All Chapters of Marked by the Enemy King: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The outer pressure valve screamed a long, dying hiss, cutting through the heavy thrum of the newly siphoned stasis capsule.Snow whipped through the cracked entry portal of the Mawar Utara Spire, instantly vaporizing against the floor plates where the charred remains of the Kyras scouts still bubbled in a grease-thick heap. A shadow stepped through the boiling gray fog, long and deliberate, clad in pristine, winterized white sable that seemed entirely untouched by the blood and carbon coating the corridor.Eleni Markos, the High Seneschal of the crumbling empire, pulled down her polarized storm-visor with a slow, agonizingly poised gesture. Her dark, predatory eyes took in the room in a single sweep—the smoking turrets, the terrified Dr. Aris holding a shaking laser scalpel, and finally, Nikos, kneeling in a fresh puddle of his own nosebleed, clutching his convulsing midsection."Honestly, the vibes in here are completely rancid," Eleni said, her voice dripping with smooth, casual sar

The barrels of the pulse-carbines whined as they drew power, their cold blue rings locking directly onto Nikos’s chest."I deadass wouldn't do that if I were you, Eleni," Nikos muttered. He didn't back down. Despite the sickening wave of dampener fluid freezing his joints, his bloody finger hovered a millimeter above the primary console’s manual overload plate. "You think I gave you forty percent of the ledger without setting up a firewall? One trigger finger twitch from your boys, and this terminal turns into a fifty-megawatt grenade."Eleni’s right cybernetic eye whirred, its iris tightening. "You’re bluffing. You’ve got a kid to worry about, Stavros. You wouldn’t risk a thermal blowback.""Try me," Nikos whispered, a cold, breathless grin cutting through the dried blood on his chin. "I'm already running on stolen batteries. What's a little more fire?"He didn’t wait for her to call his hand. He slammed his palm onto the manual interface override.He expected a local defense flare,

The frozen mud of the northern border settlement didn't just smell like cold earth; it reeked of spilled oil, burned plastic, and the metallic tang of dried blood.Nikos stumbled, his heavy leather boot catching on a jagged piece of rebar sticking out from the sleet. He would have faced-planted directly into the slush if Dr. Aris hadn't grabbed him by the elbow, pulling him back up with a grunt of effort."Watch your step," Aris muttered under his breath, his eyes darting toward the silent, desperate faces watching them from the shadows of collapsed iron shanties. "Your balance is trash right now, Nikos. Don't make me carry you through this mud.""My balance is fine," Nikos spat, though his knees were lowkey shaking like wet leaves.He wrapped his thick, soot-stained wool cloak tighter around himself, his gloved hand pressing firmly against his stomach. Beneath the heavy fabric, the shape of his midsection was a small, round curve, pulsing with a deep, regular heat that felt entirely

The boots of Victor’s militia rattled the rusty gantry high above, the vibrations traveling down the metal pillar directly into Nikos’s aching skull.Every joint in Nikos’s body felt like it had been injected with boiling mercury. The Zeta-Phase suppression dampener was wearing thin, its artificial freeze giving way to a sickening, throbbing heat that radiated from the deep hollow of his pelvis. He pressed his back against the grease-stained casing of an ancient hydraulic turbine, his breath coming in short, ragged wheezes."We can't keep playing tag, Doc," Nikos whispered, his head slumping back against the cold steel. "My legs are deadass liquid. If I try to take another flight of stairs, I’m folding like a cheap tent."Dr. Aris huddled next to him, his fingers white-knuckled around a half-spent laser-scalpel. He quickly swiped the bio-wand over Nikos’s swollen, shuddering belly. The readouts were screaming in flat orange."Your cellular output is bottoming out, Nikos," Aris hissed,

The foundry's silence was suffocating, thick with the smell of coal and failure. Nikos clutched his side, his breath hitching as he felt the stasis signal die in the speakers above. Andreas had disconnected—or worse, the network had finally reached its physical threshold."Aris," Nikos muttered, his voice cold, steady, and terrifyingly clear. "Do you have the portable frequency jammer in your kit? The one you used to ghost our heat signature near the ridge?"Aris looked up from packing a suture kit, his brow furrowed with apprehension. "Yeah, I’ve got it, but it’s jury-rigged to a dying battery, Nikos. If I burn it now, we’re invisible to Andreas, too. We’ll be walking blindly through the northern tundra.""Good," Nikos whispered, pulling himself to his feet. His legs screamed in protest, but the chemical dampeners were finally doing their job, keeping the volcanic fury of his womb contained behind a thin wall of medical synthetic. "That’s exactly the vibe I’m looking for."He turned