Chapter 25 Nyx
NYX
For a few minutes after I woke up, I let myself believe the world had rules. I let myself believe the rules could keep me alive if I followed them closely enough.
I had always depended on rules, even when I pretended I did not. Rules were how you survived, how you stayed invisible, and how you kept your name from ending up on somebody else’s paperwork.
That morning, I knew exactly where every body was, and that certainty calmed the part of my brain that never stopped scanning for danger. Malachi’s arm was a firm weight across my stomach, heavy and steady.
Kairo was sprawled on the other side of me. Jabari was tucked close to my legs, one big hand curled around my ankle.
Elijah lay on his back with his shoulder pressed to mine, breathing slow and controlled. The bond hummed through my bones, loud and shameless.
Outside the safehouse, the trees were still. A bird called once and then went quiet.
Inside, the air held heat, but not the feverish heat that had dragged me through the night. That storm had passed, and what remained was soreness, satisfaction, and the kind of calm that made my thoughts feel slower and my skin feel too aware.
I shifted carefully, and Malachi tightened around me immediately. It was not a threat and not restraint, only reflex.
“You are awake,” he said.
“I am,” I whispered.
Kairo made a sound that could have been a laugh or a complaint. He pressed his face into my neck and breathed me in, and my body reacted before my mind could decide how it felt about that.
Jabari’s eyes opened and locked on me. His gaze dropped to my throat, and the marks there throbbed faintly, a reminder that did not let me pretend.
Elijah’s lashes fluttered and his eyes found mine. We had too much history for easy mornings, and I could feel him measuring the room even while he lay still.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
I could have lied. I had lied for survival more times than I could count, and the reflex still lived in my mouth.
Instead, I told the truth I could afford. “I am here,” I said.
Kairo lifted his head, braids falling into my face. “She is trying to act tough,” he said, soft and teasing, and I shoved his forehead because it was safer than admitting he was right.
Jabari shifted closer, then stopped short. “Can I touch you?” he asked, and the question landed in my chest.
Consent should not have felt like a gift. The fact that it did made something in me burn.
“Yes,” I said.
Jabari exhaled. He moved slow, careful.
I slid out from under the pile before my mind could start building walls. My legs ached when I stood, and the ache was proof of something that happened with me, not to me.
I pulled on my robe and headed for the bathroom. The mirror did not lie, and I did not let myself look away from the bite marks and bruises.
Then my omega rolled through me, satisfied and smug, and I hated how much it made my chest loosen. Mine, it whispered, and my body agreed.
When I came back out, Kairo had already moved into my kitchen. A pot sat on the stove, and the smell was buttery and warm.
“You hungry?” he asked.
I paused because nobody asked me that without an agenda. “Yes,” I admitted, and Kairo nodded.
He stirred the grits with purpose and looked at me dead serious. “Do you put sugar on yours?”
I blinked. “Here we go.”
Kairo pointed the spoon at me. “I am asking a real question. If you are a sugar person, we need to discuss that before I fall in love any harder.”
“Fall in love,” I repeated.
He did not flinch. “We bonded. It happened. Do not act brand new.”
I grabbed eggs from the fridge just to have something to do with my hands. “Butter,” I said.
Kairo’s shoulders dropped. “Thank you.”
“But I am not about to act like somebody is a criminal for liking sugar,” I added, and he sucked his teeth.
Malachi appeared in the doorway, dressed, quiet, eyes heavy with that morning-after calm that never made him soft. “Butter,” he said, and Kairo grinned.
Elijah came behind him, gaze flicking to the locks. “Sugar is fine,” he said, too flat.
Kairo stared at him. “Of course you would say that. You look like you believe in rules and polite lies.”
Elijah’s mouth tightened. “I believe in everyone eating what they want.”
I heard myself laugh, quick and surprised, and the sound startled me more than the argument. It felt like my body tried to be a person for a second.
I poured coffee because I needed something that was mine. Then I slid my laptop bag onto the table.
Elijah noticed immediately. “Nyx,” he warned.
“I am not helpless,” I said, and flipped it open anyway.
Northstar Freight Solutions stared back at me, neat and clean on the screen. Subsidiaries branched beneath it, routes mapping across the country, and the numbers sat there pretending they were only numbers.
Malachi’s phone buzzed. He checked it once, and the bond shifted, heat tightening into steel.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Eat first,” he said.
“That is not an answer.”
His gaze held mine, steady and cold. “It is not time.”
I took a bite anyway because Kairo put the plate in front of me and Jabari hovered with that careful devotion that still made me itch. Then my laptop pinged.
ACCESS OUTSIDE AUTHORIZED NODE. REQUEST VERIFIED. AUDIT INITIATED.
My stomach dropped, and the back of my neck prickled. I clicked because I always chased the truth even when it bit.
Elijah caught my wrist. “Do not,” he said.
Malachi’s chair scraped. Kairo went still, and Jabari’s shoulders tensed.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“That is not Meridian,” Elijah said, eyes locked on the screen. “It routed through Meridian’s secured channel, but the handshake is not ours.”
“Say it plain,” I said.
Elijah forced a breath, and I saw his eyes flick. “It means Meridian’s tunnel recognized you, and something outside Meridian recognized Meridian,” he said.
Kairo’s voice went sharp. “So somebody is riding our line.”
Elijah nodded once. “Somebody is monitoring it.”
The safehouse alarm went off two seconds later. My camera feed blinked, and my blood turned cold.
A black SUV sat at the end of my drive. Another car sat behind it, a clean sedan with tinted windows.
Malachi was already moving. “Lights off,” he said.
Kairo hit the switch. Jabari grabbed his gun, and Elijah snapped my laptop shut.
“Back room,” Elijah said.
“No,” I said, standing. “I am not disappearing in my own house.”
Malachi’s gaze cut to me, calm and dangerous. “You want truth,” he said. “Here is truth. If they are here, it is because of us. They do not drive out to deliver flowers. They drive out to collect.”
The word collect made my skin crawl. I held out my hand.
Kairo opened the drawer and offered me a compact pistol grip-first. I took it, and the weight steadied my fingers.
We moved through the safehouse, even though we had not. Malachi went first, Kairo left, Jabari right, and Elijah stayed at my shoulder close enough to pull me back without touching.
There was a knock, controlled, too polite to be safe. Three taps, a pause, then two more.
A voice carried through the door, smooth and practiced. “Pack Meridian.”
The way the name was said made my stomach turn.
“Who are you?” Kairo demanded.
“We are here to deliver a notice,” the voice replied.
Malachi’s tone stayed calm. “State your affiliation.”
A pause. “Underworld Council.”
Council sounded clean. Council sounded legal.
“Omega Nyx,” the voice continued. “Bonded without clearance. You are in violation of treaty protocols.”
“Treaty,” I whispered.
Kairo snapped, “She is bonded. Period.”
“Not with you,” the voice replied. “With the registry.”
Registry. Forms. Signatures. The same kind of leash, only dressed up.
“You have forty-eight hours to present your omega for registration and review,” the voice said.
“Present,” Jabari repeated, voice turning ugly.
“Recover,” the voice corrected.
Recover implied I was lost. Recover implied I belonged to whoever had the right paperwork.
Malachi’s hand slid to my lower back, not a caress, a claim. I leaned into it because rage needed somewhere to go.
“You do not get to call me lost,” I said, loud enough to carry.
The voice paused, then turned colder. “Unauthorized consolidation is treated as theft.”
The air in my lungs turned to ice.
“And if we refuse?” Malachi asked.
“Then the Council initiates retrieval.”
The word retrieval hit, and it tightened around my ribs. Footsteps retreated and engines turned over.
On the camera feed, the sedan rolled away, and a symbol on the rear window caught the dawn light.
An eye over a crown.
My stomach twisted.
I knew it, not from a place I could name, but from somewhere inside me. A memory without a label.
When the cars were gone, the house stayed quiet, but it was not morning quiet anymore. It was warning quiet.
Elijah’s jaw tightened. “That audit prompt was a trigger. The moment the request hit Meridian’s secured channel, they flagged the location,” he said.
Kairo’s face went pale with anger. “So they can see what she touches.”
“They can see what Meridian routes,” Elijah corrected. “They do not need her. They need Meridian’s.”
Malachi looked at me, eyes dark, decision already made. “You want agency,” he said. “Here. You get it. Tell us what you found.”
I opened my laptop again, slower. I did not click the audit prompt this time.
A timer sat beneath it, bright and patient.
FORTY-SEVEN HOURS, FIFTY-TWO MINUTES.
They had not just warned us. They had started a clock, and the countdown felt personal.
I pulled up my map and showed them the routes. “Northstar moves freight,” I said, voice steady. “But it also moves bodies. It does it with paperwork.”
Jabari’s voice went low. “Omegas.”
“Yes,” I said.
Malachi’s gaze sharpened. “This is bigger than Meridian,” he said.
I swallowed hard. “I think Meridian is one node,” I admitted.
The room went still. Then Malachi nodded.
“We use the timeline,” he said. “But first, we cut the throat of the person who knows where your sister went.”