chapter 1

2:30 AM.

The thirty-sixth floor of the National Advanced Genetic Engineering Laboratory was sterile and dead quiet, save for the low, rhythmic hum of the centrifuge.

Cold white LED lights cast a ghastly, clinical sheen over the metallic operating table, making it look like a slab in a morgue.

The air reeked of high-concentration ethanol, the faint organic tang of culture media, and the bitter, singed smell of overheated circuit boards.

Evelyn leaned back into her ergonomic chair, the sleeves of her lab coat rolled up to her elbows. Her dark brown hair was held up loosely with a cheap plastic claw clip, a few stray strands clinging to her pale, sweat-chilled cheeks and neck. Her eyes, bloodshot from sleep deprivation, were pinned to the holographic display floating before her.

On the screen, billions of base pair characters cascaded down at a dizzying speed—ATCG combinations flashing like a digital torrential downpour.

"You've officially lost your mind, Evelyn."

Footsteps squeaked against the dust-free tile floor behind her.

Carl walked over holding two paper cups, slamming a steaming cup of dark roast coffee onto the edge of her console. The rich, bitter aroma momentarily cut through the chemical stench of the room.

"You haven't left this room in seventy-two hours." Carl glanced down at the screen, his eyebrows instantly knitting into a tight scowl. "If the project lead finds out you rerouted the supercomputer's entire computing power just to run sequence alignments on a non-coding region... they'll revoke your security clearance on the spot."

Evelyn didn't even blink. Her fingers flew across the holographic keyboard, inputting a complex string of algorithmic commands that zoomed in on a three-dimensional DNA double helix.

"Cut the crap, Carl. Come look at this." Her voice was rasping and dry from dehydration and sheer exhaustion, but her tone carried an unsettling, unyielding edge of absolute clarity and obsession.

Frowning, Carl leaned in for a closer look.

Right in the center of the screen, nestled within what should have been a smooth, uniform DNA strand, sat a bizarre, geometric bulge. It didn't look like anything created by natural evolution. It looked forced—like a piece of unnatural code hard-coded into the biological script.

"Human chromosome seven. Non-coding region." Evelyn pointed at the strange anomaly, her pupils blown wide. "I pulled and cross-referenced over two thousand two hundred human whole-genome samples. Caucasian, Asian, African—hell, even three-thousand-year-old remains pulled from Arctic permafrost. Every single one of them has it. Word for word. Base for base."

"Probably just an unidentified intron, or maybe remnant junk DNA from an ancient retrovirus..." Carl took a sip of his coffee, trying to offer a textbook explanation.

"It doesn't encode any known protein, and it doesn't participate in RNA splicing. But that's not the scary part." Evelyn cut him off, bringing up another set of cross-species genomic comparison results. Red warning banners instantly began flashing wildly across the holographic interface.

"I ran it against the global bio-gene database. It shares zero homology with any living organism on Earth—from single-celled fungi to blue whales. Yet, its integration rate with human DNA sits at a staggering 99.97 percent."

Evelyn turned her head, her dark eyes locking onto Carl with a manic intensity that sent a sudden, cold shiver down his spine.

"Nature didn't build this, Carl. It's like... tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago, someone programmed a lock into the very core of human souls."

Carl's face paled as he took a step back. "That breaks every ethical protocol in the book, Evelyn. What are you planning to do?"

"I'm using the third-gen CRISPR cassette to snip it out." Her finger was already hovering over the activation key of the microfluidic injector, where the glowing blue vector fluid vibrated gently inside the incubation trough. "I want to see what happens when the lock is undone."

"Don't do it! That's insane!" Carl yelled, reaching frantically for the emergency kill switch. "You haven't even run animal trials—"

"Too late."

Without a second thought, Evelyn slammed her palm down on the enter key.

The next instant, blinding light erupted from the glass incubation tank! The moment the gene fragment was cleaved, it defied all laws of thermodynamics, rapidly replicating and expanding like a hungry, living parasite!

BZZZZT—!

The laboratory lights instantly blew out. Red emergency strobes spun crazily overhead, their piercing alarms shattering the dead night.

The data on the screen collapsed into a chaotic blur of light. The space at the center of the incubation tank buckled inward, reeking of ozone and ionized air. A microscopic black vortex tore open in midair, whipping out tentacles of luminescent blue light that violently enveloped Evelyn.

"Evelyn!" Carl's terrified scream sounded like it was coming from under miles of water, warped and impossibly distant.

A horrifying weightlessness hit her, accompanied by an agonizing pain that felt as if her soul were being ripped apart atom by atom. Right before her consciousness drowned in pure, blinding white, one final, cold, precise biological conclusion slammed through her mind—

That wasn't a defect in human DNA.

It wasn't a mutation.

It was a doorway.

Agony.

It wasn't the abstract, disembodied tearing force of spatial collapse, but a raw, brutal, suffocating pain.

An iron grip was crushing her windpipe, choking the oxygen out of her lungs until her ears roared with the violent rushing of her own blood.

Evelyn snapped her eyes open.

Instead of the sterile white LED panels of her lab, she was staring directly into a pair of blood-red, non-human eyes.

The golden slit pupils were pinpricks of pure malice, the whites laced with a violent, spiderweb pattern of dark purple veins. The creature radiated unadulterated primal rage.

A man—or rather, something far wilder than a man—had her pinned down against a freezing, damp stone slab.

He radiated a suffocating heat, thick with the metallic stench of fresh blood, wild sweat, and a heavy, male hormone scent mixed with crushed pine needles.

Matted, silver-grey long hair fell around her cheeks, caked with dried blood. Atop his head, a pair of plush wolf ears twitched violently, flattened back against his scalp in pure aggression. His upper lip pulled back, revealing long, razor-sharp fangs hovering less than an inch above her carotid artery. His hot, ragged breaths hit her skin, smelling faintly of iron and heat.

Evelyn's brain went completely blank from oxygen deprivation.

Then, a tsunami of foreign memories crashed through her mind with violent force—

[FLASHBACK]

Inside an opulent, sickeningly lavish imperial palace.

A young woman dressed in an expensive lace gown—bearing an identical face to her own—sat high upon an ornate golden throne, smirking down at a kneeling silver-haired man.

Around the man's neck was a heavy, titanium collar lined with inward-facing spikes. The sharp metal pierced deep into his flesh, streams of crimson trailing down his muscular collarbones and soaking his tattered armor.

The girl held the heavy iron chain attached to the collar in her delicate, manicured hand.

"Look up, General Gareth," the girl giggled, her voice sweet yet sickeningly cruel. "Weren't you the unstoppable 'Wolf King' on the Northern Front? Why can't you even lift your head now?"

The man clenched his teeth so hard his jaw muscles bulged like iron. His knuckles turned white as his fingers dug into the marble floor, shattering his fingernails as blood seeped out.

"Kneel properly," the girl ordered, resting her crystal stiletto heel on the back of his head, stomping down and grinding him into the floor. "Lick the spilled wine off the floor. Do it well, and I might loosen your collar by a notch today."

The man's body spasmed with profound humiliation, every muscle strained to its breaking point. But for the sake of his thousands of imprisoned kin, he slowly bent his prideful spine, pressing his forehead flat against the cold stone.

The girl burst into delighted laughter, digging her heel deeper into his scalp until it bled.

[END FLASHBACK]

A violent wave of nausea hit Evelyn's stomach.

She remembered. Everything.

Celine Esergard.

The twenty-four-year-old "false princess" of the Esergard Empire—a sadistic, spoiled tyrant who ruled with an iron fist, using gene-toxins and slave collars to enslave five of the continent's most powerful beast-kin leaders, turning them into her personal playthings.

And she, Evelyn, a twenty-first-century molecular geneticist, had just transmigrated into the body of this monster.

And right now, she was pinned beneath Gareth—the Snow Wolf King whom Celine had tortured relentlessly for three years.

Her right hand felt something heavy and metallic.

It was a high-pressure medical injector, half-empty.

The needle was still embedded in the thick muscle of Gareth's neck. Inside was a concentrated, synthetic heat-inducing agent.

The original Celine had broken into his cell in the dead of night, intending to force herself on him while he was in heat to harvest his prime wolf-kin genetic material to boost her own power.

"Fuck," Evelyn swore inwardly.

This wasn't just a bad start—it was an execution sentence.

Gareth's body felt like burning iron, so hot it practically scorched her skin. His veins bulged violently across his defined chest, tiny beads of blood oozing from his pores. The aphrodisiac was brutally ravaging his nervous system, dragging him into the depths of a feral, mind-shattering heat.

"You... filthy human bitch..."

Gareth's voice was a guttural, bloody rasp, each exhaled breath fanning hot, metallic air over her skin.

His fangs grazed the delicate skin over her pulse point. He was trembling violently—a harrowing war fought between primal beast instincts and absolute, unadulterated hatred.

"You think... you can force me... into rut... to steal my power? You're dreaming..."

Murderous rage flickered in his bloodshot eyes, yet he fought it.

The spikes on his collar sparked violently, sending electric shocks through his neck, yet he used every ounce of his terrifying willpower to hold back, his fangs hovering millimeters from snapping her neck in half.

"What new game... are you playing now... Celine?!" he growled through blood-flecked teeth.

Evelyn's heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.

In her past life, she had handled deadly pathogens and chaotic genetic mutations on a daily basis. The one thing she possessed in abundance was absolute, clinical composure in the face of death.

Panic was useless. It would get her throat ripped out in less than a second.

She slowly relaxed her right hand.

Clatter.

The metal syringe slipped from her fingers, hitting the damp stone floor with a sharp ring that echoed through the dark cell.

Gareth's pupils narrowed to razor slits, his wolf ears instantly pinning back—he was braced for a trap.

Evelyn didn't make a sudden move. Slowly, deliberately, she raised her left hand, avoiding his line of sight as she reached around his massive, scalding shoulder toward the base of his skull.

"Don't... touch me!" Gareth let out a low, dangerous snarl, his fangs puncturing her skin just enough to draw a thin bead of crimson.

"Your neural nodes are experiencing a genetic overload," Evelyn said. Her voice wasn't Celine's high-pitched, mocking whine. It was quiet, steady, and clinical.

"The drug is a synthetic androgen. It targets your central nervous system. If I don't lower your temperature in thirty seconds, your cerebral cortex is going to cook, and you'll turn into a mindless, rabid animal."

Gareth spat out a dark, mocking laugh, his lips curling into a feral, bloodthirsty snarl.

"You... care about me?" he rasped, his voice dripping with venom. "You psycho bitch..."

"I just don't want a prime specimen dying on top of me," she retorted coldly. "And I don't intend to be mauled by a brain-dead dog."

Her fingers pressed firmly onto the specific junction between his third and fourth cervical vertebrae—the critical nerve cluster responsible for regulating body temperature and rut responses in canine beast-kin.

Gareth stiffened, his instincts screaming at him to tear her head off!

Yet, her fingers didn't dig in to inflict pain like Celine usually did. There was no cruel pressure, no malice.

Her touch was shockingly precise, calm, and soothing.

Using her knowledge of beast anatomy, she applied rhythmic, circular pressure along the sides of his spine, channeling the faint, residual imperial magic in her body to soothe his frayed nerve endings.

Gareth froze.

The drug was still raging like wildfire through his veins, demanding satisfaction, urging him to claim and destroy.

Yet, the cool, steady pressure at the back of his neck felt like a drop of ice water falling directly into the center of an inferno.

"Nnn..."

A low, choked sound—half pain, half involuntary relief—escaped the back of his throat.

The feral madness in his eyes flickered. His rock-hard muscles shuddered, beginning to unlock despite himself.

His fangs slowly pulled back from her throat, though his full, heavy weight remained pinned against her. The fever rolling off him drenched both of their clothes in sweat.

"What... did you... do..." Gareth panted heavily, his long silver hair spilling over his face.

Evelyn didn't answer. Her fingers moved with steady precision, working through every tension knot at the base of his skull. She could feel his wild, erratic heart rate slowly leveling out.

However, as the lethal wave of neural heat subsided, the remaining aphrodisiac took a darker, far more primal turn.

"Ah..."

Gareth suddenly dropped his head, burying his face heavily into the crook of her neck!

"Gareth?!" Evelyn gasped, her spine instantly going rigid.

He didn't bite.

Instead, driven by a raw, overwhelming rut instinct, his sharp fangs pressed hard against the delicate skin above her collarbone, leaving a deep, dented imprint that welled with faint beads of blood.

His hot, heavy breaths washed over her sensitive skin. His massive hand tightened around her waist, his grip so fierce it felt like it might snap her ribs. His hips pressed forward, hard and unyielding, the thick, erect length between his legs thrusting blindly against her thigh through thin fabric.

It wasn't an attack. It was the desperate, needy possessiveness of an alpha beast driven mad by heat, clinging instinctively to the only source of relief he had ever known.

The dark cell filled with the sound of their ragged breaths. The scent of sweet moon-blossom perfume clashed with the heavy, musky scent of wolf sweat and male arousal, thick enough to choke on.

Evelyn grit her teeth, enduring the crushing weight and the hard, intimate pressure against her hip, keeping her hand steady as she continued to stroke the soft fur behind his ears.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Gareth's violent panting softened.

The crimson flush faded from his slitted eyes, revealing the icy, clear grey-blue beneath.

Realization slammed into him like a physical blow.

With a horrified, gut-wrenching gasp, Gareth shoved himself off her body!

The sudden movement jerked his heavy metal collar, sending sparks flying as the spikes ripped into his neck again. Blood spurted, but he didn't make a sound. He scrambled backward into the farthest, darkest corner of the cell, curling his massive frame into a ball.

His silver wolf ears flattened against his head in shame and fury, his shoulders shaking as he hid his face, letting out ragged, tortured gasps.

Evelyn sat up slowly on the cold stone slab, her clothes torn and disheveled, her collarbone carrying a deep, bloody bite mark.

She lifted a finger, wiping away a drop of blood that had fallen from his lips onto her skin, and looked at it.

Real blood.

Real beast-kin DNA.

This wasn't a nightmare.

Celine Esergard.

A sadistic tyrant holding five of the continent's most powerful beast kings in chains—the Wolf King, the Mer-Prince, the Black Dragon, the Nine-Tailed Fox High Priest, and the Storm Lord Griffin.

And now, Evelyn was stuck in her shoes.

She turned her head, looking at the broken, proud figure trembling in the dark corner.

"The debts Celine owes you..." she whispered to herself, her dark eyes flashing with cold determination.

"I'll make sure they get paid in full."