Chapter 9

The air still reeked of ozone and burning metal when I tore myself out of the ruins. My lungs screamed, my hands bled, but the cold rush of night was freedom. I stumbled through the fractured landscape—steel bones of the facility jutting from the dirt like a carcass. Every nerve buzzed with the ghost of Kael’s power. I could still feel him. Watching. Waiting. Hunting.

Rain began to fall, cutting through the smoke in silver lines. I dragged my body forward, half-running, half-crawling through the debris until my feet hit asphalt. The world outside felt foreign—too open, too alive. Neon lights glimmered faintly in the distance, blurred by mist. I was free, but nowhere felt safe.

A sound split the silence behind me—a low, mechanical hum. My pulse spiked. Drones. Human ones this time. Their red eyes swept across the wreckage like predators searching for a scent. I dove into a culvert, pressing myself into the mud as the searchlights passed inches from my face. The air trembled with their energy beams. I closed my eyes, whispering a silent command to the power inside me—hide, please, hide. And for once, it obeyed. The light shifted away.

I waited until the night swallowed their glow before crawling out again. My reflection in a puddle startled me: wild hair, blood at the corners of my mouth, and eyes—not entirely human anymore. Gold ripples pulsed beneath my irises. Whatever I had become, it was evolving faster than I could understand.

The city loomed ahead. Broken billboards flickered above cracked streets. I walked, hood pulled low, my every step echoing with fear and fury. They had turned my life into an experiment. Kael had made me a weapon. And yet... something deeper whispered beneath my rage. A pull. A call toward something I didn’t yet remember.

As dawn crept in, I reached the outskirts—a district long abandoned after the wars. Rubble and silence. Until movement caught my eye. A figure stepped from the shadows, cloak drenched, eyes sharp as blades. My heart stuttered.

“Aria.” The voice was calm, almost familiar. “You survived.”

I froze. “Who are you?”

He smiled faintly. “A friend. One who’s been waiting a long time for you to wake up.”

The air thickened. His scent hit me then—wolf, faint but undeniable. My instincts screamed both warning and recognition. I took a step back. “You’re one of them.”

“One of us,” he corrected softly. “Kael isn’t the only one who knows what you are.”

I clenched my fists. “And what am I, exactly?”

His gaze flicked to the horizon where the first light bled through the storm clouds. “The end... or the beginning.”

Before I could respond, a low rumble rolled through the air. Explosions, far off but growing closer. The earth trembled beneath us. He grabbed my wrist. “We need to move. Now.”

We ran through the ruins, the dawn light turning the smoke gold. Every sense in me screamed with tension. I didn’t know if I could trust him, but I didn’t have a choice. The sound of approaching engines grew louder—the humans were coming again, their machines tearing through the streets. We ducked into an old subway tunnel just as a drone beam scorched the ground behind us.

Inside the darkness, the man finally stopped. “There’s a safe house not far from here. We can regroup.”

“We?” I hissed. “I don’t even know your name.”

He hesitated, eyes unreadable. “Call me Riven.”

Something in the way he said it twisted my gut. A lie—or a half-truth. But exhaustion won. I followed him deeper underground, my pulse slowing only slightly. The tunnels smelled of rust and secrets. As we reached a sealed door, Riven turned, his expression shifting into something colder.

“I didn’t lie when I said I’ve been waiting for you,” he murmured. “But I never said it was by choice.”

Before I could react, his hand shot out, pressing against the steel. The door sealed behind me with a clang. Light flared along the walls—sigils. Traps.

“Riven!” I shouted, slamming my fists against the door. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer. His silhouette faded into the smoke. And then Kael’s voice came through the intercom, calm and cruel.

“Welcome back, my Luna.”

The lights turned blood red. The cage began to hum again. My freedom had been an illusion.

And this time, I wasn’t sure if I could survive it.