Rain began as a light drizzle, tapping softly against the windshield as Aris tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Within minutes, it grew steadier, the wipers sweeping back and forth while the highway blurred beneath him.
Ada's emergency signal still pulsed on the navigation screen, each passing second tightening the knot in his chest.
He tapped Elio's name.
The call connected after the third ring.
Heavy breathing answered first.
"Elio?"
"Did you find Ada?" Elio asked between breaths.
"I did." Aris frowned. "What the hell happened?"
There was a brief silence before Elio spoke again.
"The plan... partly failed." His breathing remained uneven. "I got inside the lab, but things went sideways. Vyn got me out before they could start the harvesting."
Aris frowned, certain for a second that he had heard wrong.
"...Vyn?"
"That's not important right now," Elio cut in. "They've already deployed security after me. I escaped."
Only then did the knot in Aris's chest loosen.
"Thank God. I already tracked Ada's signal."
"Where?"
"It isn't coming from Onyx Biomedical." His eyes flicked to the navigation. "I'm heading there now."
"I'm coming."
"No."
"Aris—"
"No, Elio." His voice stayed calm but firm. "You're in surge phase. You barely escaped, and Onyx already has people looking for you. You don't have enough left in you for another fight."
"I can still—"
"Go to the safe house and avoid CCTVs," Aris said. "Get some rest. If I need backup, I'll message you."
Elio let out a frustrated sigh.
"...Fine."
Aris ended the call and glanced at the navigation again.
The signal hadn't moved.
The rain had settled into a steady downpour by the time Aris left the highway. Water streaked across the windshield as the road narrowed into a quiet residential area hidden from the main streets.
The location finally came into view.
A secluded modern house stood at the edge of the neighborhood, all sharp angles, dark concrete, and towering glass.
Aris parked several houses away, where his car disappeared beneath the shadows of roadside trees. He killed the engine, checked the suppressor on his pistol out of habit, pulled up his hood, and stepped into the cold night.
His sleeves were already damp by the time he reached the perimeter wall.
He climbed over with ease and landed softly on the grass. Before moving, his eyes swept across the property.
One camera covered the front gate. Another watched the driveway. A third rotated lazily across the side yard.
He waited.
The moment it turned away, he slipped into its blind spot and hugged the side of the house, staying beneath the line of the windows.
No guards making rounds. No lights flickering on. No movement behind the glass.
Too quiet for a house this heavily monitored.
He had barely taken another step when he felt someone behind him.
He turned just as a fist came straight for his face.
Aris blocked the punch and struck back, but the stranger twisted away and drove him backward. They collided again almost immediately, rain soaking through their clothes as they traded blows across the yard.
The hood kept the man's face hidden, while Aris's cap sat low over his own eyes, leaving them with only brief glimpses of each other between strikes.
There was no time to figure out who he was.
Aris caught the man's arm and tried to throw him off balance, but the other man twisted free and drove him backward.
His back slammed against the wall.
Before he could recover, the man stepped in close and shoved his forearm against Aris's throat, pinning him hard against the wall. The pressure forced his head back, cutting off his breath for a second.
Aris gripped the man's arm, trying to wrench it away.
Then the man reached up and pulled off his cap.
The yard lights fell across his face.
Aris went still.
The man's eyes settled on his face.
"...You?"
Aris stared back at him, breathless.
"Kael Mercier?"
For a second, neither moved.
Kael's brows lifted, surprise flashing across his face.
He knew that face. Kael had seen him years ago at university symposiums between Pharmaceutical Sciences and Secondary Gender Medicine, always somewhere near the front, usually surrounded by professors and researchers.
"What are you doing here?"
Aris never lowered his guard. His hand remained wrapped around Kael's forearm.
"What did you do to my sister?"
——
By then, Vyn was no longer in Elio's unit. He had been taken to the laboratory beneath the Mercier Estate.
The heavy doors closed behind him with a muted thud.
Vyn stepped into the laboratory without slowing, but the moment the familiar scent of antiseptic reached him, something inside him went still.
His gaze swept across the laboratory before settling on the stainless-steel tray beside the examination table. His hands curled against the suppression cuffs until the metal bit into his wrists.
The scrape of restraints echoed somewhere deep inside him, followed by the sharp click of a syringe.
His breath caught.
For a second, the laboratory disappeared. He was somewhere smaller, colder, with lights too bright against his eyes and hard metal beneath his back. The restraints around his wrists felt impossibly tight.
A little boy was crying.
Daddy...
The voice trembled through him.
Please... makethemstop.
Vyn's fingers curled against the cuffs.
His chest tightened.
He dragged in a breath, but it barely reached his lungs. Another followed too quickly, then another. His heart began hammering against his ribs, each beat harder than the last.
Not here.
Not now.
But his body didn't believe him.But his body didn't believe him.
The antiseptic burned in his nose. Somewhere nearby, metal scraped against metal, and the sound sent another jolt through him.
His vision blurred at the edges.
The room suddenly felt smaller. The walls seemed closer than they had been a moment ago, and every sound inside the laboratory came at him too sharply.
He lowered his head and forced his breathing to slow, holding each breath for a moment before letting it out. It took several attempts before his lungs finally began to obey him.
His hands were shaking.
He closed them into fists until his nails dug into his palms.
No one could see.
He wouldn't let them.
The memory clawed at him anyway.
The little boy was still crying somewhere inside his head, pleading for someone to come, and Vyn had to swallow against the old terror rising in his throat.
Daddy... please.
His breath hitched.
He forced it down.
The scar was still there.
He had spent years pretending it had healed, learning how to live around it until he could almost forget it was there. But places like this had a way of finding old wounds, no matter how carefully they were buried.
He wasn't going to let this place drag him back into that little boy's fear.
Keep breathing.
Keep your head clear.
Don't let them see.
Vyn lifted his head.
His breathing was still uneven, but he had forced enough control back into it to keep his face blank. He focused on the room around him—the stainless-steel counters, the glass panels, the machines waiting in silence.
He was standing in the laboratory. His feet were still beneath him. His hands still worked. He could still move.
That was enough.
By the time he reached the center of the room, his expression had settled into the same unreadable calm he'd worn since they dragged him from Elio's unit.
Maximillian stood beside the laboratory's head scientist, quietly reviewing a monitor.
His right-hand man stood beside him, perfectly still, his Alpha pheromones heavy and unnatural enough to make Vyn's instincts recoil.
So this was what Sovereign had turned him into.
Maximillian folded his hands together.
"So," he said calmly. "Where did you hide your little Omega?"
Vyn didn't answer.
The silence only made the Chairman smile.
"If I'd known your Omega was part of the harvesting, I would've taken him off the list."
Vyn's jaw tightened.
"An S-Class capable of carrying the Mercier bloodline is far too rare to waste."
Disgust surged through Vyn so violently it almost drowned out his anger.
His restraint snapped. Pheromones tore through the laboratory like a shockwave, rattling glass panels and sending loose instruments clattering across the stainless-steel counters.
Every Alpha in the room felt it. The head scientist staggered back instinctively, his face draining of color as the suppression cuffs around Vyn's wrists groaned beneath the strain.
A sharp crack echoed through the chamber.
One side of the cuffs split apart.
The room fell silent.
Before Vyn could move, Maximillian's right-hand man was already in front of him.
The Alpha caught Vyn's wrist with one hand and twisted him around in a single fluid motion. His other hand slammed between Vyn's shoulder blades, forcing him to one knee.
Vyn gritted his teeth and shoved back, putting everything he had into the movement. The Alpha barely shifted.
"...Son of a bitch."
He drove his elbow backward. It caught the man squarely in the ribs.
The Alpha didn't even flinch.
For the first time in years, Vyn found himself completely overpowered.
Maximillian watched the broken restraint for a second before looking at the Alpha beside him.
"Strap him down."
The Alpha obeyed without a word.
Vyn fought the moment he was dragged toward the hydraulic table, twisting hard enough to send another burst of pheromones through the room.
"Get your fucking hands off me!"
The Alpha answered by pinning both of Vyn's arms behind his back and forcing him onto the table.
Steel restraints snapped shut around his wrists, then his ankles, then across his chest.
Each click echoed through the room.
And suddenly, the years between then and now felt like they had never existed. His breathing turned uneven despite every effort to steady it.
Maximillian stepped closer until he stood beside him.
"You can keep resisting."
His voice remained calm.
"It won't change the outcome."
Vyn glared at him.
"Go to hell."
Maximillian held his gaze.
"Accept the Sovereign and I won't touch your Omega."
The scientist stepped closer, the injector already primed.
———
Pain dragged Elio awake.
He had barely been asleep for an hour when something sharp tore through his chest, stealing the breath from his lungs. His hand pressed instinctively against the ache, fingers curling into his shirt as he tried to understand where it had come from.
Another wave followed.
Harder this time.
Elio bent forward, breathing through clenched teeth as the pain spread beneath his ribs and down his arms. It felt wrong—too deep, too sudden, nothing like the soreness left in his body after the surge and the fight the night before. His muscles still ached, his limbs still felt heavy, but this pain carried something with it.
Something unfamiliar.
For a fleeting moment, another sensation slipped through the pain and settled inside his chest.
Fear.
It wasn't his.
This was colder, sharper—the helpless terror of someone fighting to stay in control while everything around him slipped away.
His breath caught.
Vyn...
Elio's eyes opened.
The feeling vanished almost as quickly as it came, swallowed by another brutal wave that tore through his body and left him gasping.
"Fuck..."
He stayed bent over, waiting for it to ease.
It didn't.
The pain kept coming in waves, sharp enough to make his body tense before settling into a deep, burning ache that refused to loosen its grip. His breathing grew shallow as he fought against the instinct to curl in on himself.
Outside the glass, the shoreline was barely visible through the rain. The night was slowly giving way to morning, but the heavy clouds kept the world outside dark and colorless.
Elio reached for his phone.
Aris had already replied.
Aris: Don't worry about Ada, she's safe. Stay there and rest.
At least Ada was safe.
He barely finished reading before another surge hit.
This time, it felt like something was tearing through him from the inside. His back stiffened, his fingers dug into the mattress, and a strangled breath caught in his throat. His heart hammered painfully against his ribs as the sensation spread through his body.
And beneath it, he felt Vyn again.
Not words.
Not thoughts.
Just the raw terror of someone who knew something was being done to him and couldn't stop it.
Elio's throat tightened.
"Vyn..."
He called.
The line barely rang before it died.
He frowned and tried again.
Nothing.
He stared at the screen, then opened their conversation with unsteady fingers.
Elio: Are you okay? What are they doing to you?
He sent it and waited.
Nothing came back.
For nearly half an hour, the pain came and went without warning. Each time it returned, Elio felt less like he was experiencing an echo and more like he was being dragged through whatever Vyn was enduring—the burning, the crushing pressure, the helplessness of being trapped inside his own body.
And there was nothing he could do.
Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the pain disappeared.
Elio stopped moving.
His hand remained pressed against his chest as he waited for the next wave.
It never came.
For a moment, he simply stood there, breathing slowly as the silence settled around him.
It should have been a relief.
Instead, something cold settled in his stomach.
Because the pain hadn't faded.
It had stopped.
And somehow, that was worse.
Elio lowered his hand and looked down at the phone still clutched in his other.
No message.
No call.
Nothing from Vyn.
He stared at the screen for another long moment before setting it down.
He couldn't sit still after that.
———
"What exactly are the two of you planning?"
Kael sat across from Aris, his voice calm enough to pass for casual if not for the sharpness in his eyes.
The perimeter sensors had picked up movement in the yard even though whoever entered had stayed carefully outside the cameras' blind spots.
Once he realized the intruder was Ada's brother—someone he recognized from the university—he brought Aris inside. Ada was already asleep on the sofa, where Kael had left her after bringing her there to find out what she was after.
By then, Aris had dried himself with one of the clean towels Kael had given him, while Kael had changed out of his own rain-soaked clothes.
Rain battered the windows of the house, loud and relentless, filling the silence between them.
Ada remained asleep beside Aris, curled slightly into the corner of the sofa with her head resting against the cushion. The sedative still had her deep under, her breathing slow and even despite everything that had happened.
Aris watched him carefully. There was something about Kael's calm that made him uneasy. He couldn't tell how much the man already knew, or how much he was choosing not to say.
"I've been watching her for a while," Kael said. "She started getting close to Pete. Then she began digging into systems she had no reason to access."
Aris glanced at his sister.
"What's your reason for not reporting her?"
Kael followed his gaze.
"Because I want to know what she's looking for."
Aris said nothing.
Kael studied him for a moment. "What are you two trying to find?"
A faint rustle came from the other end of the sofa.
Ada woke with a dull ache behind her eyes. For a few seconds, she stared at the ceiling, disoriented, until the memory of the control room came rushing back—the terminal, the hand over her mouth, the sharp chemical smell.
Then she saw Aris.
Relief crossed her face before confusion returned.
"You're awake," Aris said quietly.
Ada nodded and pressed her fingers against her temple. Her head felt heavy, and a dull ache settled behind her eyes as she forced herself upright.
"Where am I...?"
Her voice came out rough.
She looked around the unfamiliar room, taking in the quiet house and the rain beyond the windows. Then her gaze settled on the man sitting across from them.
She froze.
Recognition slowly replaced the fog in her eyes.
"Holy shit."
She looked at Aris, then back at Kael.
"You were the one who sedated me?"
Kael's expression barely changed.
Ada continued staring at him, her confusion giving way to suspicion as she studied the man she had only ever seen from a distance at Onyx Biomedical.
Then something else caught her attention.
"How did I not sense you earlier?"
Ada's brows drew together. As an A-Class Alpha, she should have sensed an S-Class Alpha the moment he entered the control room, especially at such close range. Yet Kael's presence had slipped past her instincts completely.
"That's my ability," Kael said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.
His awakened trait allowed him to mimic the scent and biological signature around him, making his presence almost impossible to distinguish from the people around him.
The effect usually lasted ten minutes, fifteen at most if he pushed himself.
Ada was still trying to make sense of that when the front door opened.
All three turned.
Vyn stood in the doorway, drenched from the rain.
Water ran from Vyn's hair down his face and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. His chest rose and fell heavily, each breath carrying the strain he had been forcing himself to ignore.
Kael was on his feet before he could think.
"Vyn?"
******