LOGINAuthor's NoteHi, lovely readers! 💕Some of you noticed that a few chapters were repeated. I'm so sorry for the mix-up, and thank you for your patience. It's all been fixed now.To make sure you don't miss anything, please go back and continue reading from Chapter 170. Thank you so much for sticking with me and this story. Enjoy! 🥰With love,Cherish***Five’s POV I woke up and immediately regretted it.The light through the curtains was doing something aggressive and personal. I pressed my face into the pillow and held very still, hoping that if I didn't move the inside of my skull would stop feeling like it was slightly too large for the outside of my skull.It did not stop.The fully memory from last night hit me. I groaned, my cheeks heating up. I turned over carefully.He was gone.The chair was empty, the room quiet, the morning already well underway from the quality of the light.I didn’t know the feeling that settled in my chest.I couldn’t recognize if it was disappoi
Five's POV "I like being around you," I confessed. He looked at me. Shit Stop it alcohol. "Even though I shouldn't," I continued, despite my warning to the alcohol. "Because you're the King and I'm a slave and the mornings are still mornings." I pressed my lips together. "I like it anyway. That's your fault." "Is it," he agreed quietly. "And I like—" I stopped. "Go on," he urged. I looked at him. At the face that was too attractive and the scent that was too good and the voice that had called me in a dark room and handed me back something I had never known I had. "I like it when you—" I stopped again. He waited. With that patience of his — already knowing that waiting produced things pushing bever did "When we—" I started. "I know," he said. "I was going to say it," I pouted. "I know," his voice was amused. "I love it," I clarified. "When we — you know. The—" I gestured between us with the hand that wasn't pressed against his desk for stability. "A
Five's POV I was drunk. Seven had shown me a secret alcohol hideout spot. Getting caught in this condition would lead to the secret hideout not being so secret. But I was drunk. And I wasn't thinking straight. So I twisted the handle. I barely took a step in before a knife was pressed to my neck. My hands came up instinctively. "It's just me," I slurred. "It's me, your mate." A pause. The knife disappeared. A hand closed around my wrist and pulled me fully into the room, the door clicking shut behind me, and then I was standing in the dim light of his study with Lucien looking at me with an expression that was cycling through several things very quickly. "What—" he started. "Hi," I greeted. He stared at me. "You're drunk," he accused, a hint of surprise in his voice. "I'm not," I denied with a scoff. "You are," he insisted. "You're listing slightly to the left." I looked at my feet. Then straightened deliberately. "Better," I said. Something
Seven's POV She looked at me with uncertainty, considering it. I gestured with my hands, urging her. Then she lifted the bottle and took a careful sip. Her face did several things in quick succession. The first was surprise. The second was something between offense and confusion. The third was the specific expression of someone whose body had received information it was still processing. "That's—" she started. "Awful," I agreed pleasantly. "At first." "It burns," she coughed. "Yes." "Why would anyone—" "Keep going," I urged. She looked at the bottle. Looked at me. Took another sip. This one slightly longer. I watched her face — the burn arriving, the same offense, and then underneath it, slowly, something else. Something that started in her expression and moved outward into the set of her shoulders and the quality of her breathing. Warmth. The non-power kind. "Oh," she said. "Yes," I agreed. "That's—" "I know," I hummed, satisfied. Sh
Seven's POV Midnight came slower than usual. Or maybe I was just paying more attention to it. I lay on my bed in the dark, listening to the citadel settle into its night rhythms — the distant change of guards, the sound of the east corridor emptying itself of the last set of footsteps. Beside me, Five was doing the same thing. I could tell by her stillness. "Now?" she murmured. "Two more minutes," I hummed, fighting back my smile. She exhaled. I watched the thin bar of corridor light under our door. It stayed steady. Then the distant lamp at the corridor's end went out and the bar disappeared and the room was fully dark. "Now," I sat up. . *** The lower east corridor was the oldest part of the citadel's inhabited section. The stones here were different from the upper levels — rougher, set without the precision of the later construction, the ceiling lower, the air carrying that particular combination of cold and age that accumulated in places that had been
Seven's POV I didn't trust the King. But I trusted Five, and I trusted that she knew exactly what she was doing. "So what's the next plan?" I asked, watching her steadily. She shrugged. "We simply wait. Our goal is to dismantle the system that has enslaved us, but we don't know the how yet." She walked toward the window. "Now, we wait for another opportunity to gather allies, and we wait to see how the King intends to aid us." Wait. I nodded. Wait for the King. "Have you heard anything?" She asked, her voice smaller. I knew without needing her to elaborate what she was talking about. My heart clenched. "Nothing about Fifty," I answered. She nodded. But I could see the stiffness in her posture, could sense that guilt she carried around. It was the same one I felt. "She's going to be alright," I reassured, needing to believe it as badly as her. "She's tough." She turned. And looked at me with an expression I didn't see on her often. Not the careful man
549’s POV"You’ll never return to us." Twelve’s words echoed in my head. The dread tinged with melancholy made it sound more like a sentencing than a prediction. I stood on the far end of the line, my gaze on the floor, my shoulders squared, chest pushed out—just the way we were taught. My body
549’s POV“What’re you doing?” I whispered. She didn’t respond, just kept the gun pointed at me with steady hand.Her eyes were fixed on me, cold and calculating. “Answer me!” I snapped, my throat feeling raw, my head starting to pound. “You can’t leave this place.” She finally responded, her vo
549’s POVIt was time. For the first time, I wasn’t clad in a white dress. I wore a black trouser and a black turtleneck top. It felt… thrilling, like my first real act of rebellion. I was getting out of here with my friends. We’ll find other humans, find that paradise I’d dreamed of. We’ll be
549’s POVI curled up in my bed, my head heavy, my throat sore from crying. The higher ups would punish me for not looking after myself. But I couldn’t bring myself to care. Not when everything was crumbling around me, not when my fate had been sealed. I hated it, hated the breeding facility, th







