With an irritated sigh, I set down my tablet and stood. Jupiter was at her meeting lunch with Lydia, and the constant noise was grating on my last nerve. I’d just go in and silence her laptop. Nothing more.
Her door was ajar, which was unusual. Noddle was nowhere to be seen either. Jupiter was meticulous about privacy, especially after the threatening note incident. I pushed it open, intending to make it quick, to find the source of the noise and shut it down.
Her laptop sat open on the desk, screen illuminated with what looked like a dozen new email notifications in the official Dominion messaging app. I moved closer, just wanting to close the damn thing or at least mute it. That’s when I saw the sender: Director Orion.
I shouldn’t have looked. I knew I shouldn’t. But something cold settled in my stomach as I glanced at the preview line of the most recent message:
Re: Bond Manipulation Progress - Status Update Required
My hand froze above the keyboard. Bond manipulation? I told myself there had to be an explanation, some context I was missing. But as I stood there, another message notification popped up:
Jupiter - Urgent: Nightfall Shield Integration Timeline
Before I could talk myself out of it, I clicked on the message thread. The screen filled with correspondence, dozens of emails between Jupiter and Director Orion dating back months before she’d even arrived at Dominion.
My blood turned to ice as I began to read.
Director Orion: The Nightfall Shield presents our optimal pairing target. Their resistance to traditional axis candidates makes them vulnerable to your particular skillset. Your Ophis designation allows for bond manipulation at a level previously unseen. Use this to your advantage.
Jupiter: I’ve studied their profiles extensively. Reece will be the most difficult to convince, but once he’s compromised, the others will follow. The fabricated room invasion was successful in forcing proximity.
I felt physically ill as I scrolled further, finding detailed strategies for how Jupiter had planned to integrate herself with us, how she would use her Ophis abilities to manipulate our emotions, create artificial attraction, forge a bond without our true consent.
Director Orion: The Philadelphia deployment exceeded expectations. The trauma bond created during your “near-death” experience accelerated the timeline considerably. Your performance was convincing.
Jupiter: The sexual bonding phase is proceeding as anticipated. Three of four targets secured. Aiden Reece remains resistant but showing promising signs of possessive behavior.
My hands shook with fury as I kept reading. Everything had all been calculated. Engineered. A fucking Assembly operation with us as the unwitting subjects.
I grabbed my phone and sent a group text to the others.
A: Shield room. Now. Emergency.
Percy arrived first, his expression shifting from concern to confusion when he saw me standing in Jupiter’s room. “What’s going on?”
I couldn’t speak, just pointed at the screen. His eyes narrowed as he moved closer to read, his body going frighteningly still as he processed what he was seeing.
Draco and Eris arrived together, both looking wary.
“Aiden? What’s the emergency?” Draco asked.
“See for yourself,” I managed, my voice a hoarse whisper. I felt like I could throw up any second.
The four of us crowded around the laptop, reading in stunned silence. With each scroll of the page, I felt something inside me shatter.
“She was playing us,” Eris said finally, his voice hollow with disbelief. “The whole fucking time.”
Percy hadn’t spoken yet. His face had gone blank, the warm light in his eyes extinguished completely. I’d never seen him look so cold, so utterly devoid of emotion.
Draco sank into the desk chair, head in his hands. “I knew it,” he whispered. “I knew it was too good to be true. The legendary Ophis just happens to manifest when we need an axis, and she just happens to be perfect for us?”
“They engineered everything,” I said, unable to keep the rage from my voice. “The note in her room, the ‘attack’—it was all staged to get her closer to us.”
“And we fell for it,” Percy finally spoke, each word like ice. “Every. Fucking. Word.”
Eris’s control snapped. With a roar of fury, he stormed into the common room. The sound of shattering glass followed, then splintering wood as he systematically destroyed everything in his path.
“Her Ophis magic,” Draco said quietly, looking up with devastated eyes. “It says here she can manipulate our emotions, make us feel things that aren’t real. That’s why—“ He broke off, unable to finish the thought.
