Damien’s POVMy heart was still racing as I paced outside the hospital room. The hospital staff had taken Aurora away to run some tests, but the unease in my chest wasn’t from concern over her health—it was something else. Something darker.I couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this was too orchestrated, too calculated. My instincts were on high alert. I hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary at first—just a normal hospital visit, a few concerned looks from the staff—but as I watched Aurora get wheeled away for more testing, a creeping sensation began to coil in my stomach. Something was wrong.I stepped out into the corridor, my mind still racing. I needed answers. I needed to know who was behind this.Before I could move any further, my phone rang. The number that flashed on the screen made my blood run cold. My father. I hadn’t heard from him in days, but there was no mistaking the stern, commanding tone that came with any communication from him.I gritted my teeth, swiping th
Damien’s POVTime stood still. Every step I took towards that warehouse felt like an eternity. The air was thick with the taste of anger, and adrenaline surged through my veins as I made my way through the darkened alley, determined to save her. Aurora had been taken from me—again. But this time, I wouldn't let her slip away.As I burst through the door, my heart pounded in my chest. There she was, standing—no, trembling—before me, her eyes wide with fear. The sight of her sent a surge of protective rage through me. But then my gaze fell on Victoria, who stood by her side, a wicked smile stretching across her face.“You thought you could take him from me, didn’t you?” Victoria sneered, her hand gripping the knife tightly. The glint of steel caught the dim light, sending a chill down my spine. “He doesn’t want someone like you, Aurora. You’ll always be beneath him.”“Let her go, Victoria,” I growled, my voice low, dangerous. Every muscle in my body tensed, and I could feel the beast in
Damien’s POVThe sting of helplessness was like a knife to my chest. I stood there, staring at the cold, sterile walls of the hospital room, the silence pressing down on me. Aurora was still unconscious, her body battered by the attack, her blood staining my memories. It felt like a nightmare, one that I couldn’t wake up from. I’d promised to protect her, and I failed.But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t give up on her.I was ready to take on the world for her, and I’d do whatever it took to make sure she was safe. But even now, as I sat in the sterile hospital corridor with my thoughts swirling, there was something I couldn’t fight. Something I didn’t know how to deal with.The police had come to question me about the incident. I gave them every detail I knew about Victoria’s involvement—her manipulative schemes, her attempt to steal Aurora from me, the threats she’d made. I thought it would be enough.But I was wrong.The detective sat across from me, his hands folded on the table. His
Damien’s POVThe steady beeping of the hospital monitors filled the silence of the room. I sat in the chair beside Aurora’s bed, my fingers entwined with hers. She was still weak, her body healing, but she was here. Alive. That was all that mattered.I had barely left her side since the moment she was brought in. My mind couldn’t rest, not with the image of her lying in a pool of blood haunting me. Victoria had crossed a line—one I would never forgive.But before I could set my revenge in motion, I had to deal with the one person I never expected to oppose me.My grandmother.The moment she entered the room, I felt the weight of her presence. Eleanor Volkov was a force to be reckoned with—an elegant, powerful woman whose quiet demeanor often hid her sharp mind and ruthless strategies. She had built an empire alongside my grandfather, and she knew the cost of power better than anyone.She walked toward me with measured steps, her silver hair pinned into a tight bun, her piercing blue e
Aurora’s POVThe weight of Damien’s words lingered in the air, thick and suffocating.“I will risk everything, Aurora. I will burn the world down if it means keeping you safe.”His voice was raw, filled with unwavering determination. But was that really love?Or was it just another kind of imprisonment?I looked away, my fingers gripping the hospital blanket. My heart was at war with my mind. I loved him—God, I knew I did—but love wasn’t supposed to feel this heavy, this dangerous.“I need time,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.Damien’s entire body tensed. “Time?” His voice was dangerously low, as if he was trying to contain something dark inside him.I forced myself to meet his gaze, knowing this would hurt him. “To think. To breathe. To figure out if I can do this, Damien.”His eyes darkened. “There’s no ‘if,’ Aurora. You’re mine.”I flinched.Mine.That word. That claim.And yet, wasn’t that what I had been fighting all along? To be my own person?I let out a shuddering breat
Aurora’s POVThe tension in the hospital room was suffocating. Eleanor Volkov, Damien’s grandmother, stood with the grace of a woman who had spent her entire life commanding respect. Her gaze was firm yet compassionate as she turned toward Damien, who stood rigid beside my bed, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white."She’ll come with me," Eleanor declared, her voice leaving no room for argument. "I will guarantee her safety."I held my breath, watching Damien’s expression shift. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and I knew this wasn’t something he would agree to easily. He had spent every moment since my attack hovering, controlling, making sure I couldn’t take a step without him being there.And now, I was about to be taken from his grasp.Damien’s voice was low, sharp. "You want me to send her away? To leave her unprotected? After everything—""I will protect her," Eleanor interrupted. "She will be safer with me than anywhere else. And she needs to heal, Damien. You have
Aurora had thought leaving Damien’s suffocating grasp would bring her peace, but standing in the vast estate of Damien’s grandmother, she felt anything but free. The weight of the past weeks pressed upon her chest like a heavy stone, suffocating her with every breath.Lady Eleanor Volkov, Damien’s formidable grandmother, had insisted on taking Aurora under her wing, promising her safety and respite from the chaos Damien’s presence inflicted upon her life. And yet, despite the elegant walls and the warm hospitality, Aurora still felt like a prisoner—only this time, in a different kind of golden cage.As she sat by the grand window overlooking the sprawling gardens, she traced the rim of the teacup in her hand, lost in thought. She had not spoken to Damien since he agreed to let her go, and though she should be relieved, a part of her felt hollow. Her body still bore the faint traces of the war she had fought—both physically and emotio
The scent of aged wine filled the air as I swirled the glass in my hand, watching the deep red liquid swirl like blood. Outside, the city was alive with lights, but inside my penthouse, the only thing burning was my rage.Aurora Laurent. A name that tasted like poison on my tongue.She had no right to be in Damien’s world, yet she clung to him, ruining everything I had spent years cultivating. She was an infection, one that needed to be cut out before it spread any further.Adrian Sinclair sat across from me, his own frustration evident in the way he gripped his glass. He had lost something too—his fiancée. And like me, he wasn’t willing to accept it.“She doesn’t belong there,” I murmured, my nails tapping rhythmically against the glass. “Aurora Laurent needs to disappear.”Adrian scoffed. “You act like I don’t know that already. I had her, Victoria. She was mine, and she threw it away. But I won’t let her go so easily.”I studied him for a moment before smirking. “Then let’s make su
The boy didn’t speak of the dream again.But something in him shifted after that night. His steps were a little steadier. His gaze no longer darted to the exits first. He stayed near Damien, yes, but not like a shadow clinging to light. Now, it felt like a tether, an anchor—not dependence, but choice.Damien noticed it when they trained in the clearing behind the safehouse. The boy followed directions without flinching, without looking over his shoulder every five seconds like he expected Monroe to appear from behind the trees. And when Kai handed him a blade—not sharp, just a practice knife—he held it with the curiosity of someone discovering a piece of themselves.“What do we call him?” Eli
The morning sunlight felt wrong.Too bright. Too open.After days in the Hollow’s synthetic twilight, Damien squinted at the skyline like it was some forgotten relic. The world outside was still broken, scarred by everything Monroe had built, but out here—beneath real sky—it felt like breathing for the first time in weeks.They moved through the forest trail in silence, Aurora walking beside Damien, the child—now clothed in a borrowed jacket and boots too large—staying close to Damien’s side like a shadow tethered to light.No name.No past.
The air inside the chamber thickened as the hum of the cryopod deepened, soft lights tracing across its surface like veins awakening after a long slumber. Damien stood with his hand hovering just above the control panel, eyes locked on the boy within. A-00.The child who shouldn’t exist.The child who had been discarded—forgotten—yet had outlived the project meant to replace him.Aurora touched Damien’s arm gently. “Are you ready?”He didn’t answer right away. His gaze was still fixed on the boy’s face. So young, so still. Yet somehow, it felt like staring into a mirror that refused to reflect.
The helicopter blades sliced through the Ural sky like a warning.Beneath them, the forest spread like a sea of frozen pine and fractured stone, untouched and unwelcoming. The coordinates Null had provided pointed to a narrow canyon—its jagged sides veined with ice and shadow—where no human path should've ever led.Damien sat beside Aurora, eyes locked on the narrowing terrain below. The cold had begun to seep in through the insulated layers, but it wasn’t the temperature that clenched his gut.It was the silence.Even at this altitude, the absence of wildlife was unnerving.As if nature itself refused to brea
The wind had changed by morning.Geneva’s neutral calm felt different now—like something sacred had been disturbed beneath its manicured stillness. The team gathered in the briefing room of the underground complex, still shaken from what they’d uncovered the night before: Damien’s prototype—Subject A-01-D—and the fractured remnants of Monroe’s last vault of secrets.No one spoke for a long while.Elias was the first to break the silence. “So what now? We’ve seen the start of it. That clone—your prototype—it changes everything. Doesn’t it?”Null nodded slowly, pacing. “It suggests Monroe’s e
The flight into Geneva was cloaked in silence and tension. Null sat across from Damien and Aurora, his fingers flying across his datapad as he decoded the fragmented files Seraph had left behind. The others barely spoke—each of them gripped by what lay ahead.Damien watched the mountains vanish beneath the clouds through the aircraft window. He could feel Aurora’s quiet presence beside him. Their fingers weren’t intertwined this time, but their shoulders touched, and that alone grounded him more than anything else could.Geneva greeted them with muted skies and chill winds. The neutral zone was a far cry from the war-torn hideouts they’d grown used to—orderly, pristine, quiet. But underneath that perfection lurked something far older than secrecy: erasure.They descended into the depths of a government facility disguised as an old weather station. It took Null several bypasses, retina scans, and an override code embedded in one of Seraph’s final neural threads to breach the security l
The explosion echoed through the Carpathians like a buried heartbeat being silenced for good. Smoke rose from the ridge, curling toward the cold sky as if even the heavens exhaled relief.Damien stood at the edge of the cliff, watching the plume dissipate into the wind. His jaw was locked, his expression unreadable, but his eyes—those always gave him away. They were distant, full of storm-tossed reflections. Of Seraph’s soft voice. Of her last smile. Of what it meant to end something that had never truly begun.Aurora approached quietly, the silence between them laced with something deeper than words. She stood beside him, their shoulders just brushing.“She called him father,” Damien murmured. “And still chose me.”Aurora’s voice was soft, almost reverent. “Because you were never like him. You gave her something Monroe never could.”He turned to look at her. “What if that’s not true? What if all I’ve done is bury the sins of my creation in silence? I didn’t save her. I ended her.”“S
The stars hung low that night—sharp and endless—casting a cold silver sheen across the ridge where the safehouse stood. Inside, the quiet had turned restless. Plans had been made, supplies packed, and weapons checked twice over. But in the hush between movements, something else had stirred: anticipation… and dread.Damien stood before the digital board Null had reconfigured in the command room. The spiral symbol—the same one tied to Echelon One—hovered in the center of the map like an eye watching them all.“Everything leads here,” Null said, his fingers dancing across the interface. “Every clone experiment, every data trail Monroe left. I think Echelon One is more than just a final base. It’s a convergence point.”“For what?” Elias asked from the side, arms crossed.Null hesitated. “For everything Monroe couldn't control.”Aurora entered then, her presence grounding the tension in the room. “Then we need to understand what we’re walking into before we try to shut it down.”“I pulled
The morning after the explosion was strangely still.The mountain air carried a brittle chill, brushing against the scorched earth where the Aetheris network once stood. Smoke still curled upward in delicate wisps, as though the ruins hadn't yet accepted their own end. Birds circled overhead, tentative and cautious. Nature, it seemed, was holding its breath.Inside the safehouse nestled at the base of the ridge, silence had taken on a different shape—calm, measured, almost sacred.Damien sat at the edge of the makeshift balcony, elbows on knees, watching the sunrise paint the valley in gold. His fingers were wrapped loosely around a steaming mug of black coffee, though he hadn’t taken a sip. He didn’t need the heat. He needed the stillness.Behind him, the door creaked softly open.Aurora stepped out barefoot, wrapped in a loose sweater that hung off one shoulder. Her hair was still damp from the quick shower she'd taken to scrub off the soot and blood. She paused when she saw him—his