Page 147 of Damsel in Disguise

This time, I shut the notification system off entirely.

The silence afterward settles heavily through the room. For the first time in years, it feels better, although I know how badly this could end for me.

“Delilah…” her voice lowers slightly. “She really can’t come back this time?”

A faint smile pulls at the corner of my mouth. “There’s still time. I can make your wish come true if—”

“No,” she cuts in immediately.

A chuckle slips free. Predictable.

The decomposition is accelerating now. Black veins continue spreading beneath the pale synthetic skin, branching outward in jagged lines.

Rolling my shoulders once, I grip Delilah’s wrist and drag the body off the couch. It hits the floor heavily with a wet sound echoing through the room.

Ariella flinches at the impact. But she doesn’t step back. Nor does she look away.

“You’re helping me clean this up,” I tell her.

“You know you can just…” she motions vaguely toward the body, her face twisting slightly at the sight of the decomposition, “carry it in your arms and bury it wherever you want to. I can stay here and guard your back.”

I stop mid-motion.

She’s right.

I don’t need her help to do what I’ve always done with Synthetic bodies so far. This is the fourth time now, for fucks sake.

Fourth time living beside a Synthète. The other three had different roles carefully tailored for integration—maid, assistant, friend. Functional identities. Controlled environments. Controlled failures.

And when the time came, I killed every single one of them and blamed it on a system malfunction.

The Dominion knew, of course. The Triarchs always know.

Which is precisely why they eventually decided to bind one to me permanently through marriage.

A perfected Synthète tied to my public image, so I’d think twice before ruining another asset in a fit of intellectual dissatisfaction. As though public appearances ever mattered more to me than disposal of these shits.

However, this is the first time I’ve destroyed a Synthète solely because of a human.

My gaze drifts toward the decaying body.

The previous ones never deteriorated this badly. Their systems shut down cleaner. Delilah’s emotional equilibrium didn’t just cross the threshold tonight.

It breached catastrophically.

Whatever. I’m not carrying this disgusting, melting puddle in my arms.

“Congratulations,” I say with a dry smile and glance at Ariella. “You’ve emotionally traumatized advanced military technology.”

To my surprise, she laughs.

The sound lands directly beneath my ribs and does something deeply unpleasant to my chest.

I hate it instantly.

Stepping over the sweatpants I discarded earlier, I walk across the room completely naked without bothering to cover myself.

Ariella’s gaze follows every movement automatically, tracking me with shameless curiosity.