MY CRUEL PROTECTOR
"We’ve spent our lives being used by others. Being programmed, hunted, and erased. If the Heir wants to build a world where no one can touch us, then I will be the one to lay the first stone."
He looked around the dusty, rusted observatory. "This is our palace, Ruby. This is the Glass Throne. From here, we see everything. And from here, we decide who lives and who dies."
I looked at the monitors, at the glowing map of a world that was now irrevocably tied to my own biology. I felt the weight of the crown I had never asked for, a crown made of fiber-optics and blood.
We are the center, the Heir whispered. The world is the periphery.