She’s been working tirelessly, golden hair tumbling loose around her shoulders, her cheeks flushed with exertion and anticipation. Even disheveled, Luna’s exquisite, all delicate features and aching for approval. When I draw closer, she trembles, beautifully uncertain despite everything I’ve given her.
“It’s finished,” she whispers, gesturing toward the vial, where deep violet and cobalt-blue essences coil. “The Siren essence induces neural receptivity; softens the mind for reprogramming. The Hollowmaw’s parasitic structure overrides the host’s original pathways. Together, they create perfect compliance.”
“Show me the specifics.” I place my hand against the small of her back, and she leans into the contact like a starving thing.
“The Siren opens the mind. It manipulates emotional frequencies. Makes them wish to obey. But the Hollowmaw . . .” She pauses, and I notice how the violet substance in the vial seems to writhe independently. “It’s unlike anything I’ve worked with before. Most creature essences we use in Apex are about DNA integration, merging abilities at a genetic level. But this doesn’t want to merge.”
She adjusts something in her calculations as she explains. “We harvested it from the neural core, not the DNA structure. It’s cerebral essence—pure cognition, not biology. It doesn’t alter who you are genetically, but it overrides who you are fundamentally. It travels through the bloodstream and burrows directly into the brain. Not to enhance, but to replace.”
Her voice is equal parts wonder and dread. “Even suspended in the matrix, it keeps trying to reform itself. It has intent. We’ve neverworked with something that still resists containment after extraction. It’s not an enhancement serum, but a hostile rewrite.”
“Immediate onset?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
“Yes. No stabilizers or integration lag. The personality isn’t suppressed but devoured. Thought, memory, identity . . . replaced.”
“And it’s ready?”
She hesitates. “It should be tested. Carefully.”
“Dominic,” I say softly, letting his name bloom between us like a curse, and hatred sparks in her eyes.
Every whisper about her parents’ deaths. Each subtle implication of his role in corrupting Aria. It took months to reframe him in her mind—not as a victim, but as a virus. Now, he’s exactly the subject this serum was meant for.
Better him than Rowe.
My son’s defiance stings, but I would never put him through this. Let the world think me ruthless—I am. But even ruthlessness has a hierarchy. Sometimes a father’s mercy means sacrificing others to spare his own blood.
“He deserves this,” she says, conviction strengthening her voice.
“Of course he does.” I brush a strand of hair from her temple, letting my fingers linger.
“The serum could erase him completely,” she warns, but there’s no real concern in her voice, only scientific observation. “If the essence takes, there won’t be anything left to salvage.”
“Then we’ll have useful data for the next iteration.” I tilt her chin toward me. “Progress demands suffering. You’ve always understood that.”
She nods, gathering the serum with steady hands, all doubt erased with my approval. It glows between us, beautiful and deadly. Rather like Luna herself.
The sublevel containment chamber is not a lab. It’s a tomb. Steel, stone, and spellwork layered so thick they are basically a burial dirge. It was designed for things that should never see daylight. Through the one-way glass, I watch Kian work with clinical detachment. As always, my old friend handles the messy parts of progress so my hands can stay clean.
Dominic kneels in the center of the chamber, chained in magic-dampening restraints that have already fused to raw skin. His body sags under the weight of exhaustion, but he hasn’t broken yet. That, of course, is what fascinates Kian the most. Dom’s face is unrecognizable—one eye sealed shut, nose fractured, lips torn. Burn marks, precise and deliberate, pattern his chest like a ruined ritual. Every injury is placed to inflict pain, not damage. Kian’s favorite kind.
Luna stands beside me, eyes carefully averted. But I watch. I always do. Someone must understand the cost and remember what it took.
“Still clinging to defiance?” Kian’s voice crackles through the speakers. He kneels beside his son with a casualness that chills, dragging a blood-streaked blade along the floor. “What is it this time, hmm? Hope? Aria? That pathetic little rebellion flickering in your skull?”
He fists a handful of Dominic’s hair and yanks his head back until the crack of his neck echoes through the chamber. “All this pain. Allthis suffering. For what? A girl?” His laugh is jagged and wet. “Oh, I warned you about her, didn’t I? My precious, pathetic boy. I told you she was your deathbird. You think you’re in love, but you’re just another loose thread waiting to be cut.”
I study Kian’s movements, the fluid grace of a predator who enjoys his work too much. How he can do this to his own son both disgusts and fascinates me. I would never lay a hand on Rowe, no matter his defiance. There are cleaner ways to shape a child. More elegant methods of control.
Kian’s knuckles, raw and bloody, trace down Dom’s cheek in a mockery of tenderness. “Look at you now. The mighty Dominic Blackwood, brought low by love.” He spits the word like poison. “You could have been magnificent. Could have ruled beside me. Instead?” His boot slams into Dom’s ribs, another crunch and a gasp sucked through broken teeth. “Instead, you’re on your knees, bleeding for a girl who left you behind.”
Dominic thrashes against his restraints, veins straining, metal grinding against raw flesh. Kian laughs, delighted. “That’s it. Show me the animal you’ve always been,” he croons. “Does it burn, knowing she’ll never love you as you love her? That no matter how much you bleed, she’ll never choose you?” He leans in close, voice syrupy and obscene. “But don’t worry, son. Soon, none of that will matter. We’ll turn all that pathetic devotion into something far more useful.”
Let him enjoy this and paint the chamber in his son’s blood. Every grotesque touch and broken bone serves a purpose. Kian gets his pleasure, I get my precision. And when the other Founding Families fall, when the consequences come knocking, this will all trace back to him. The brute. The madman. The father who tortured his wife and shattered his only son. The perfect scapegoat for an empire of horrors. Who better to burn than the monster no one mourns?
“Want to know something delicious?” Kian’s grin splits wider. “When we’re finished, you won’t only obey—you’ll break Aria yourself, with your own hands; her name on yourtongue, and you’ll thank us for the privilege.” His voice drops to a whisper of rapture. “Now that’s what I call a proper lesson in love.”
He rises as I enter, blood dripping from his arms.
