MY CRUEL PROTECTOR
She looked exactly as she did the day she first showed me the "Under-Grid."
Elena Lane.
But it wasn't the broken, dying woman I had buried. This was Elena in her prime—cold, absolute, and radiating a power that made the Sovereign in my head bow in submission.
"Mother?" My voice was a broken rasp.
"A digital echo, precious," Nevan’s voice came from behind me. He was still there, his hand on the hilt of his claymore, his body tensed for a strike. He looked at the apparition of the woman who had ruined him with a look of pure, murderous hatred. "It’s a ghost in the shell, Gianna. Don't look at it."