Chapter 11 Chapter 11
AMINA
The training room was the same sterile white box, but the air felt poisoned. Two days had passed since Rian returned from the Council, and I hadn't seen him since he confirmed I was "safe"—a word that tasted like pure, agonizing betrayal after his cold threat regarding Ethan.
I was restless, vibrating with suppressed power and paranoia. I knew he was hiding something; I could feel the tension radiating off the Mate Bond, a low thrum of guilt, fear, and deceit beneath the usual possessiveness.
Rian walked in, wearing the same unforgiving black gear, but his usual aura of composed power was replaced by something agitated, brittle. His amber eyes flicked to the ceiling, the corners of the room, everywhere but directly at me.
Is he worried about spies? Or is he worried about the damn sensors he installed when I was asleep? I wondered, knowing the only reason I was still breathing was the Mate Bond, and the only reason Rian was alive was his calculated control.
“Today, we revisit the Channel,” Rian commanded, his voice clipped and dry. He avoided my gaze. “But deeper. We move past merely stabilizing the output. We focus on sustained, targeted suppression. Your power can’t just be a shield, Amina. It has to be silent.”
“Silent for the Council, or silent for your own security cameras?” I challenged, meeting his gaze with defiance.
He took a step toward me, and the Alpha Command flared, cold and overwhelming. “For your survival, Hybrid. Do you think Alarie cares about the distinction? They need to see a stable asset. Nothing more. Stop wasting time.”
“And what about the constant surges of possessiveness I feel when you push your Alpha control into me?” I retorted, pressing the painful point of our unwanted connection. “Does that look stable on your security reports, Rian? Or does it look like desperate treason?”
He flinched, a minute muscle jumping in his jaw. The Mate Bond surged with a wave of possessive anger, immediately followed by a sharp spike of controlled withdrawal. He was fighting the bond, fighting us, harder than ever, trying to police his own reactions.
“Focus on the lesson,” he warned, his voice a low growl that vibrated through the floor. “Hands up. Now.”
I complied, placing my palms against his. The contact was instant, agonizing fire—an intolerable mix of primal desire and pure, absolute control. I could feel the guilt and desperate strain pouring off him, like hot poison seeping into the Mate Bond.
“Channel the Earth Pulse,” he instructed, his thumb running a distracting, possessive circle on the sensitive skin of my wrist. “Now, bring the surge up to ninety percent. Hold it there. I need maximum output.”
The power rose, heavy and roaring. I was getting better at pulling the massive energy without letting it explode chaotically.
Then, Rian pushed his control into me. But this time, it wasn't the stable, disciplined force I'd felt before. It was rough, almost painful. He was jamming his power into mine, overriding my focus with his own frantic urgency, bordering on panic.
What the hell is wrong with him? My mind screamed. He’s not teaching, he’s suffocating! He's using me as a live demonstration!
I tried to pull back, but he gripped my hands tighter, his eyes boring into mine. I could see the sweat beading on his forehead, but the strain wasn't from channeling power; it was from hiding something vital.
“You’re unstable,” he muttered, his lips barely moving. “You’re leaking power, Amina! Control the boundaries! Contain the surge! You have to prove containment!”
He pushed harder, and I felt a sharp, cutting pain in my chest. He wasn't stabilizing my power; he was forcing a brutal chokehold on it, trying to pin the wild force down with sheer Alpha will.
He’s not trying to teach me. He’s trying to please Haddad. He’s performing for the sensors. The thought hit me with blinding clarity, fueled by cold, righteous fury. I hated being his puppet, his test subject for some scientist’s profit.
I fought back, not by pushing the Primal Command, but by brutally resisting his psychic chokehold. I flexed my internal will, sending a sharp, contained pulse of the Earth Pulse outward, away from Rian, aiming for the nearest obstruction: the steel wall twenty feet away.
The wall didn't collapse, but the controlled Kinetic Echo rippled the metal, causing a noticeable, high-pitched electronic whine from the sensitive sensor systems integrated behind the padding. The lights in the training room flickered violently, cycling through red and orange.
I had caused an uncontrolled electrical disruption—a clear spike of Hybrid power on every sensor within the Tower.
Rian’s eyes went wide with pure, unadulterated panic. Not the panic of an Alpha whose Mate had acted out, but the panic of a man whose carefully constructed political lie was about to be instantly exposed by a massive, visible data spike.
“SHIT!” he swore, the control momentarily dissolving into raw, guttural fear. He didn't let go of my hands; he violently ripped them—and me—forward.
He crushed me against his chest, the impact knocking the air from my lungs. The Mate Bond, already strained by his deception, exploded into a blinding wave of feral, possessive protection. He slammed his power into my core, not with the surgical precision of a lesson, but with the brutal, overwhelming force of a collapsing dam.
He didn't want me to feel safe; he wanted me to stop moving, stop thinking, and stop disrupting his data feed.
I felt my power—the roaring Earth Pulse—snapped back into absolute submission. The uncontrolled surge was violently suppressed beneath the sheer, dominating force of his Lycan will. The pain was immediate and searing.
I was trapped, my cheek crushed against his hammering heart, my power locked down, and the overwhelming scent of his panic and control filling my senses. His arms were locked around me, not in an embrace, but in a steel cage.
The suppression worked. The flickering lights stabilized. The electronic whine stopped.
But Rian didn't release me. He held me captive against his powerful body, his breath ragged against my hair, the Mate Bond screaming with a frantic mix of relief, fury, and possessive need.
“Never leak power like that again,” he growled, the Alpha Command laced with a chilling intensity that went straight to my bones. His body was settling, but he remained rigidly, intimately locked around mine. We were standing in a charged, intimate embrace, the silence roaring with the raw energy of the Mate Bond and the invisible, chilling presence of Zayna Haddad's monitoring equipment.
"You just broke the simulation, Amina. And now we pay for it."