Chapter 16 Chapter 16
RIAN
The sharp, sickening spike of pain from the Mate Bond was the price of my lie. I'd denied the execution of my own grandmother, the memory that molded me into this controlled machine, and the Bond had retaliated, punishing my dishonesty by sharing the agony with Amina.
She knew. The look in her eyes as she held her head, feeling the residual psychic wound, confirmed it. I hadn't just failed to convince her; I had physically proven I was a liar.
I left her immediately, not out of anger, but out of fear of what else the bond might force me to reveal. The precarious truce was fracturing, and I had to stabilize the political situation before the emotional one killed us both.
I went straight to my terminal to review the agenda. It was time for the first sampling.
Haddad: Protocol 1.0 is required after the next high-intensity session. I require trace blood samples for base genetic sequencing. A successful extraction will secure my full political cover for the next four Council cycles.
The message was cold, clinical, and utterly damning. I had agreed to this to shield Amina from execution, but carrying out the protocol felt like wielding the knife myself. I was using her trust and the very thing the Mate Bond demanded I protect to feed a vulture.
I prepared the training session meticulously, ensuring the atmosphere was harsh enough to keep Amina focused on survival, not suspicion. I slipped a hyper-sterile, automated micro-sampler—a device designed by Haddad's own lab—into my compression gear. It was tiny, silent, and terrifyingly efficient.
When Amina walked into the training room, she was tense, still reeling from the psychic blow. She avoided my eyes, but she didn't question the lesson. She was driven now by the knowledge that I was lying, and therefore, her only path to safety was increased power.
“Today, we test the limits of your Channel,” I stated, keeping my voice low and instructional, battling the Mate Bond's insistent guilt. “You will sustain the contained Earth Pulse for five minutes without my aid. If you fail, the feedback will be painful. If you succeed, we will verify your ability to suppress the chaos alone.”
She nodded sharply. “No physical contact?”
“No. You do this with pure will.” I needed her energy signature to be raw and focused for Haddad's remote analysis, and I needed to ensure my hands were free for the extraction.
She closed her eyes and reached for the power. I watched the skin of her arms ripple as the Earth Pulse surged, contained this time, held in place by the hard-won control she’d learned. The room began to hum with her contained energy.
I didn't watch her face; I watched the terminal on the wall, where Haddad's data stream was now flickering to life—a torrent of real-time bio-data: heart rate, cortisol, and the specific energy frequency of the Lycan-Seer magic.
Goddamn it, Haddad. Don't let her see you.
I moved behind Amina as she held the difficult pose, the tension in her body immense. I brought my hand up, running it down her arm as if checking her stance. It was a feigned action to justify the sudden proximity.
The micro-sampler in my hand was activated. I pressed it quickly, silently, against the back of her tricep. A small, fleshy area where the pinprick would be masked by the intensity of her physical exertion.
Fuck.
Amina flinched, a sharp intake of breath.
“Stabilize!” I commanded instantly, pushing a non-physical wave of Alpha discipline through the air to cover the movement. “Focus on the Channel, Amina! Don’t let the muscle spasm break the containment!”
She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the internal pain, assuming the sharp sting was part of the body's natural resistance to the sheer power she was wielding. The brilliant focus in her mind blocked the intrusion completely.
I withdrew the micro-sampler. The glass capillary contained a clean, single drop of her blood. It was a perfect sample. I slipped the device into a pocket, feeling the cold weight of the betrayal.
A minute later, Amina collapsed, the five-minute mark complete. She was exhausted, gasping, but she had succeeded.
“Flawless,” I conceded, forcing a note of pride into my voice. “Your control is absolute.”
She looked up at me, breathing heavily. “Weapons don't get tired, Alpha. But thank you for the feedback. What's the new cost?”
“Rest,” I replied, shoving my guilt down. “Go clean up. We start kinetic evasion again this afternoon.”
I waited until the door to her suite sealed before racing back to the training room terminal, locking the door behind me. I retrieved the sampler and placed it into Haddad's transmission port—a small, disguised access point in the floor.
The transmission was instantaneous. And the response was immediate.
Haddad’s face appeared on the secure screen, devoid of the usual clinical detachment, replaced by a cold, calculating excitement.
“Alpha Vale. Your data is... unexpected. The sequencing is complete. This is not a curse.”
My breath caught in my throat. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Lycan-Seer marker is not an instability factor. It is a biological restoration mechanism. Our Lycan gene pool has been narrowing for centuries, Rian. We are losing viability, becoming too rigid, too dependent on pure Alpha dominance. The Prophecy predicts a 'Sundering War,' yes, but not a destruction. It predicts a forced evolution.”
Haddad leaned closer to the screen, her gaze chilling. “Amina is not a weapon of destruction. She is the cure for our species’ stagnation. Her DNA contains the necessary variance to restore genetic health and unlock a new, stable form of Lycan power.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. My entire life; the trauma, the control, the execution of my grandmother had been based on a profound political lie. The Prophecy wasn't a death sentence; it was the mechanism for our survival. And I had almost executed it.
“You must protect her, Rian,” Haddad’s cold voice continued, amplified by the speakers. “But not just from the Council. From herself. We need to understand this mechanism fully. I need more detailed access. The Hybrid is the cure, Rian. You must protect her, but I need more detailed access.”
I stared at the screen, the weight of the new truth crushing me. I had kept Amina alive out of duty and the Mate Bond, but I had betrayed her to the very person who now understood her true value. My guilt over the sampling vanished, replaced by the crushing terror of this new, terrifying responsibility.
Amina wasn't just my Mate or my assassin; she was the key to Lycan survival. And I had just given the key's schematics to the most dangerous, calculating mind on the Council.