Page 218 of Damsel in Disguise

Her cry echoes through the room as she struggles against him with everything she has, kicking, twisting, fighting to break free while he drags her back toward the laboratory with a few other guards in tow.

Something inside me gives way. I glance over at the Crown. He realizes his part of the bargain is lost.

In a second, I’m pulling out the suppressor and blowing brain of the guard holding her.

His body crumples to the floor before the echo has a chance to reach the walls. Blood oozes from the hole left in his head.

Silence follows while Ariella stares at the body.

The remaining guards freeze as their attention shifts beyond me.

Until this moment, the Crown had been little more than a myth wrapped in whispers and carefully guarded descriptions. Now the legend stands before them in flesh and shadow, and none of them dares move.

There’s disappointment in his gaze.

I realize with quiet surprise that I’ve never seen it before. Synthètes have failed. Operations have collapsed. Entire lives have been erased under my authority, and he has never looked at me as though I had become something unrecognizable.

I slide the handgun back into its holster.

Ariella slowly retreats from the fallen guard, her eyes fixed on me as though she no longer recognizes the man standing before her.

The unfortunate truth is that I’m not entirely certain I recognize him either.

Without caring about the fresh wound in my shoulder, I cross the distance between Ariella and me in a handful of strides.

A siren tears through the Dominion just then, its shrill cry reverberating through stone and steel alike. Red emergency lights ignite across the laboratory, drowning every surface in crimson.

The laboratory falls deathly still, though beyond its walls the Dominion has already descended into chaos.

This is the moment. There won’t be another.

Ariella instinctively tries to back away, but before anyone else can reach her, I pull her against me and wrap my hand around her throat.

She goes rigid with a soft gasp.

My free hand reaches for the suppressor once more and presses it against her temple. “If anyone dares to take her from me,” I say, my eyes never leaving the room, “I’ll end her myself.”

Weapons rise.

Metal slides against metal as safeties disengage.

So they all know who she is.

Her voice trembles against the clicking of disengaging the trigger of each gun pointed at me now. “Alistair? Wh—what are you doing?”

“Buying time,” I whisper in her ears and lick those stray tears away.

Ariella squeezes her eyes shut, tears slipping down her cheeks for me to taste despite her efforts to hold them back.

The Crown studies me with unnerving patience.

“I spent years fearing you would inherit my flaws,” he says at last. “It appears you’ve surpassed them. I built an empire around one woman, Alistair. You’re prepared to burn one for one.”

At last, I allow myself to genuinely smile.

It’s not directed at him. It’s directed at the security monitors mounted high upon the laboratory walls—armed individuals with the crest of CynoTech adorn their chests.

His attention follows mine.