Aresha
The cold air of her private suite pressed against her skin like ice water. The echo of the ballroom still lingered in her bones—the whispers, the stares, his voice in her ear like a knife she hadn't seen coming.
"You can deny them all you want, Aresha. But blood never lies."
The words replayed, over and over. She clenched her fists until her nails bit into her palms.
Blood.
She had severed ties to that word long ago. Blood had made her a test subject, a weapon, a tool. Blood had never saved her—it had shackled her. And yet tonight, with one careless whisper, Darius Vale had reminded her of what she most feared: that she was losing control.
Her hand drifted to her wrist. Beneath her sleeve, the dragon-and-phoenix tattoo pulsed faintly, as though the poisons within her body sensed her weakness. Her silver hair caught the dim light as she stared at herself in the mirror.
"Control," she whispered, low and sharp, like a mantra. "I do not waver."
But her reflection did not look convinced.
And neither was she.
Darius
Back in his penthouse, Darius Vale stood before a wall of screens. Dozens of feeds flickered—surveillance cameras, intercepted communications, encrypted files bleeding secrets. His trusted assistant, Marcus, typed rapidly on a console nearby.
"Sir, the trail's almost impossible to piece together. Whoever she is—she erased herself. Government records, medical histories, even underground syndicate logs. She doesn't exist."
Darius's jaw flexed. "Everyone exists somewhere."
On the central screen, a blurred image sharpened—Aresha stepping into the forest at thirteen, her silver hair braided tightly, eyes far older than her years. A stolen piece of footage from an old mercenary camp.
Marcus frowned. "That's over a decade ago. The signature matches with whispers about… Nine Cloud Abyssal." He lowered his voice. "An organization the world swears is just a myth."
Darius's lips curved, but it wasn't amusement. "Myths don't sink fleets. Myths don't control seas."
His gaze burned into the girl on the screen, then shifted to the woman he'd faced tonight.
Silver hair. Silver eyes. Secrets wrapped in steel.
Every lead brought him closer to something that smelled like rot and fire—something hidden deep enough that even governments feared to speak its name.
And yet the twins… they were the link. His children. Her blood.
He tightened his grip on the glass in his hand until it cracked. He didn't flinch when shards cut his palm.
"She's hiding something bigger than both of us," he said quietly. "And I will burn every mask she wears until I see it."
Aresha
Sleep eluded her. She paced the balcony overlooking Veyrantis's glittering skyline. The city pulsed with power beneath her feet, a kingdom she had bent to her will.
And yet… for the first time in years, she felt the faint tremor of unease.
Darius Vale.
His gaze lingered too long. His words cut too deep. He wasn't circling her like the others, hoping for favor or fearing her wrath. He was studying her. Pulling at her edges.
The twins had been the first crack.
His presence was the second.
She pressed her palm against the cool railing, breath slow, deliberate. "You won't unravel me, Vale," she murmured into the night. "I was broken long before you came."
But even as she said it, her chest ached with something dangerously close to doubt.
Darius
Back on his screens, a file finally unlocked. The name blinked across the monitor:
Project Lilith.
Marcus paled. "Sir… these files—if they're real—they belonged to a private lab under the Silas family. Experiments… DNA manipulation… children…"
Darius's eyes darkened. "Print everything."
His mind whispered what his heart already feared:
The mother of his children wasn't just powerful. She wasn't just dangerous.
She was born of something monstrous.
And she carried that monster in her veins.