Kaid’s POV I felt that the familiar scent of where I am was too familiar.Like…my home. I blink against the dim light overhead. My body doesn’t ache the way it should after that fall. My neck… nothing. No puncture, no pain—except a dull throb at my back, like something is lodged deep under the skin. And I’m human again and fully clothed. A slow, sick realization curls in my gut. I push myself up from the bed and finally look around. It’s my childhood room. an exact replica. The uneven stack of books in the corner. The hairline crack above the desk where I used to throw a ball against the wall. Even the faded wolf plush sitting at the edge of my pillow. I remember falling into the pit. I remember darkness. So how the hell am I here? A sound cuts through my thoughts. heavy thuds from outside the door. My heart kicks, hard. Mother. I’m on my feet before I can think, pushing the door open. And there it is. The nightmare. My father, one hand twisted in my mother’s hair, sl
Kaid’s POV They call it a forest, but the trees here don’t breathe. Even the shadows feel programmed, as if someone’s watching and adjusting them to make you twitch at the wrong moment. If they think this place will break me, Mr. X has another thing coming. That trap back there… If I hadn’t moved when I did, the bullet would’ve been in me instead of sizzling into the bark. I can smell the scorch still clinging to my arm. I don’t like being part of anyone’s game. But if that’s the board we’re on, I’ll play to win—and I’ll break the board before I’m done. We move through the fake forest. Every root, every flicker of shadow, every gust of wind were all just distractions. When you’ve been trained to be a soldier, you stop reacting to the noise. You only react to what matters. Don’t these higher-ups know who we are? We were made in fire, broken down and rebuilt until even pain became just another sound in the distance. This? This is a playground. Thane’s voice cuts through,
Elizas POV Still at Tyla’s secret bunker, I’d been working faster than I thought possible. Every hour counted now. The adaptive suit project was no longer a slow-burn engineering dream but a survival mandate. Tyla’s bunker had more than just food storage and backup power; she’d shown me the research and development room at the far wing of the bunker. Apparently, her parents weren’t just paranoid about the world ending—they’d prepared to rebuild it if it did. It wasn’t cutting-edge like my father’s lab, but it had enough. The air here smelled faintly of machine oil and solder, a scent that settled me. This was my element. The original adaptive suit had gaps. Weak points I’d been painfully aware of since the day it took damage at that factory. This time, there would be no weak points. No compromises. As in the weak points should be less than 20 percent. Quin had been helping where she could, running system checks, handing me tools before I even asked. Tyla, was useful too. “You
Thane’s POV They didn’t make it easy for us. I recall the moment the guards came with those collars, we all knew there was going to be a fight. None of us were built to submit quietly, and we didn’t take well to leashes. Literal or otherwise. We gave them more than they bargained for, but in the end, they had numbers, and they had the collars. The moment that cold band of metal locked around my throat, I felt the surge. My muscles seized, my vision blurred, and the world narrowed to a tunnel of pain. Even then, I clung to consciousness just enough to keep track. They covered our faces before dragging us out. I couldn’t see, but I could listen in my unconscious state. I knew we’d been taken to an entirely different building the moment I had felt the vibration beneath my feet shift. We were in a vehicle, moving. They’d gagged us as well, though not entirely for security. Ryker had spent the first half of the trip throwing every insult he could conjure at our captors, each one s
Priscilla’s POV I lay back against the silk sheets, the low hum of the vibrator filling the room. Two days had passed since Selena went to meet Kaid, convinced she could twist his head into believing she was his fated mate. Pathetic. My breath hitched as I imagined her face when he inevitably looked at her the way he always did—like she was something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of his feet. I knew it hadn’t worked. How could it? Aria was the fated mate to all four of them. Selena was an annoyance, not a contender. The first wave of pleasure began to build in me, curling low in my stomach. I let my eyes slip shut, indulging in the thought of her failure. I expected her to come storming back, spitting venom, desperate to salvage her pride. I expected the tantrum, the screaming, the drama she was so well known for. Instead, she returned calm, almost smug, claiming her “plan” had worked. I nearly laughed. The lie was so obvious it was almost insulting. She was too afraid to ad
Kaid’s POV I sat in the cold, white box again. Selena’s perfume still lingered on my skin, faint but enough to make my jaw clench. She Thought my weakness was a door she could kick open. She was wrong. Even with the collar burning me from the inside, I found the strength to drive my foot into her chest, hard enough to send her sprawling. I didn’t care if she broke something. I hoped she did. Now I was back here, sitting on the smooth floor, my back to the wall, breathing slow to keep the rage from spilling over. Across from me, Thane’s voice broke the silence. “What happened?” I didn’t lift my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Caspian’s voice came from directly across my cell, light and teasing as always. “You look like you just came back from war.” I didn’t answer as I looked at them. Thane, from the cell beside his, leaned forward so I could see the calm steel in his eyes. “You’ll have to tell us, Kaid. We need every piece of information we can get if we’re going to