Lahat ng Kabanata ng Moaning For The Enemy: Her Sister's Betrothed Alpha : Kabanata 81 - Kabanata 90

DARIUS’S POVThe silver in my blood wasn't just a glow anymore; it had mutated into a fever, a living fire that felt like liquid mercury rushing through my veins and turning my heartbeat into a hammer hitting an anvil inside my chest. It was a suffocating, glorious heat, and I stood in the middle of the hall with my boots planted firmly on the cracked marble, staring at the mercury pit in front of us as it bubbled like a pot of boiling oil, looking hungry enough to swallow the entire world and still ask for seconds."A mistake?" I said, the words scraping against my throat and sounding sharper than they ever had before, like metal grinding against stone in a way that made the air feel thin. "I’ve been called a lot of things by people who are now six feet under, Iris, but I don't do mistakes. I do results, and I usually do them with a body count."I didn't even have to look at Iris to know she was shaking, because the Union meant her pulse was running through my own veins like a second

DARIUS’S POVMy head was screaming, and though the Union was supposed to make us one, right now it felt like a grenade had gone off in the center of my brain. I looked at the woman trembling in my arms, and then I looked at the woman standing by the door, and the sight was enough to make my blood turn to ice.Same hair, same green eyes, and the exact same lethal curve of the lip.The one by the door held the ledger like it was a holy relic, and she looked at me with a cold, mocking pity that made the silver in my veins feel like lead."Darius," the Iris in my arms whispered, her hand clutching my chest so hard I could feel her nails through my shirt. "That’s not me. You can feel me, right? You can feel the link."I looked down at her, and I could feel her heart hammering against my own, but when I looked at the other Iris, I felt the exact same thing. The heartbeat was synchronized and the silver resonance was identical, making her a perfect copy right down to the very edges of her so

DARIUS’S POVBeing human again was like waking up with a hangover that lasted a lifetime, but the one thing the Council couldn't take was the way my body reacted to hers. Even in a damp hole at the edge of the world, having her pressed against my back while she worked on that glass of water was enough to make me forget we were about to die.I kept my hand over hers, my thumb tracing the pulse in her wrist. It was steady. Sharp."Twenty seconds," Iris whispered. Her voice was clinical, the tone she used when she was about to bankrupt a rival. "When the pulse hits the water, the frequency is going to short out the torch-fittings. The stones in this palace are reinforced with silver filaments. They’ll carry the charge straight to the door lock.""And what happens to us?" I asked, leaning down so my lips brushed her ear. I felt her shiver, a small victory in the dark. "Do we get a nice tan, or do we fry along with the security system?""We stay low," she said. She turned her head, her gre

Darius's I was basically a walking disaster as we hit the border, and the whole place was covered in those super bright floodlights that cut through the mountain fog like a giant neon scar on the dark trees. We were hiding about three miles away in this stolen truck that smelled like old oil and bad decisions, and honestly, the truck was so old and crappy I was surprised the engine hadn't just exploded yet. I sat there with my hands shaking on the steering wheel, trying to act like I wasn't terrified, but every time I looked at the wire fence ahead, I felt like a literal prisoner waiting for the end.My body felt like it had been thrown into a giant commercial blender because even though the silver was finally out of my system, my joints still felt like they were sparking and snapping every time I moved an inch. I was totally human now, which was super annoying and felt way too weak and vulnerable, but the way my skin burned wherever Iris touched me was way more intense than any weir

DARIUS’S POVThe penthouse didn't exist on any city register. It was a glass-walled ghost perched on top of a midtown skyscraper, accessible only by an elevator that required a biometric scan Marcus had somehow faked for us. When the doors slid open, the air was crisp, smelling of expensive sandalwood and the high-altitude chill of the city night.I didn't look at the art on the walls or the sleek, minimalist furniture. I looked at the bed. It was a massive, low-profile slab of obsidian wood draped in sheets of charcoal silk that shimmered under the recessed lighting."Marcus has decent taste in bribes," I muttered, my voice echoing in the vast, quiet space.Iris walked past me, her boots clicking softly on the polished concrete. She looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the sprawling lights of Manhattan. She looked so small against the backdrop of the city that was trying to sell her soul for fifty million dollars.I walked up behind her. I didn't touch her yet. I just stood the