Chapter 17 #2
The kind of pause that means the AI is processing, or maybe just deciding how much to reveal.
"Affirmative. Seraphine Eastman gains nothing from alliance with Kai James Lawson. No tactical advantage. No strategic benefit. No logical reason to offer assistance."
The words land harder than they should.
Gains nothing.
No logical reason.
She's helping me—offering to be my Omega, to play along with whatever game I need to play—and she gets nothing out of it.
Just the chance to prove something.
Just the opportunity to help destroy a man she has every reason to want dead anyway.
"She can hate me," I say, and the words come out rougher than I intend. "For being responsible for her parents' death."
The robot's sensors flash.
Brighter.
Faster.
Like something I said triggered an alert in its programming.
"You are not responsible."
The statement is firm.
Absolute.
"Your parents are prime responsible for the deaths of the Eastman family. Kai James Lawson was seventeen years of age at time of execution. Minor status. No direct involvement in planning or implementation of operation."
I blink.
"If you wish to partake in her downfall," Ro continues, and there's something almost threatening in the synthesized voice now, "that action will mark you as an enemy. Response protocols will be adjusted accordingly."
The robot is threatening me.
The absurdity of it almost makes me laugh.
Almost.
"This model will now self-destruct."
What.
The words register a half-second before the beeping starts.
Loud.
Rapid.
A countdown sequence I've heard before—in training exercises, in actual combat situations, in the nightmares that sometimes plague me after particularly brutal missions.
Bomb.
The fucking robot is a bomb.
"Shit—"
I'm moving before I finish the word, lunging toward the bed to deposit the sphere somewhere safe—
Except the only "somewhere" is Sera.
Sera, who's sleeping peacefully, who's recovering from poison, who will absolutely be hurt if this thing goes off while she's holding it.
I curse again.
Spin.
Locate the garbage can in the corner of the room—one of those fancy metal ones with a lid—and hurl the robot into it with as much force as I can manage while maintaining any kind of control.
The lid clangs shut.
I brace for impact.
The countdown hits zero.
"Beep."
The sound is... anticlimactic.
Not an explosion.
Not fire or shrapnel or the acrid smell of burning circuitry.
Just... beep.
"Malfunction."
Ro's voice echoes from inside the garbage can, somehow managing to sound smug despite being synthesized.
"The joy of teasing the Lawson heir. Hehehehe."
Did the robot just...
Laugh at me?
A snicker from the doorway.
I spin, hand going to a weapon I'm not currently wearing, every instinct screaming threat before my brain catches up to my body.
Blaze.
Leaning against the doorframe, golden-brown eyes bright with amusement, grin stretching from ear to ear like he's just witnessed the funniest thing he's ever seen.
Which, from his perspective, he probably has.
"Did you just get pranked by a robot?" He's clearly fighting to keep his voice down—aware of the sleeping Omega, at least—but the laughter is bleeding through anyway. "The great Kai Lawson, heir to the empire, outwitted by a glorified flying ball?"
I grumble something unflattering about his parentage.
He just grins wider.
"I'm glad the robot has a sense of humor," he says, pushing off the doorframe and entering the room properly. "Means she programmed it with personality. That takes skill."
He crosses to the bed.
Checks on Seraphine with a gentleness that would surprise me if I hadn't already seen how the rest of my pack responded to her. His fingers brush her forehead—checking for fever, maybe, or just confirming she's still breathing—before he straightens and turns to face me.
"What's the plan?"
The question is simple.
Direct.
The kind of question a pack member asks their leader when they're ready to follow wherever he leads.
I think about it.
Really think, for the first time since Ro played that recording and my entire world collapsed around me.
My father wants me dead.
Wants all of us dead.
He sent us to this academy on a mission that was never meant to succeed—a suicide run disguised as an assassination order. Find the Eastman heir. Kill her. And then conveniently die at the hands of whatever enemies he's already arranged to finish us off.
It's elegant, in a sick way.
Efficient.
The kind of solution my father would appreciate—eliminating multiple problems with a single carefully orchestrated plan.
But he made a mistake.
He underestimated how quickly we'd find her.
How quickly Sage would bond with her.
How quickly she would choose to help us instead of letting us die.
"It'll only take a week for my father to respond," I say slowly, working through the logic as I speak.
"Once he realizes we're still alive—that we've found the Eastman heir and she's not dead—he'll send someone to finish the job.
Maybe multiple someones. He can't afford to wait, not if there's a chance we've figured out the truth. "
Blaze nods.
His expression has shifted from amusement to something more serious—the focused attention of a soldier receiving orders.
"What should we do then?"
I look at Seraphine.
At her small form buried under expensive blankets.
At the pink hair spilling across the pillow.
At the sleeping princess who just offered to play queen in a game neither of us fully understands.
Alliance, she said.
Be your Omega if it means you get to prove to him that he should be afraid of you.
Then we're enemies again.
She's giving me a weapon.
Herself.
The last Eastman heir, the target my father has been hunting for a decade, delivered to him on a silver platter—except not to kill. To protect. To claim as pack. To show him that his own son has done what he couldn't: brought the enemy into the fold.
It's the ultimate power move.
The ultimate fuck you.
Look, Father. Look what I have. Look what you failed to destroy. And now she's mine, and there's nothing you can do about it.
A smirk curves my lips.
The first genuine expression I've felt in hours.
"Let's play pack."