All Chapters of Desires And Captivity: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

On the deepest levels of the Nest, the air was not only cold but heavy with the stench of metal and fear. This place bore no resemblance to the upper living quarters. There were no crystal lamps, no soft furs—only bare, damp stone and the distant, nerve-grinding hum of generators.Nathan walked beside me. His body looked calm, but through the Bond I felt the murderous fury coiled tight inside him. His wings were folded close to his back, yet the tips of his feathers twitched now and then, like a bowstring drawn to its limit. Behind us came Regnar and two guards in heavy armor, their footsteps echoing down the narrow corridor.“Are you sure you want to see this?” Nathan asked quietly, without looking at me. “Rodriguez won’t be a pleasant sight. Vako’s people have already begun their work.”“I have to see it,” I replied, surprised by the hardness of my own voice. “He watched every minute I spent in that lab. He was the one scribbling notes while I fought for

The inner corridors of the Nest—once symbols of safety and belonging—had become a labyrinth of death. The sight of the hybrids crawling out of the walls surpassed every nightmare I had ever known. They were nothing like Nathan or Jake; there was no dark elegance in them, no predatory grace born of ancient power. These were abominations—twisted fusions of flesh and metal, sustained by artificially forced demonic essence that pulsed like a sick heartbeat beneath torn skin.“Abigail, don’t look!” Jake shouted as he shoved Sadira behind him and parried the first hybrid’s strike with his dagger.But I couldn’t look away.One of the creatures—its arm replaced by a humming hydraulic blade—dropped from the ceiling onto a fleeing demon. The scream was sharp and mercifully short. Something inside me hardened. The fury that had been boiling ever since Rodriguez’s interrogation froze into a cold, unshakable resolve. I tightened my grip on my dagger. The runes etched i

Within the walls of the Nest, the silence that followed the battle was not the quiet of peace, but the hush of exhaustion. The screams had faded from the corridors, replaced by the distant, monotonous hum of generators and the heavy, methodical footsteps of cleanup crews as they cleared rubble, blood, and the remnants of violence. The mountain itself seemed to be catching its breath.Behind the massive, intricately carved doors of Nathan’s private quarters, however, a different world waited.The air inside was thick with the scent of pine resin and musk, warm and grounding, layered with the crackling heat of the fireplace. Orange firelight danced across dark marble walls, softening sharp edges and shadows alike. It felt removed from the chaos outside—as though this room existed slightly out of time, sheltered from the war gathering beyond the stone.Abigail sat on the edge of the enormous stone-carved bath, her bare feet brushing against the cool rock. The

The steam of the bath swirled in thick, heavy ribbons around us, creating a ghost-white sanctuary that effectively walled us off from the rest of the world. Within this humid cocoon, the echoes of the Great War, the screams of the dying, and the crushing weight of the responsibilities awaiting us at dawn ceased to exist. There was no Council, no rebel hybrids, and no political machinations—only the immediate, searing reality of the present. Nathan’s tongue and lips moved with the painstaking precision of an artist, a cartographer mapping out every tremor, every hitch in my breath, and every hidden pulse point of my body.As I lay there, draped over the cool, hard marble edge of the bathtub, partially submerged in the cooling water and partially exposed to the chilled air of the suite, the boundaries of my identity began to dissolve. The world had shrunk to a singular point of focus. All that remained were the intoxicating, cloying scents of crushed jasmine and sandalwood, the rh

The humid air in the suite slowly cooled, but the tension pulsing between Nathan and me did not fade, it only changed shape. I lay there among the silk sheets of the enormous bed, with Nathan beside me, his wings wrapped around me as if he wanted to shield me from every bit of filth in the outside world. My body still burned from his touch, its marks still on my skin, but my mind was already beyond the walls.“They will not stop, will they?” I asked softly, resting my head on his chest. “Rodriguez’s superiors. Now that the situation of the Nest has become known, hybrids will not be enough for them.”Nathan’s fingers slid into my hair, and I felt his muscles tense.“No. To the military, we are not living beings, we are resources. But they made a mistake, Abigail. They thought they could break us with their inhibitors and their machines. They did not count on the Core regaining its light, and they did not count on you.”I lifted my head and looked into his eyes.“What do you want to do?