LOGINELARA'S POVMaybe somebody was reminding you that your work isn't finished yet.The words landed somewhere deep in my chest, and something clicked in my head. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a small shift, like a key turning in a lock I didn't know existed.I didn't say anything. I just looked at him.He looked back at me.Both of us held eye contact for a long moment, and I could feel my brain working, wheels turning, pieces moving into place that I hadn't even realized were scattered on the board.The precision. The inside knowledge. The timing. The way the bodies were arranged. The way the patterns matched mine so perfectly that it couldn't be coincidence.It couldn't be coincidence.My eyes widened.He saw it happen. I watched him watch me figure it out, and then he smiled. Just a little. Just enough.Then he walked toward the door."No fucking way."The words came out as a whisper-scream, barely controlled, as I slapped my forehead.It's…..He walked out of the bathroom and st
ELARA'S POV The meeting stretched deep into the night without producing anything useful enough to satisfy anyone in the room.Hours passed beneath cold lighting and growing exhaustion while reports continued piling across the table faster than answers did. Investigators moved in and out carrying folders, photographs, witness statements, incomplete timelines, surveillance records with entire sections missing, and still every new detail somehow led nowhere.The victims had disappeared from different parts of the city.None of them had traveled together.None of their security teams remembered seeing anything unusual before contact was lost.No vehicles had been tracked entering or leaving the industrial district during the estimated window of death. Nearby traffic cameras had glitched at overlapping intervals. Street surveillance had either been wiped entirely or corrupted beyond recovery, and the few remaining clips showed nothing except empty roads and static interference.It was lik
ELARA'S POV “The killer has struck again.”The words didn’t make sense.For a moment, I genuinely thought the Beta had called the wrong person, because my mind refused to connect the sentence to reality in any logical way. I stood there beside the bed staring out at the dark ocean beyond the glass doors while confusion moved slowly through me, heavy and cold and disorienting.That was impossible.I hadn’t killed anyone.Not yesterday. Not before leaving. Not in a long while.Behind me, Kael slept peacefully beneath white sheets, completely unaware that somewhere back home, bodies were apparently being laid at my feet.My fingers tightened slightly around the phone.“What do you mean the killer struck again?” I asked quietly.The Beta answered immediately, but there was something strange buried beneath his usual composure. Just the faintest trace of tension threading through his voice like a wire pulled too tight.“Ten bodies were discovered less than an hour ago near the eastern indu
ELARA'S POVI didn't remember falling asleep. One moment I was lying in the dark with his arms around me, staring at nothing, and the next thing I knew, the light outside my window had shifted from black to gray and my body felt heavier than it should have, like someone had poured something warm and thick into my bones while I wasn't paying attention.His arm was still around my waist, heavy and possessive even in sleep, and his chest was warm against my back. I could feel his heartbeat, slow and steady, pressing against my spine like a countdown I couldn't escape.I turned my head carefully, not wanting to wake him, and found him already awake. His eyes were open, watching me, and there was something soft in his face that I hadn't seen in a long time. Wonder, almost. Like he was seeing me for the first time and couldn't quite believe what he was looking at.He smiled when our eyes met, small and private, and I felt something twist in my chest that I didn't want to name."Good mornin
ELARA'S POVI came back to myself slowly, the way you surface from deep water when you're not sure you want to breathe again. The room was dark, the curtains drawn tight against whatever light existed outside, and for a long moment I didn't know where I was or how I had gotten there. My body felt heavy, pinned to the mattress by something thicker than exhaustion, and my mouth was dry in a way that told me I had been asleep for hours without meaning to be.Then I heard the whispers.Small voices, urgent and high, cutting through the fog in my head like little knives. I blinked against the darkness, trying to make sense of the shapes hovering near my bedside, and slowly the blur resolved into faces I knew better than my own."Mama." Lucan's voice was thick with something that sounded like fear. "Mama, wake up."Zev was holding my hand, his small fingers wrapped around mine so tightly I could feel his nails pressing into my skin. His face was pale in the dim light, his eyes wide and wet
ELARA'S POVBy the time I stepped out of the bathroom, the world inside my head had gone quiet again.Not peaceful. Never peaceful.Just controlled.The kind of control that came when you locked every feeling in a box, nailed it shut, and buried it somewhere deep enough that even you couldn't reach it anymore. Human beings love calling that healing. It isn't. It's survival wearing makeup.Steam still clung to my skin as I stood in front of the mirror wrapped in a robe, staring at my reflection.My eyes were swollen from crying. The dark circles beneath them made me look hollowed out, haunted. There were bruises fading along my throat, fingerprints blooming yellow and green against pale skin like flowers rotting beneath the surface.I touched one lightly.My reflection stared back at me.Weak.Broken.Pathetic.A slow breath left my lungs."No," I whispered.I straightened.No more shaking. No more crying on bathroom floors. No more lying awake replaying his hands around my throat whil







