"For protection," she whispered.
Felicity closed her fingers around it and nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak.
When she shut the door behind her, she leaned against it for a long moment, blinking hard until the sting passed.
She wasn't alone when she turned.
Voss stood at the end of the hall, bare feet silent on the stone. He didn't ask what she was doing. Didn't comment. He just opened his arms slightly, wordless.
She walked into him.
His hold was immediate and solid, one hand settling between her shoulder blades, the other at the back of her head. He rested his chin lightly on her hair, breathing her in like he needed to confirm she was real.
"You okay?" he rumbled.
She nodded against his chest. "They're so little."
"I know," he said. "You did good."
That simple. That final.
When they returned to the vault, Victor was awake, already armored, blade resting across his knees. His eyes lifted the instant Felicity entered, tension easing visibly from his shoulders.
He crossed the room in three strides and touched her shoulder, then her cheek, quick and checking. "You're alright."
She smiled up at him. "I didn't wake you."
"You did," he said calmly. "You just didn't know it."
Four days passed like that.
Motion. Clearing. Guard rotations. Teaching the cubs how to stay quiet, how to signal danger. Felicity moved through it all like a small sun, never loud, never demanding, just… there. Offering water. Checking wounds. Remembering names.
Too friendly, really.
Victor noticed the way she listened when survivors talked. The way she knelt to be eye level. The way she smiled like kindness was something she could ration endlessly.
One night, as they ate, she said quietly, "I was an only child."
Victor glanced up.
"My parents didn't really… like me," she continued, almost apologetic. "They weren't cruel. Just busy. I learned early not to take up space."
Voss's jaw tightened.
"So when people need me," she added, shy but earnest, "I like to help."
Neither man said anything.
Victor reached for her hand under the table and held it.
The next encounter came at dusk.
A group of survivors approached the bank cautiously. Rat beastmen mostly, sleek and twitchy, with a hawk-faced leader whose wings scraped stone when he folded them. Their eyes were sharp. Calculating.
The moment they spotted Felicity, something shifted.
"Snow Team," the hawk said smoothly. "We heard you had resources. And women."
Felicity didn't hide.
She stood straight, tail flicking once, hands clasped in front of her.
Victor stepped forward immediately, presence dropping like a wall. "Leave."
The hawk sneered. "You can't hoard—"
Voss moved.
He didn't strike. He just stepped closer to Felicity, one hand settling at her lower back, thumb pressing lightly like a brand.
"She's not a resource," he said calmly. "She's protected."
The rats retreated fast.
Later, when the adrenaline burned off, Felicity realized she was shaking.
Victor noticed. Of course he did.
He guided her to the stairwell, away from eyes, one hand at her elbow, the other braced on the wall beside her. His body blocked the narrow space completely.
"You did well," he said quietly.
She nodded, swallowing. "I wasn't scared."
"I know," he said. "You should have been."
She frowned slightly. "Oh."
His mouth twitched.
Voss appeared a moment later, filling the stairwell behind her. He didn't crowd. Just stood there, solid, watchful. Felicity leaned back without thinking, resting against his chest.
Both men stilled.
Voss's arms came around her carefully, slow enough she could stop him. She didn't.
Victor exhaled softly, a sound like relief.
"You're allowed to need us," Victor said.
She nodded, cheeks warm. "I do."
Later that night, as the vault settled, Felicity curled between them again, smaller than either, safer than she'd ever been.
Voss draped an arm over her waist. Victor's wing shielded her back.
She slept smiling.
And Snow Team, watching from a distance, quietly adjusted the perimeter.
Because the fox wasn't just precious.
She was theirs to protect.
The confrontation did not end with words.
It never did.
The survivors dispersed at first, muttering and glaring, but resentment didn't evaporate just because Victor had named the consequence out loud. It fermented. Quiet. Mean. Dangerous in the way that only people who believed they were owed something could manage.
Felicity felt it almost immediately.
She noticed it in the way eyes tracked her when she passed the stairwell. In how conversations stopped half a breath too late. In the way hands lingered on crates she was restocking, fingers brushing her sleeve as if by accident.
She tried to be smaller about it.
Tried to smile. To soften things. To help where she could without overstepping the rules Victor had set. When a woman with a torn palm approached her hesitantly, Felicity healed it anyway, carefully, quickly, before retreating upstairs with her heart thudding too fast.
"She's too nice," Rose muttered when Felicity was out of earshot.
Voss agreed silently.
Victor said nothing, which was worse.
The breaking point came that night.
Tommy, bless his heart and whatever damage lived inside it, tripped the alarm.
Again.
Not the perimeter alarm. The internal one.
Metal screamed. Water surged. A heavy clang echoed through the bank like a gunshot. Snow Team was on their feet instantly, weapons forming in flashes of magic and intent.
Victor was already moving when the shouting started.
They found them in the lower vault corridor.
Three beastmen. One of them had Felicity's satchel slung over his shoulder, the strap half torn. The man stood too close to her personal space, one meaty hand lifted as if he'd been about to grab her wrist.
"She said no," Rose snarled, vines already coiling at her feet.
The rat laughed, thin and sharp. "She heals. We just needed to borrow her."
Felicity froze.
Borrow.
Something ugly twisted in her chest. She opened her mouth to speak, to explain, to de-escalate like she always did
Victor didn't let her.
He stepped forward and the room seemed to contract around him.
"That was your warning," he said calmly.
The boar scoffed. "You can't just—"
Victor hit him.
Not with magic. Not with fire or ice.
With his hand.
The impact drove the boar into the wall hard enough to crack tile. He slid down bonelessly, unconscious before he hit the floor.
Silence detonated.
The men bolted.
They didn't make it far.
Voss moved like a shadow tearing itself free from the wall. One disappeared with a sound like air being punched out of existence. The other made it three steps before Rose's vines snapped around his ankles and yanked him upside down.
He screamed.
Tommy panicked.
And flooded the corridor.
Water roared down the hall, slamming the rat into the ceiling hard enough to knock him out cold. Tommy stared at his hands. "I—I helped?"
"Yes," Kai said dryly. "You helped."
The survivors gathered fast after that.
Shouting. Accusations. Fear curdling into outrage.
Victor stood at the center of it, Felicity behind him, Voss and Rose flanking like sentinels.
"This arrangement is abusive," the wolfhound matron shouted. "You don't get to play gods!"
Victor didn't raise his voice. "You broke the rules."
"You're hoarding resources!"
"You tried to take my healer," Victor said flatly.
Felicity flinched at the word.
He felt it.
Victor reached back without looking, his hand closing around hers, grounding and firm.
"She is not a service," he continued. "She is not communal property. She is not leverage. And she is not staying anywhere she isn't safe."
The matron sneered. "And what? You'll kill us all?"
Victor's eyes were cold. "No."
Voss stepped forward.
"You're leaving," he said simply.
The room erupted.
They didn't argue long.
Snow Team escorted them out at dawn.
No executions. No theatrics.
Just doors opening and closing.
The survivors were given food for two days. Water. Directions.
And nothing else.
Felicity watched them go from the balcony, arms wrapped around herself, tail curled tight.
"I wanted to help them," she whispered.
Victor came up behind her, careful, close but not crowding. "You did," he said. "Until they made it unsafe."
Voss leaned against the railing beside them. "Kindness isn't weakness," he added. "But it does attract idiots."
She snorted softly despite herself.
By midday, the decision was made.
The bank was no longer viable.
Too many eyes. Too much resentment. Too much risk.
Sarge rolled up the maps. Kai marked routes. Rose burned what couldn't be taken.
Felicity packed quietly.
Victor found her at the vault door, tying off her bag with clumsy fingers.
"We're heading east," he said. "Coast settlement. Tidehaven."
Her ears perked. "The one with water power?"
He nodded.
She smiled. Small. Hopeful. "Okay."
Snow Team moved out before sunset.
The bank stood empty behind them.
They took the cubs aswell.