Chapter Three #3
"Which is why Gray and Hannah need to be there," Rick added. "If they're going to unleash properly, let it be against the actual enemy leaders."
"We'll have support," Gray continued. "West, Yaz, Dean, Keeley, Fallyn, Zane, you're all on New Athens backup. Rick and Evie coordinate from here. Vera and Erik provide tactical predictions and real-time updates to all teams."
"And if we're wrong?" Dean asked, vibrating slightly with nervous energy. "If this is a diversion and the real attack is somewhere else?"
"Then we adapt." Hannah spoke up, and everyone turned to look at her.
The newcomer. The former banker who'd just published an article attacking Protogenus.
"We've been reactive this whole war. Always responding to their moves.
Tomorrow, we take the initiative. We meet them head-on.
And we show them what happens when you threaten our world. "
"Our world," Keeley echoed.
After everyone dispersed, Gray and Hannah stood alone in a smaller briefing room, studying the maps of New Athens City spread across the display table.
Their assignment. The biggest target. The most likely place for Protogenus leadership to show themselves.
Hannah traced a finger along the map, marking potential engagement zones. "You lost control in the war room. When everyone was arguing."
"The lightning. I know." Gray stared at the map without seeing it. "I can't hold it back anymore."
"Maybe you're not supposed to." She moved closer to him, close enough that the electricity between them intensified, their powers reaching for each other.
"Gray, I spent ten years hiding. Pretending.
Suppressing who I really was. Being terrified of what people would think if they knew what I was.
And you know what? It cost me everything anyway.
The life I built was a lie, and it crumbled the second someone looked close enough. "
“This is different.”
“Is it?” Hannah stepped into his space, turning fully toward him.
The air between them snapped like a live wire, small arcs of blue-white electricity leaping from her skin to his.
“You’re hiding just as much as I ever did.
You’ve spent a decade convincing everyone that you’re the ‘civilized’ Pollux.
The reasonable one. The safe one.” Her voice was devastatingly honest. “But that’s not who you are.
That’s just the mask you put on so the world won’t tremble when you walk into a room. ”
Gray’s jaw tightened. His eyes flickered shut, as if the truth stung worse than a blow. “If I let go of that mask...” His throat worked. “I don’t know what I become.”
“Then let’s find out.”
The words landed between them like a challenge, a spark dropped into dry tinder. Their powers reached for each other instinctively. The unspoken bond was undeniable and hungry. A current ran between their bodies, building pressure, heat, promise.
Hannah closed the last inches between them. Barely a breath separated them now. “Stop thinking.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can.” She lifted her hands to his face, fingers brushing his jaw before settling against his skin.
The contact detonated a burst of electricity that raced along their bodies, a bright snap of power that made Gray’s breath hitch and his eyes fly open.
Sparks skittered across their joined skin, dancing up her wrists, flaring along his cheekbones.
“We may not see tomorrow. Or tonight. And I won’t spend what time we have pretending I don’t want this. ”
Gray kissed her—hard, hungry, as though he’d been starving for the taste of her since the moment he first saw her strapped to that Protogenus machine.
His hands slammed to her waist, dragging her against him with a desperation that burned through both of them.
The bond roared to life, a tidal wave of electricity and instinct that made them gasp into each other’s mouths.
Hannah met him with equal ferocity. Her fingers slid into his hair and fisted, pulling him closer, urging him deeper. There was nothing tentative in her. She kissed him like she was claiming him, like she’d finally stopped fighting what her body had been screaming for since the day he’d freed her.
Lightning tore across their bodies in uncontrolled bursts. The lights in the briefing room flickered violently, one bulb popping overhead as their powers collided and then merged, amplifying each other. Holographic projections scattered as Gray walked her backward until she hit the tactical table.
She tasted like ozone and defiance and salvation.
Gray’s mouth moved to her throat, and she arched into him with a sound that hit him low and hard.
Electricity raced beneath her skin, singing against his lips, calling to the deepest, wildest part of him.
He braced one hand on the table beside her hip.
The other gripped her waist like he needed her to keep from falling apart.
“Gray...” His name came out on a breathless, electric moan that nearly brought him to his knees.
Her hands slid under his shirt, fingers skimming hot across his skin.
The direct contact sent a violent shudder through both of them, the bond flaring white-hot, sensation doubling and feeding back between them in a dizzying loop.
He tore his mouth from her throat, desperate for air, desperate for her. Her lips were swollen, her eyes sparking with desire and power, her hair haloed in static like she was lightning incarnate. God, she was beautiful.
“We should stop,” he managed, voice rough, unwilling. His hands didn’t obey him. They traced up her sides, memorizing the shape of her, wanting more.
“Why?” She caught his shirt, tugging him back down for another kiss. “Give me one good reason.”
He couldn’t.
His fingers slipped under the hem of her shirt, brushing the warm skin of her lower back. She gasped against his mouth—a sound that obliterated the last threads of his restraint. The bond urged them to give in, to stop fighting what they had been engineered for... what they were burning for.
Her hands slid higher up his torso. His body pressed harder against hers. The air vibrated with electricity, heat, and need.
The alarm blared.
The moment shattered like glass under a hammer.
They broke apart, breathing hard, electricity still crackling in bright violent arcs around them, both of them staring at each other with the same raw realization:
"Shit," Hannah breathed, smoothing down her hair as it sparked and crackled. "Timing."
"Yeah." Gray's voice came out rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat, tried to focus on anything other than the way she looked right now, flushed and wanting and exactly as affected as he was. "We're not done with this conversation."
"Conversation." She laughed, the sound slightly wild. "Is that what we're calling it?"
The door burst open. One of the tactical analysts stood in the frame, face pale. "Turn on the news. Channel seven. Now."
Gray activated the wall monitor. Breaking footage filled the screen: a figure in civilian clothes tearing through a downtown shopping district. Cars flipped. Storefronts shattered. People running and screaming while cameras tracked the destruction from a safe distance.
The chyron at the bottom read: ROGUE SUPERNATURAL ATTACK IN PROGRESS - MULTIPLE CASUALTIES REPORTED
But Gray saw what the news cameras didn't. The figure's movements were too controlled, too military. This wasn't a rampaging supe losing control. This was a trained operative following a script.
"Dioscuri variant," Hannah said, seeing the same thing. "They're starting early."
"They moved the timeline up even more." Gray's hands crackled with electricity as the implications hit him. "They're starting now. Not tomorrow morning. Tonight."
The analyst confirmed it. "We're getting reports from Chicago too. And Seattle. All six cities. Simultaneous attacks. They're counting on us being unprepared."
Gray and Hannah looked at each other. In her eyes, he saw the same fire that was burning in his chest. No more hiding. No more holding back. This was it.
"All teams move out.”