Chapter 27
Two Hours Erlier
Isit cross-legged on the floor of Alexander’s office, surrounded by takeout containers and the molten glow of Crown Heights at twilight.
The city stretches beyond the glass, a constellation brought to heel, but I can’t look away from Alexander as he leans against his desk—tie loosened, sleeves rolled, forearms bare.
He seems almost softer now, but no less dangerous.
“So there I was,” he continues, eyes flickering with rare mischief, “standing in the middle of the Academy courtyard, covered head to toe in failed transformation powder. My skin was quite literally glowing green.” He chuckles, the sound rich and intimate in the quiet space.
“The professor stared at me and said, ‘Mr. Darkmoor, I believe the assignment was to transform a pen, not yourself.’”
I laugh, choking slightly on my noodles. The image of a younger Alexander glowing in front of his classmates is absurd and strangely intimate. “What did you do?”
“What else could I do?” He lifts a brow. “I bowed and said, ‘Professor, I simply wanted to ensure the experiment was thoroughly documented.’” His smile twists, slow and wicked. “I received full marks for creativity.”
The way he tells it, all bone-dry wit and lethal timing, pulls a reluctant warmth from somewhere deep in my chest. Moments this unguarded are rare, when he chooses to share pieces of himself that aren’t calculated. I want to trap them like gemstones, catalog them and keep them for myself.
“You have,” he gestures, then leans in, a fingertip brushing the corner of my mouth. “A bit of sauce.”
The touch lingers and his eyes darken. The pad of his thumb traces the curve of my lower lip, and my lungs forget their function. I lean into his hand before I can stop myself, drawn by something heavier than gravity, more exacting than logic.
“Luna,” he murmurs as he leans closer, the room folding around us, and I know—I know—this is it. Finally. Please—
The security alarms erupt.
A violent red pulse floods the office, and the moment evaporates. Alexander pulls back in an instant, the softness vanishing like it was never there. In its place is authority honed to the edge of a scalpel.
“Sir!” An enforcer barrels through the doors. “The specimen, it’s breached containment in the lower labs.”
Alexander’s hands settle on my shoulders. “Luna. I need you focused.” His voice is sharp and it sends a fresh spike of adrenaline through my bloodstream. “This is your creation. Your breakthrough. No one is better equipped to monitor its effects.”
The alarms howl, but his touch keeps me anchored.
“I should stay with you,” I protest, though my mind is already pulling data, calculating outcomes, tracking possible power mutations. “What if it—”
“I’ll be fine.” His thumb brushes my collarbone, a ghost of our earlier intimacy. “We both have roles to play. The tactical unit needs your oversight. After all,” he adds, that dangerous smile curling again, “you’re the only one who truly understands what this creature is capable of.”
He’s right, of course. He’s always right. This is the first successful hybrid I’ve created. My masterpiece of genetic manipulation and blood magic. It’s my responsibility to document its evolution, behavior, and control . . . or lack thereof.
“Get her out of the building,” Alexander says to the enforcer near the door. Then, lower, just for me, “Make me proud.”
I straighten my spine and reach for my SpellScreen. “Yes, sir.”
The enforcer escorts me through emergency protocol corridors, and my mind spins with implications: variables to log, outcomes to reevaluate, contingencies to rerun. Every disaster carries data and this one could advance our research in ways controlled conditions never could.
Thirty minutes later, I’m stationed with the containment team, recording the hybrid’s effects in real time.
The data stream is extraordinary, toxicity levels far surpassing projections and cellular degradation mechanisms we didn’t account for.
My fingers move methodically, reducing biological collapse into clean, legible metrics while my pulse betrays its tremor beneath the skin.
Movement at the building entrance pulls my gaze from the screen.
Rowe crashes through the doors, Aria in his arms. Both are ghost-pale, marked with gray particulate from the hybrid’s mist, and something coils in my gut.
Guilt, perhaps. I hadn’t anticipated the creature breaching containment, let alone crossing into the apartment complex next door.
Still, the thought dissipates quickly as I evaluate their condition.
The Ashmanta mist is threaded across their skin in a fine gray film, already working to degrade their magical essence.
Combined with the Deathshade Widow’s neurotoxin .
. . I tap rapid notes into the SpellScreen, tagging timestamps and markers for later analysis.
They need treatment immediately if damage is to be reversed.
A concussive slam against the main barrier snaps heads around as the hybrid hurls itself into the ward and the containment seal ripples.
Enforcers mutter tactics beside me, their voices clipped and professional as they assess weaknesses, entry points, and sedation plans, but I can’t look away from those eyes.
Eight of them, fixed on Aria. My hands freeze above the screen.
That targeting pattern shouldn’t exist. The hybrid never encountered her scent in the lab; had no way to develop such specific hunting behavior. Someone must have introduced that parameter deliberately.
The creature slams against the wards again, its intelligence evident in how it tests different points, searching for weakness. I designed it to be adaptive, yes, to solve spatial challenges, but this level of cognition, this obsession . . . it wasn’t programmed.
Healers swarm Rowe and Aria, triaging him first, checking vitals, toxin index, spellburn readings, while my sister waits for slower care. A sharp part of me thinks good—and then recoils.
Of course I hope they survive.
Alexander strides toward the medical transport, a microscopic fracture in his perfect facade, a flicker of fear in his expression as he sees his son. I return to my documentation.
After a while, movement draws my attention back to the transport.
Aria’s eyes meet mine through the haze, dull with toxin but still unmistakable.
For a breath, I see her as she was. My sister.
The girl who once pulled me out of a freezing river with ice-burned fingers.
But the rest of me remembers each correction, all the comparisons, and the countless moments she stood center stage while I faded behind her.
She has Dominic now. The Blackwoods. She made her choice.
I look away and resume annotating the dispersal data, while the hybrid’s eyes still track her, eight points of radioactive green in the darkness. And I can’t shake the feeling that nothing about this is truly an accident.
“Dispersal pattern is near-perfect,” I murmur, refining my projections. The ash-mist clings to the upper architecture just as the field models predicted. “Ashmanta DNA integration is stable. But the Deathshade neurotoxin delivery is exhibiting unanticipated volatility.”
“Luna.” Alexander’s voice slices through the hum of tactical chatter. He stands beside me now, so close his sleeve brushes mine. “We’ve gathered enough for today. Come.”
Rowe’s voice erupts behind us in a sepulchral cry unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him, a sound born not of rage but of something deeper.
Something feral. Enforcers struggle to contain him as he thrashes against them, trying to reach the car.
His eyes are wild with desperation as Kane lifts Aria into the vehicle, her body slack, head lolling against his shoulder.
I steal a glance at Alexander beside me.
His mask hasn’t slipped—it never does—but there’s a tightness in his jaw that speaks volumes.
The great Alexander Darkmoor, watching his only son restrained and sedated while a lethal toxin eats through his bloodstream.
I want to reach for him, offer comfort, but there are too many eyes.
Instead, I shift infinitesimally closer, letting my arm brush his in quiet solidarity.
“Will he be alright?”
“Yes.” His voice is absolute. “He’ll spend the night at Vale Grace Hospital. The antidote was administered quickly enough to prevent irreversible damage.”
“How did the medics know what to use? How were they even on site—”
“Aria will recover as well,” he interrupts smoothly, “though her path may be more difficult. The toxin will have more time to spread through her system. Kian is overseeing her care personally. As her emergency contact, and future father-in-law, the decisions fall to him. He won’t let her die.”
I nod, irritation flaring beneath my skin at how neatly he sidestepped the question. The Blackwood car disappears down the street, leaving Rowe kneeling in its wake, the sedative finally dragging him under. His head drops forward.
Alexander’s hand finds the small of my back, his touch maddeningly light. “Your penthouse will require full decontamination,” he says, voice pitched low for me alone. “It could take days. Possibly weeks. You’ll stay with me.”
It isn’t a suggestion. His fingers trace idle circles against the base of my spine, and despite the sirens, the medics, the ruined street behind us, my skin tightens under his hand. “What about Vivienne?”
“My wife understands the nature of my work.” His thumb brushes the edge of my neck. “Besides, you’ve practically been living in the lab for weeks. This is simply more efficient.”
The word slips from his lips like honey laced with poison. I shiver, though not from the night air. Behind us, Rowe is lifted onto a stretcher, his body limp in the medics’ hands.