To my surprise, a slow, appreciative smile curved Marcus's lip. He had expected fear, or refusal,
or a futile attempt at a bargain. He had not expected me to demand a seat at the table.
"Acceptable terms," he agreed, a new level of respect in his tone. He held the lab door open for
me.
The lab was a marvel of technology, a sterile white sanctuary of gleaming chrome and quiet,
humming machines. It smelled of ozone and antiseptic. I sat on a sterile examination table, my
jaw tight, while he drew my blood with the practiced, steady hand of a surgeon. The act was
clinical, but the intimacy of it was suffocating. He was taking a physical part of me, a piece of a
puzzle I didn't even know how to begin solving.
He placed a single, luminous drop of my blood on a slide and inserted it into a high-powered
digital microscope integrated with the room's main systems. The image bloomed to life on a
massive, wall-mounted screen: a field of my own blood cells, vibrant and alive.
"Remarkable," he breathed, his scientific curiosity overriding his corporate demeanor. His
fingers flew across a holographic console, running a battery of diagnostic tests. Data streamed
across the screen, a language I didn't understand, but he read it like poetry.
"Your cellular structure... it's a perfect hybrid of two distinct genetic lines. The mitochondrial
energy output is… off the charts. The regenerative properties are beyond anything I have ever
seen." He trailed off, his voice filled with a stunned wonder as he zoomed the image in, isolating
a single, unique cell. "It's almost as if they are actively rewriting their own decay. They don't
age. They… reset."
He had found it. The impossible, horrifying, miraculous truth of my bloodline.
He looked up from the microscope, his face pale, his grey eyes no longer just analytical or
possessive. They were blazing with an intensity that was terrifying, a raw, covetous awe that
went beyond the fated bond, beyond desire. He saw the answer to his prayers. He saw the
miracle he had spoken of.
"You're not just a priceless anomaly, Little Nightingale," he whispered, his voice thick with a
reverence that was more frightening than any threat. He walked towards me, his gaze locked on
mine, as if seeing me, truly seeing me, for the very first time.
"You're the key to defying death itself."