Chapter 36 Kage
KAGE
Peace feels like a lie.
It’s warm. It’s soft. It smells like cinnamon and little-girl shampoo and Bella’s skin after a shower. It wraps around me in lazy loops, pulls me under in the way a predator might lull prey with warmth before the strike.
And I want it.
But it itches. Somewhere deep in my bones.
Like a warning rumble before the quake. A buzz I can’t locate, can’t silence.
It’s the kind of feeling that saved me on battlefields—told me when a sniper was watching, when the floor would explode beneath me, when a comrade was about to scream and not because of the fight.
So I lie there, in the dark, watching the slow rise and fall of Bella’s breathing. Natalie curled in the crook of her arm, mouth parted in a whisper of a dream. I watch them like they’re stars I’ve been lucky enough to land beside.
And still—I can’t rest.
I peel away from the bed silently. My feet hit the floor with practiced grace. I slip out the sliding door onto the balcony, the air sharp and cool against my skin.
Glimner’s sky is alive tonight. Aurora stains it like bruises on velvet. A flickering storm of gold and blue licks at the horizon.
But something else pulses behind it.
It’s faint. Just a flicker.
Then gone.
I narrow my gaze, every nerve on alert. There’s nothing there. Just the skyline. The usual quiet hum of patrol drones. The glow of city flora. But that flicker—it wasn’t natural. It was too exact. Too rhythmic.
I grit my teeth.
“Kage?”
Bella’s voice startles me. I turn but she’s not there.
My head snaps back toward the bedroom. The sound didn’t come from her.
It came from inside the apartment.
No, deeper.
From Natalie’s room. I don’t hesitate. I move.
The door creaks as I step through it, heart hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to warn me, too.
The room is dim. Soft pink starlights pulse on the walls—Bella installed them years ago because Natalie was afraid of the dark. They cast the room in a glow that should be comforting.
But the shadows are wrong.
The air smells… burnt. Metallic. Like ozone and blood and static.
Then I see her.
She’s standing in the corner.
Facing the wall.
Still.
“Natalie?” I step forward slowly.
She doesn’t move.
“Natalie,” I try again, softer now.
She turns.
Her eyes are open.
But they’re blank.
Milky-white. Not clouded or blind.
Empty.
Her lips move.
And the voice that comes out doesn’t belong to her.
“Vessel complete. Awaiting integration.”
My stomach lurches.
The words are ancient.
The cadence is old, mechanical. Familiar.
War tech.
I step forward fast now, heart in my throat. “Natalie, baby, it’s me. Kage. Wake up. Please.”
Nothing.
The stuffed animal.
It twitches.
The stupid, scraggly thing she’s had since she was a toddler. Fuzzy. Purple. One eye missing. Bella always hated it. Said she didn’t remember ever buying it.
It moves again.
This time, its seams split just slightly.
A flicker of light pulses from inside.
No.
I surge forward, claws out, and tear the thing open. Inside, buried in the fluff and cotton, is a black node. Smooth. Old.
But not dead.
It’s pulsing.
It hums with life.
On the surface, etched in microscopic runes.
Nulegion.
“Vessel complete.” she mutters out of the blue before she goes limp.
My blood turns to frost.
“Bella!” I roar.
The whole apartment shifts. Lights flicker. A static charge buzzes under my feet.
Natalie jerks. Her body goes stiff—then collapses.
I catch her before she hits the floor.
She’s not breathing.
No no no.
Bella crashes through the door a second later, breathless and wild-eyed. “What—Kage?! What’s happening?!”
I lift Natalie gently, cradling her like she’s made of glass. Her chest rises but slowly. Too slow.
“She said—” My voice is shaking. “She said ‘vessel complete.’ She wasn’t… it wasn’t her voice.”
Bella’s face drains of all color.
Her eyes fall on the destroyed stuffed animal. The node.
“Oh my God.”
“She’s been tagged. Since infancy.”
Bella’s hand flies to her mouth.
I rise, cradling our daughter.
Because that’s what she is now.
Ours.
And she’s in danger.
Bella’s lip trembles. “It’s not over.”
“No.” I meet her eyes, my voice a growl, raw and broken. “Nulegion is still alive.”
I clutch Natalie tighter.
“And it’s inside her.”