Chapter 17
AYLA
The word they use is “rescued.”
Not “abducted.” Not “extracted.” Not “ripped from everything I love and sealed inside a porcelain coffin painted to look like privilege.”
Just “rescued.”
The media swarms it like carrion birds. Holo-feeds loop clips of me from five years ago, smiling beside my father at Alliance charity galas, while anchors gush over my “safe return.” They play heavily edited footage from the IHC cruiser—me unconscious, crumpled on a medical bed, one eye swollen shut—and narrate it like a heroic fairy tale.
Lady Ayla has been recovered from the alien insurgent cell. Lady Ayla is home.
They don’t show the screaming.
They don’t show the restraints.
They definitely don’t show the needle in my neck, or the way my body tried to claw its way back into orbit just to feel his touch again.
The Verne family estate hasn’t changed.
Everything’s exactly the way I left it—except me.
The walls feel tighter. The air staler. I can’t step into a single room without hearing whispers. A dozen staff members pretend not to stare when I pass, but I see their eyes flick to my midsection. I hear the late-night calls my father makes when he thinks I’m asleep.
I am a scandal now.
My mother’s name is used in hushed comparison—like I’m following in her footsteps. Like it’s genetic.
But no one dares say it to my face.
Only Father does.
“You’ve disgraced us,” he growls the first morning I’m allowed out of bed. “Do you understand the weight of what you’ve done? Do you?”
I stare out the window, arms crossed, belly clenched. “I understand more than you think.”
He slams his hand on the table. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me, girl. Do you know what it took to make this disappear? Do you know how many favors I called in? That ship was nearly intercepted before it ever left atmosphere.”
A bitter smile twists my mouth. “Shame it didn’t succeed.”
He rounds on me. “You—what, you wanted to stay there? With that—thing?”
My jaw clenches. “He’s more of a man than you’ll ever be.”
That earns me a slap.
Hard. Swift. Cold.
I don’t flinch.
I just meet his eyes and whisper, “You can’t scare me anymore.”
He storms out.
Frederick arrives two days later.
Wearing mourning colors—gray with silver trim, to symbolize patience and solemnity. He greets me like a long-lost lover instead of the parasite he is.
“My dearest,” he says softly, taking my hand like we’re in a ballroom and not a gilded prison. “You’ve been through so much.”
I yank my hand back. “Don’t touch me.”
He sighs. “Still resistant. I understand. You’ve been manipulated. Poisoned. But time will heal you.”
“I don’t want your time. I don’t want anything from you.”
“Except, of course,” he adds, eyes drifting to my stomach, “the child.”
Ice floods my veins.
He sees it. Smiles wider. “The Verne line must continue. And I am, by law, your most suitable match. Your father agrees.”
“I don’t.”
He waves that off like it’s irrelevant.
“You’ve always had such fire,” he muses. “I used to think it charming. Now I know it’s just stubbornness.”
He doesn’t ask.
He declares.
“We’ll be married in two weeks,” he says, voice light and final. “A private ceremony. For the family. Discreet.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he says. “It’s already arranged. You’ll have the best physicians, the best protection. And afterward, if you insist on playing the rebellious wife, I won’t stop you. But I will have my heir.”
“You disgusting bastard—”
“Oh, come now,” he interrupts smoothly, “for people of our class, marriage is never about love. It’s about lineage. Power. Appearances. All I care about is the heir thing. After that? You can rot in a library for all I care.”
I want to scream.
I want to claw his eyes out.
But I do neither.
Because my child is still inside me. Because Kallus would tell me to survive first. Fight smart.
I nod.
Just once.
And he smiles.
“Good girl.”
He leaves, and I sit down slowly on the edge of the bed, hands shaking.
I press my palm over my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’ll keep us safe. I promise.”
But I don’t feel strong.
I don’t feel brave.
I feel lost.
Broken.
A shadow pretending to be a woman.
I close my eyes and remember him—his voice, his laugh, the way he’d look at me like I was the only star in his sky.
I want to believe he’s alive.
I want to believe he’s coming.
But tonight, all I can do is cry quietly into my pillow and pray to the stars that somewhere, somehow, he’s fighting to find his way back to us.
The gown is white.
Of course it is.
Lace spun from silkworms that never saw daylight. Imported pearls. A train long enough to trail my sins across the courtyard cobblestones. I stare at my reflection in the antique mirror, wondering how something so soft can feel like shackles.
The ceremony is short. Sanitized. Watched by more cameras than people.
Frederick kisses my hand instead of my lips, whispering in that self-satisfied tone of his, “You’ve made the right choice, darling.”
I say nothing.
I smile on cue. I wave.
But inside, my bones are screaming.
Later, in the private wing of the estate reserved for wedding nights, I stand at the foot of a bed I have no intention of using. The walls are too clean, the sheets too crisp. The air is sterile with lavender and power.
Frederick lounges against the headboard, sipping some vintage wine he thinks is romantic. “A toast,” he says, lifting the glass, “to new beginnings.”
I hand him the one I’ve prepared for him.
He doesn’t notice the difference. Why would he?
I watch him drink.
He grins. “Now come here. Let’s begin our legacy properly.”
I don’t move.
His brow furrows. “Ayla?”
He tries to sit up.
Tries.
But his limbs are heavy now. His eyelids droop.
“What did you—” he slurs.
“Don’t worry,” I murmur, reaching for the lock on the door. “You’ll live.”
He collapses against the pillows.
I slide the bolt shut, double-check the seal, then cross the room and open the balcony doors wide.
The night is endless.
Stars scatter across the sky like bones tossed by some ancient hand. I lean against the railing and breathe in the cold. The wind tangles in my hair. The moonlight bleeds across my skin like something sacred.
I lift my eyes to the heavens and whisper, “Kallus…”
My voice breaks.
“I hope you’re alive. I hope you’re fighting. I hope the stars haven’t swallowed you.”
I close my eyes.
“I married him,” I confess. “But only on paper. Only for now.”
The wind answers with a shiver.
“I couldn’t let him touch me. I couldn’t bear it.”
I press my palm to my stomach.
“I’ll protect us. However I have to.”
I stay there until the sky fades from black to gray. Until the birds start to sing and the estate stirs below. I don’t sleep. I don’t cry.
I just wait.
Three days later, the tests confirm it.
The child grows within me.
The med-techs coo and fawn and take biometric scans. They babble about “strong development,” “enhanced neural signals,” and “aggressive cellular adaptation.” They think it’s because of my lineage.
They don’t know what’s really inside me.
Or who.
That night, I steal into the biotech lab on the eastern wing. I disable the security feeds. I crack the gene-splicer interface with codes I learned from my mother.
I find the masking tech.
The vials shimmer blue and silver—temporary DNA scrubbers, designed for covert operatives who need to pass identity scans.
They weren’t made for Reaper genes.
They won’t last.
But for now, they’ll hide the truth.
I inject the first dose just below my navel, teeth gritted against the burn. The nanotech floods my bloodstream, latches onto the fetal genome, and begins its work.
I watch the monitor blink green.
That’s all the confirmation I need.
When I return to my quarters, the corridors are empty. The staff whispers behind curtains. Frederick is awake now—furious, red-faced, humiliated. But he hasn’t dared confront me.
Not yet.
Good.
I stare into the mirror again—same gown, same pearls—but this time I lift my chin.
“You’ll never be his,” I whisper, low and fierce.
“Never.”
Not while I still breathe.
Not while there’s a single spark of Kallus’ fire left in me.
Not while the stars remember our names.