"I'm not in your head, little Dragon,"she whispered, the sound resonating in the metal of my own body."I'm in the cracks."
"It's the Silvering," Elias gasped, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "The changes, they're compromising the psychic shielding of the bond."
Now, now, little Phoenix, don’t go giving away all my secrets,Hera chided. The sensation of her amusement was like ice water trickling down my spine.You were always so smart. So desperate to be the hero of your own tragedy. But we both know who the real monster is, don't we?
The mental presence shifted, moving like a spotlight across a stage. It swept over Kaelen, dismissed Thane and Elias, and settled, heavy and suffocating, on the man in front of me.
Flynn stopped moving. He stood frozen on the step, one hand gripping the railing so hard the metal groaned under the pressure.
The Wolf,Hera whispered, and her voice dripped with a poisoned affection.The hunger. The instinct. Do you remember, little beast? Do you remember the first time I let you off the leash?
"No," Flynn gasped. It wasn't a denial; it was a plea. He shook his head, a violent, jerky motion. "Don't."
You told the girl you were ambassadors,Hera went on, weaving the memory into the air around us. The red glow of the forge seemed to dim, replaced by a stark, blinding white light in my mind’s eye; the memory was bleeding through the bond, forced upon us all.You told her you came to save them. But you forgot the testing phase, didn't you? Before Pandora. Before the mortal realm.
The vision washed over me like a tsunami.
I wasn't on the stairs anymore. I was standing in snow, deep, pristine white snow, that crunched underfoot. The air was bitingcold, smelling of pine resin and wood smoke. A village lay before me, a small cluster of timber huts nestled in a northern valley.
It was peaceful.
Quiet.
Then I looked down at my hands.
They weren't my hands. They were large, scarred, and covered in blood that was still steaming in the winter air. My fingers, no,Flynn’sfingers, were tipped with claws that were dripping crimson onto the snow.
Hunger,the thought echoed, but it wasn't the sexy, playful hunger Flynn usually projected. This was a bottomless, starving void. A command written in fire across his brain.CONSUME.
The view shifted. I was moving through the village, but not walking. I was tearing across the terrain, a blur of violence that had no conscience, no hesitation. I saw faces, men raising axes that shattered against my skin, women clutching children, their mouths open in screams that I couldn't hear over the roar of the blood rushing in my ears.
It was a slaughter. Efficient. Brutal. Total.
The snow turned red. The wood smoke turned to the smell of burning flesh.
Good boy,a voice whispered in the memory, Hera’s voice, younger then, satisfied.The wolf weapon functions within expected parameters. Lethality confirmed. Empathy centers successfully suppressed.
The vision snapped off, plunging me back into the red, sweltering heat of the forge stairs.
I gasped, clutching the railing to stay upright. My stomach roiled, the phantom taste of iron thick in my mouth.
Flynn was hunched over the railing, retching dryly. His whole body was shaking, vibrating with a self-loathing so potent it radiated off him like heatwaves.
See?Hera’s voice returned, smug and terrible.He is not a prince, Aria. He is not even an ambassador, nor a misunderstood soul. All he is, I made him. A dog I bred to kill sheep. That village was a test site. Those people were bait to see if the wolf would bite. And oh how he bit.
"Shut up!" I screamed, the sound echoing down the shaft. The runes on my neck flared, reacting to my spike of rage. "Get out!"
Kaelen squeezed my shoulder, his touch grounding, but I could feel his own horror through our connection. He remembered it, too. They all did. They were products of the same laboratory, tested in the same cruel ways.
Flynn turned slowly. His face was a mask of devastation. The amber eyes, usually so full of life and mischief, were flat and dead. He looked at me, and he didn't see the woman he had claimed in the cavern; he saw a judge.
"It–it was the conditioning," Flynn rasped, his voice sounding like it was being dragged over gravel. "I didn't have a choice. I didn't... I wasn't me."
Of course you were you,Hera whispered, twisting the knife.That is your essential nature, Wolf. Without my leash, without the Keepers' cage, you are just teeth in the dark. And you will do it again. You will tear her apart just like you tore them apart. It is what you were made for.
"Lies," Elias said from above, his voice shaking but gaining strength. "That was before the design was complete. Before we had– before we were finished."
Imperfections,Hera dismissed.The girl thinks she loves you. She thinks she has chosen. But she has chosen a blade pressed to her own throat.
