로그인Around us, the screaming crowd still cheered for our execution.
"Target locked," the lead Vanguard synthesized.
Just as the beast coiled to spring, a blast of heavy metal music tore through the air. From a darkened alleyway to our left, a modified tactical transport, the one we’d ditched three blocks back, screeched onto the sidewalk, tires smoking.
Viper was hanging out of the passenger side, a massive, shoulder-mounted Ion
The dopamine surge was a tide, pinning me to the velvet seat of the armchair while the world outside the Vance Estate ceased to exist.Caspian was hovering in the narrow space between my knees, his hands moved from my shoulders to the delicate lace of the choker. His touch was electric, not because of affection, but because the micro-receivers in my spine were translating his physical touch into a reward."You look so much better like this," Caspian whispered, his breath a warm ghost against my lips. He leaned in closer, the scent of his expensive, sterile cologne filling my senses."No questions. No defiance. Just... mine."He moved with a slow, agonizing possessiveness. His hand slid down my spine, tracing the hard ridges of the implants beneath my skin, and I let out a broken whimper that the programming registered as pleasure. I was a puppet of my own biology. As he tilted my head back, his finge
The armored sedan pulled into the garage of the Vance Estate.I stepped out first, my gown tattered at the hem, my silver eyes scanning the perimeter for threats that no longer existed. I stood by the door, waiting for Caspian."Get her to the drawing room," a voice boomed from the elevator bank.Silas emerged from the shadows, his face a mask of cold, controlled fury. He didn't look at me; he looked at his brother, who was stepping out of the car, shakily adjusting his ruined tuxedo."Now, Eloise," Silas commanded.I moved instantly, my heels clicking against the polished concrete. Caspian followed, casting a nervous glance at Silas.Inside the drawing room, the tension snapped. Silas turned on Caspian before the doors had even fully shut."She failed, Caspian!" Silas’s voice was a whip-crack."Sterling is aliv
My HUD shrieked with a rapid-fire sequence of threat assessments. Cane was standing in the center of the stage, his hands open, his chest heaving. Behind him, the Senator had collapsed against the podium, his eyes were wide with shock."Senator! Get down!"The roar came from the rafters. Viper swung down on a tactical cable, his boots hitting the stage with a heavy thud. He didn’t level his weapon at the Senator; instead, he stepped in front of the old man, his electrified batons humming with a defensive blue light. Torin followed, a massive red blur that landed in a protective semi-circle around the podium.The Senator scrambled backward, his hands shaking as he looked at the feral, scarred warriors who had just crashed through his ceiling. For a heartbeat, he saw them as the "monsters" the General had described. But as Viper looked back, his gaze was desperate and human."We&
I stood in the shadows of the upper mezzanine, my back pressed against a marble pillar.My vision was a layered reality. The biological baseline of the room, the heat of two thousand bodies, the sound of the air conditioning, was overlaid with the Aegis HUD. Red pulses identified the exits. Blue outlines highlighted the security details.And in the center of it all, glowing with a target’s golden hue, was Senator Arthur Sterling.Caspian stood three feet to my left, his look was sharp and elegant. He wasn't looking at the Senator. He was looking at me, his eyes dancing with the pride of a sculptor admiring his finest work."Do you see him, Eloise?" Caspian’s voice was in my ear."The man who wants to take us apart.""I see him," I replied.
When my eyes finally opened, they met the soft glow of morning light filtering through velvet curtains.I was lying on a bed, the sheets were silk, and I was dressed in a matching nightgown that felt like a spider’s web.Then, the pain hit.It was a dull thrumming at the base of my skull, going down my spine. My head felt heavy, as if my brain had been taken apart and put back together with stitches. I tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea rolled over me, accompanied by a flickering static in my vision.I reached back, my fingers trembling as they touched the skin at my neck. It was smooth, yet I could feel the faint, hard ridges of something embedded deep beneath the surface. My memories were shredded. I remembered a pair of golden eyes that made my heart ache with a phantom longing. But the more I tried to grab those threads, the more they dissolved into a fog.I knew the
We bypassed the surface world entirely, entering a sprawling subterranean tunnel system that required three separate biometric scans before the final titanium gate hissed open."Step out," a voice commanded.It wasn't a man; it was a Vanguard soldier, still in his shifted, hybrid form, his blue optics tracking my every movement.They didn't treat me like a prisoner of war; they treated me like a biohazard. I was stripped of the blue silk rags and the tactical suit beneath, scrubbed down with chemical disinfectants that burned my skin, and forced into a grey, sleeveless tunic.Then came the brand.A technician in a hazmat suit approached with a pneumatic needle."For the collar," he muttered.He drove the needle into the base of my skull, injecting a series of micro-receivers directly into my vertebrae. The pain was a white-hot spike that
For forty-eight hours, the bunker had been a battlefield for Cane. I had watched Cane’s body seize, his muscles rippling in spasms as his natural healing factor fought the serum my father had engineered.By the second night, the sweating struggle subsided. The swelling in Cane’s chest receded, and
Behind us lay the construction site, but ahead, the Southern District’s main drainage stretched out like the throat of a beast, wet and echoing.Cane didn't move immediately. He stood by the Wraith, his hand resting on the handlebars, his amber eyes cutting through the gloom. The scars on his chest
The sun hadn't even thought about rising when the roar of an engine shattered the silence of the shipyard. I was already awake, sitting by Cane’s side, watching the slow, rhythmic pulse of the blue toxin beneath his skin. It was fading, but the cost was visible; he looked thinner, his power dormant
I sat on the edge of my bed, the clock on the nightstand ticking toward eight o’clock. Just a few more hours before the grid would go dark in the Rust Belt."You’re a freak, Eloise! You hear me? A delusional, violent freak!"The voice came through the thick door, muffled but sharp with hate. Isabel







