บททั้งหมดของ The Serpent King's Hidden Heirs: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

Evelyn Carter's POVI rented a run-down cabin outside Blackpine under a fake name.My landlady, Mabel Greene, assumed I was a single pregnant woman fleeing domestic violence. She never asked about the baby's father. Before every blizzard, she'd leave bread, milk, and old blankets at my door.I didn't dare go to a hospital.During the day, I studied normal pregnancy guides at the town library. At night, I used a secondhand fetal monitor to record the sounds from my belly. Six heartbeats, all different. The smallest one was always the slowest. I assigned them numbers and logged my temperature, food intake, and any unusual reactions every day.Five months into the pregnancy, my body started to change.A cut from slicing vegetables would heal in minutes. I could lift a crate of firewood that used to take two people, and I began craving raw meat with a ferocity that scared me. Once, I stared at a steak on the cutting board for too long. When I snapped out of it, my teeth were already buried

The video was four seconds long.Asher lay flat on the ice, pulling the boy up. His pupils flashed gold, a black tail slipping out from under his jacket. The person filming swore and called him a freak.After the video spread through the Blackpine parent group, Tommy Reed's father was the first to come to the cabin."If not for your son, my boy would be dead." He set down a bag of fruit, his face uneasy. "But everyone's asking... what exactly is he?""He's a three-year-old child."Asher hid behind me and whispered that he'd only pulled the other boy up. Tommy actually wanted to speak up for him, but his father pulled him back to the car. Before the door shut, Tommy mouthed thank you at Asher through the glass.Someone outside shouted, "Normal kids don't grow tails! Who knows if he's carrying some kind of disease?"Tommy's father went pale. He stepped back and picked up the bag of fruit he'd just set down."Until things are cleared up, it's probably best if they stay away from my son."

There was no day or night underground.The only way I could tell time was the countdown on the screen. The children had been gone for eight hours.Ward had put silver alloy bands on their wrists, claiming they monitored heart rate. On the surveillance feed, all six were shivering. The isolation chambers were kept at fifty-four degrees. The bands suppressed their abilities. They couldn't even shift into snake form to warm each other.I recited every temperature and feeding record from my pregnancy journal to the medical staff and demanded they add it to the charts. Ward had my words logged as "delusional parenting protocols," then had the temperature dropped another four degrees. Two minutes later, Asher started shaking. The observer immediately wrote "thermal instability" in the report.The food sent in was only bread, vegetables, and a sliver of meat.Asher gave his portion of meat to Finn and told Blake to hold their youngest brother. He sat down against the wall himself. His color d

Sarah hid an access card inside a medication cup."One use, two doors at most." She spoke with her back to the camera. "The inspector hasn't reached this site yet. At midnight, every original record gets wiped."I tucked the card under my tongue and told Ward, "I'll sign."She stopped."But before I sign, I need to confirm all six children are still alive."Ward needed my signature. She agreed.When a guard wheeled me past the first door, I let my body slide from the chair on purpose. While they bent down, I cut the wrist restraint, swiped the pass, and bolted into the corridor.Every breath drove a spike through my ribs. I followed the seven-beat tapping and crashed through the second door.There wasn't one operating table inside.There were six.Finn was already intubated, a core extraction needle suspended above his chest. Asher had been wheeled out of a cryogenic box, his lips blue. Blake, Caleb, Dylan, and Eli were chained to the other four tables with silver shackles.Ward had ne

When I woke, Cassian was standing several steps from the bed.The beeping monitor made me think the countdown was still running. I ripped out the IV and swung my bare feet to the floor. When a nurse approached, I grabbed the water glass from the nightstand and threw it."Where are my children?""They're here," Cassian said without moving. "The nurses will wheel them in."Six small beds were pushed into the room. Six little hands reached for me at once. I touched every face and lifted every blanket to check their wrists, making sure the silver bands were really gone.I counted three times before I agreed to lie back down.A meal cart followed. Beef, chicken soup, bread, and fruit covered two tables. But the children didn't eat right away. Asher slid his bread under his pillow. Blake snuck two pieces of beef inside his shirt. The twins hid fruit in the back of their nightstand drawers."Will there be another meal?" Finn asked quietly.The nurse froze. Cassian stood by the door, his expre