Reid was still asleep. Two weeks had passed, and nothing had changed.

  I sat beside his bed, fingers tracing idle patterns against the fabric of the bed sheets, elbows digging into my knees. The medical bay hummed with artificial stillness—the rhythmic beeping of his monitors, the soft exhale of the ventilator beneath his nose. His chest rose and fell, steady but slow. Alive, but not awake. Not here.

  Then, the ship lurched. A subtle shift, barely noticeable to most, but I felt it down to my bones. The telltale hum of the Jericho’s FTL drives surged to life again, another desperate jump into the void, another random direction, trying to outrun the Rue.

  I clenched my jaw, gripping the edge of the bed to steady myself as the artificial gravity adjusted, smoothing out the transition. We were running again—not aimless, not without purpose, but desperately trying to shake them off before we made our final approach to Haven. We couldn’t lead the Rue there. Humanity’s last colony, the last living remnant of our species, couldn’t survive an invasion. So we jumped, again and again, burning power to keep moving, to throw them off our trail. It wouldn’t last forever. It never did.

  I let out a slow breath, turning back to Reid. He should have woken up by now.

  I let my eyes linger on him longer than I wanted to, taking in the too-pale skin, the wild blond hair, the way he looked hollow in the dim light. He had always been a mess—barrel-chested, always grinning like he knew something I didn’t. But now? Now he looked fragile.

  I hated this feeling. This waiting.

  I had power now—more than I ever had in my life. I could punch through steel, heal from wounds that should have been fatal, command soldiers engineered to be gods of war. And still, I couldn’t do a goddamn thing. I had seen death before—on Earth, in the streets filled with the desperate and dying. On the Hemlock, surrounded by things that shouldn’t exist. I had watched people be torn apart, crushed, burned alive, all for a mission that, in the end, hadn’t even mattered.

  But I had never seen someone I cared about like this.

  Yates had stopped checking in as often. The scans never changed. "His body is fine. His vitals are stable. He should wake up." Should. But he didn’t.

  Jericho had offered a solution. "I can repair him. With the nanites, I can wake him now."

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement, like there was no real choice at all. But I had a choice. And I said no.

  I knew what the nanites meant. They would fix him, yeah. But they would change him. Maybe not all at once, maybe not in a way anyone would notice right away—but I knew better. I had seen what they did to people. To Lion.

  And I wouldn’t let that happen to Reid.

  Because it wouldn’t just be about survival. It would be about control. Jericho—my father—would have another soldier. Another piece to move on the board. And as much as I wanted Reid back, I wasn’t willing to trade him for some reprogrammed, improved version of himself.

  I wasn’t willing to let him become like me.

  I ran my fingers through my hair, gripping it tightly before letting go. Long, snow-white strands fell back into place, the color unnatural, a stark reminder of what I was. My reflection in the dark screen of the nearby monitor caught my eye—pale skin, too flawless, too smooth, like porcelain, like something sculpted rather than born. My eyes, mismatched pools of red and blue, stared back at me, the colors shifting slightly in the dim light. A living doll, a perfect, inhuman thing created in my father’s image.

  I swallowed hard. "You’re gonna wake up soon, right?" My voice was quieter than I expected, raw around the edges.

  He didn’t answer, of course.

  I sat back, crossing my arms, glaring at the ceiling like it had personally offended me. Jericho said the Rue wouldn’t wait forever. That they would find us again, and when they did, we would have to be ready. The captains had returned to cryo. Waiting. Preparing for the moment we got the call.

  That left only a few of us awake —Team A. Just me, a handful of others, and the ship itself. Jericho, fully alive, his voice woven into every system. And Knight.

  Whatever she and my father were working on, I wasn't allowed to know. I had power now, sure, but not over them. No matter what my father claimed, I knew they were both still keeping secrets.

  I exhaled slowly, staring at Reid one last time before pushing to my feet. I couldn’t just sit here anymore. I needed something—anything—to make me feel like I was still in control. If I couldn’t fix him, if I couldn’t fight back against whatever game my father and Knight were playing, I could at least make sure I wasn’t weak.

  I found Holt in the armory, methodically inspecting weapons, checking and rechecking their readiness. He didn’t rush. Holt never rushed. His movements were efficient, practiced, his expression as cold and unreadable as ever. He was clean-cut, military through and through, every bit the hardened soldier he had been long before I ever woke up.

  I hesitated for a second, watching the way he worked. No wasted energy, no unnecessary movements. He knew a fight was coming. The Rue wouldn’t wait forever.

  Finally, I stepped forward. "Can you train me again?"

  Holt didn’t even glance up. "I already did."

  I exhaled. "I mean properly. Like before. I want to go beyond the basics—hand-to-hand, firearms. The things I should’ve learned years ago."

  He was silent for a moment, finishing his check on a rifle before setting it aside. Then, with a slight nod, he finally met my gaze. "When I have time."

  It wasn’t a yes. Not exactly. But it wasn’t a no either.

  "Thanks," I muttered.

  A few days later, he found me. And we sparred.

  He grunted as he adjusted his stance, studying me with that sharp, assessing gaze. "You’ve improved at an incredible pace since last year. With your healing and strength, you’re already beyond any normal human. But more than that—your technique has gotten better."

  That caught me off guard. "I have?"

  A slow, deliberate pause. "Marginally."

  I scoffed. "Thanks for the encouragement."

  For a fraction of a second—so brief I almost missed it—a small smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth before it was gone, swallowed back into that cold, unreadable expression. Holt had always been cautious, distant, treating everyone with the same guarded detachment. But sometimes, just sometimes, I caught glimpses of something else beneath the ice.

  So I trained. Day in, day out.

  Sometimes, I ran into Garin. Not often-but enough. He trained too, though I didn't know why. He wasn't a soldier, wasn't even useful outside a lab, but Holt had told me long ago that he was surprisingly advanced-a fighter when he needed to be. Maybe that was why he spent so much time here now, like he had something to prove. I still heard him talking shit in the cafeteria, in the hallways, always just loud enough for me to hear. Always complaining about his new duties, covering for Reid, about how I should be the one doing it. Maybe he was right.

  But I ignored him. For now.

  Holt was skilled—remarkably so. Even slower than usual after the Hemlock, he moved with calculated precision, every strike measured, every counter perfectly timed. Every motion was deliberate, controlled, honed by years of experience.

  It took everything I had not to simply overpower him. But that wasn’t what I was here for.

  I needed to learn.

  The first few sessions were brutal. He never went easy on me. If I left an opening, he took it. If I made a mistake, he punished it. His hits were precise, designed to knock me off balance, to throw me, to disarm me before I even had a chance to react.

  I learned the hard way that brute strength wasn’t enough.

  "You rely too much on your body," he said after he dropped me for the third time in a row. "Fighting isn’t just about what you can take. It’s about what you don’t have to."

  I clenched my teeth, pushing myself back to my feet. "You mean getting hit less?"

  His mouth twitched—just a fraction of a smirk. "Something like that."

  We moved to weapons training when he had time, mostly firearms. I had used guns before, but not like this. Not the way Holt taught. He drilled me on stances, on breathing, on how to clear a jam without breaking focus. It was methodical, brutal, repetitive. By the time he was done with me, my arms ached from recoil, my hands sore from gripping the pistol.

  "You’re getting better," he admitted after a session.

  I wiped sweat from my brow. "Let me guess—marginally?"

  That almost-smirk again. "Slightly more than marginal."

  He was still just as reserved, just as disciplined, but he never treated me differently. Not like the others. Even after everything—after learning what I was, after watching me survive wounds no human should walk away from—he remained the same.

  Cold. Calculated. But steady.

  And that was something.

  But it still wasn’t enough.

  I needed more.

  I needed someone on my level. Or beyond it.

  And that was how I found myself in the Royal Guard’s cryo chamber again.

  The room was cold, sterile, lined with pods that gleamed in the dim light. I stopped in front of his—ornate, covered in silver trim, a snarling wolf carved into the metal like a warning. I hesitated for half a second, fingers hovering over the release panel. Then, with a sharp exhale, I pressed it.

  The cryo systems hissed, steam venting as the pod unlocked. The hydraulics disengaged with a deep, resonant clang, and then the heavy lid lifted, revealing the massive form within. Wolf stepped out, radiating aggression in every inch of his frame. His silver-gray armor was jagged, designed for brutality over aesthetics, reinforced at the joints with overlapping plates. A synthetic fur mantle shifted as he moved, catching the dim light, a relic of the Royal Guard’s past—his past. Twin daggers were strapped to his thighs, sheathed in a way that let him draw them in a heartbeat. His fingers twitched toward the hilts, not consciously, but out of habit, as if waiting for an excuse. His crimson visor gave nothing away, but I knew the way he looked at me. He had trained me once—before I was anything more than a human girl trying to keep up. Before I had fangs.

  His helmeted gaze fell on me immediately.

  "I need you to train me," I said. "Like old times."

  His crimson visor gleamed as he tilted his head slightly. "As her Highness commands."

  I scowled. "Knock that off. Talk to me like you used to. It’s unnatural for you to talk like Lion."

  There was a pause. Then a small chuckle, low and rough, escaped his helmet’s speakers. "You’re going to regret that, princess." His shoulders rolled, stretching, adjusting to the waking world. "But sure. I’ll help you train."

  His stance shifted ever so slightly, his presence suddenly heavier.

  "But I won’t hold back like when you were a child."

  "That’s fine," I said, matching his smirk.

  We soon found ourselves in the training room. I thought I was ready.

  I wasn’t.

  Wolf didn’t hesitate. His armor gleamed in the dim light, sharp-edged, designed for war, the synthetic fur at his shoulders shifting with each movement. His daggers were already in his hands, drawn with a flicker of motion so fast I barely registered it. No hesitation. No wasted movement. He was a predator, through and through. The moment the fight started, he struck. A blur of speed, a flicker of silver in my vision—and then the world twisted.

  My right arm was gone. A sharp, searing absence of flesh, the plasma blade cauterizing the wound before I even felt the pain. A heartbeat later, my left leg followed, severed just above the knee in a single fluid motion.

  I barely registered hitting the ground before I was spinning, tumbling, rolling—but Wolf didn’t let me stop. His boot met my ribs, kicking me onto my back, knives flashing again.

  A sharp tug at my shoulders. Both arms—gone.

  A hiss at my waist. My legs—severed at the hips.

  And then, just like that, I was nothing but a torso, sprawled across the training mat, my shredded suit hanging in tatters, my bare skin against cold steel.

  I gasped, mind catching up to the absolute precision of what had just happened. I lost. Instantly.

  Wolf’s helmet tilted downward, the expressionless faceplate giving nothing away. "Slow," he murmured. His voice wasn’t mocking, wasn’t taunting. A statement of fact.

  He crouched beside me, twirling one of his knives in his fingers before pressing the tip against my collarbone. The plasma blade hummed, dangerously close to my throat. "Reaction time—off. You’re still relying on strength," he continued, flicking the blade away as he stood. "Won’t save you."

  You are not built for this, little phoenix. Your mother wanted you to be like her, and I never wanted you to be like Lion… or I would have stopped at him.

  The whisper slithered through my mind, my father’s voice wrapped in something else. Something deeper. Hungrier.

  Your body is wasted on war, my dear. Your role is that of a leader, not a warrior. A leader… and a breeder.

  I clenched my teeth. No. Not now.

  But the hunger was unbearable. My body was already fixing itself—bones stretching, muscle threading back together, nerves sparking to life—but it needed fuel. My mass was dropping too fast, reserves burning away in seconds. My stomach twisted, a black pit of need clawing at me, overriding every other instinct.

  A sharp ache flared in my jaw. Then, the unmistakable scrape of teeth shifting against teeth. My canines lengthened first, then the rest followed, each one tapering into razor-sharp points. I exhaled through clenched teeth, the sensation unnatural yet instinctive—like my body already knew what it needed before my mind could process it. A primal shudder ran through me. My breath came faster, shallower. Not human. Not anymore.

  The whisper curled through my mind, insidious and familiar.

  You must consume, my dear. Feast on your own flesh.

  One hand regrew first, fingers flexing against the cold floor, nails darkening, curving into something meant for ripping. My jaw ached, stretching wider as my teeth reshaped themselves into a predator’s maw, sharp and jagged. A shark’s grin. My tongue ran over serrated edges, tasting the blood already pooling between them.

  My gaze flicked to the severed limbs scattered across the floor. Still fresh. Still warm.

  Instinct took over. I lunged, grabbing my own severed arm, biting deep into the muscle, tearing through flesh before my body could reabsorb it. The taste of iron flooded my mouth—hot, raw, electric. My vision swam. My hunger howled. And I fed.

  The taste of blood, my own blood, was thick on my tongue—iron, salt, something else, something deeper, something that fed the fire gnawing at me. The whispers purred their approval, their voices curling through my skull.

  Good girl. You were made to survive.

  I swallowed, forcing down the nausea, forcing myself to keep going. I tore into my old limbs, ripping away what I needed, devouring protein, marrow—anything to keep my regeneration from draining me to nothing. It was disgusting. It was sick. But it worked.

  Less than thirty seconds. Wolf just waited. He stood still, crimson visor locked onto me, unreadable. His silver armor gleamed, streaked with my blood, his fur mantle barely shifting as he breathed. I could feel the weight of his gaze, assessing, calculating. My hair, once white, was now stained red, matted with fresh gore, clinging to my skin. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, smearing more blood across my face. Wolf didn’t react. He just watched.

  I stood on fresh legs, rolling my shoulders, my newly grown fingers clenching and unclenching, testing their strength. My suit was barely more than a leotard now, its sleeves and leggings shredded, leaving me almost bare. But I didn’t care. The hunger still twisted inside me, but it was quiet now, sated just enough to keep me standing. I exhaled. Reset.

  "Again," I said.

  Wolf didn’t hesitate.

  I barely caught the movement before his knife opened my stomach from ribs to pelvis, fast enough that my guts nearly spilled out before my body yanked itself back together. I staggered, dodged, barely—barely—managed to raise my arms in defense before—

  Slice. Both hands. Gone.

  A knee to my sternum—cracked ribs, organs ruptured, pressure spiking in my lungs. Then another strike—a sharp kick to my skull that sent my vision exploding into white static.

  By the time my hands grew back, I was already mid-motion, pivoting, twisting, launching myself toward him. I threw everything into the next strike, aiming for his throat, aiming for something—

  He caught my wrist. A sickening twist.

  Crack. My forearm snapped backward at an unnatural angle.

  And before I could react? The blade kissed my throat.

  I froze. Wolf’s crimson visor remained cold and unmoved. "Better," he admitted. "But still too predictable."

  He let go. I stumbled, drenched in sweat and blood, my lungs burning, my freshly healed hands shaking as I flexed them. I had fought every single day since Reid went into his coma. I had killed things on the Hemlock no human should ever have faced. I had survived where others had died. And still—I was nothing to him.

  Wolf stood over me, unshaken, his silver armor catching the dim light, its edges sharp, polished, and unblemished despite the brutality of our sparring—except for the streaks of my blood smeared across the plates. He moved with a predator’s grace, each shift precise, effortless, controlled. Not just a soldier, but something beyond—a warrior honed to perfection, his very presence radiating the cold efficiency of a creature that had never known defeat.

  "You’re holding back," Wolf said simply.

  I scowled, rubbing my aching forearm. "I’m not."

  A flicker of something passed over his stance—not amusement, not sympathy, something colder.

  "You are," he said. "You fight like you’re afraid of losing. That’s the difference between us."

  I stiffened. "I do lose."

  "You survive," Wolf corrected, stepping closer. "That’s not the same thing."

  He gestured toward my body—perfect, unscarred, flawless, no matter how many times he cut me apart. "I can die," he said simply. "You can’t."

  But you can still be broken.

  The whisper was amused now, curling around the edges of my thoughts like smoke.

  And you know it.

  I swallowed, anger curling in my stomach. I don’t want to just survive. I want to win. But how do you fight something that knows they only need to kill you once?

  "You rely on your body’s strength, not your own," Wolf continued. "You think being faster, stronger, harder to kill makes you unstoppable." He tilted his head. "It doesn’t."

  I clenched my fists. "Then what does?"

  Wolf’s stance shifted. Calculated. Controlled.

  "Understanding that you will never be stronger than me," he said. "So stop trying."

  Then he vanished.

  I tensed, eyes darting across the room.

  Camouflage. A shiver in the air.

  How can you fight what you can’t see?

  A whisper of movement—then pain.

  A blade through my shoulder. Another across my ribs.

  I twisted, striking blindly, but my fist met nothing.

  Then, a whisper in the dark. A flicker of movement just behind me.

  "Slow." His voice was calm. Detached. No mockery, no taunt. Just fact.

  I barely had time to react before white-hot agony ripped through my arm. A flash of silver—then nothing.

  My elbow was gone.

  I staggered, barely catching myself, breathing hard.

  Then, just as suddenly, Wolf flickered back into sight a few feet away, the crimson visor of his helmet expressionless.

  "I won’t always use it," he admitted, sheathing his blades. "That would be cruel."

  He tilted his head slightly.

  "But I like to remind you what real predators look like."

  I stared at him, chest heaving, blood dripping down my skin, still half-regrown, the hunger twisting deep in my gut.

  And I realized—I would never win. Not like this. Not against them. I could survive. But I could never match their speed, their reflexes, the perfection built into them from the moment they were created.

  Wolf turned without another word, rolling his shoulders. "I’m getting food," he muttered. Then, without another word, he activated his cloaking.

  The air shimmered, and he was gone.

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  He always does that. Even when I was a kid, he loved sneaking about just because he could.

  I exhaled, pushing my hair back with a blood-slicked hand. "Maybe I should’ve woken up Black Widow instead," I grumbled to myself. But no—Wolf was the right choice. Not because he was kind. Not because he gave a damn. But because he was a teacher.

  Not a soft one.

  Not one that held back.

  I pushed myself to my feet, testing my limbs, rolling my shoulders, feeling the last of the pain fade as my body mended itself. The hunger roared, an insatiable, gnawing thing, but I had a crate of protein bars to shove down my throat. They would keep me moving. They wouldn’t satisfy me. Nothing ever did.

  My suit was in tatters, barely clinging to me, deep slashes exposing most of my chest and stomach. The instinct to cover myself flared, but I shoved it down. Confidence or not, the discomfort never fully faded—Knight had designed me to be looked at, to be wanted. But Wolf wasn’t human. Not entirely. He didn’t see me that way, and for once, I was grateful. To him, I was just another soldier, another opponent to cut down. No lingering looks, no judgment. Just combat.

  I exhaled, rolling my shoulders as my body finished knitting itself back together. Even after Wolf left, I wasn’t done. I had to beat him—just once. Then I’d know I was finally strong enough to stand among humanity’s best.

  But it wasn’t enough. No matter how much I trained, no matter how many times I threw myself into the fight, I was still too slow. Too weak. Frustration burned under my skin, a gnawing, relentless thing. So I kept going. Long after Wolf had left, long after my body screamed for rest, I kept pushing. Strikes, dodges, drills—again and again, until my limbs felt like lead and my breath came in ragged bursts.

  Still not enough.

  Annoyance curdled into something sharper, something restless. I wiped the sweat from my face with the back of my hand, then grabbed the nearest bottle from my stolen stash. Just enough to take the edge off. Not enough to get drunk. Just enough to dull the frustration, to smother the sting of another failure.

  I was still too slow. Too weak.

  So I would do what I always did—the spoiled princess of humanity, clutching at the scraps of power left behind.

  I would cheat.

  I would use dear old daddy.

  Lion had told me about it once—Project Minotaur. One of the many projects my father had started, then discarded. Or never had time to finish.

  I could ask Jericho. He had all the answers. All I had to do was swallow my pride and listen. But I was tired of hearing my father’s voice through metal speakers, tired of letting him shape the narrative even in death.

  And maybe the alcohol made me reckless. Maybe it made me curious. Before I asked him, I wanted to hear it from someone who wouldn’t sugarcoat it.

  Lion was out. So… that left her.

  I found Knight in one of the lower labs, murmuring to one of my father’s drones. She was leaned against the console, silver eyes glowing faintly as she scanned the display. The drone clicked in response, its whirring movements laced with the echoes of my father’s digital soul.

  I didn’t hesitate.

  "Jericho, please don’t interrupt me and Knight," I said sharply. The ship didn’t respond, but I knew he was listening. He always was.

  Knight turned, one brow arching, her lips curling into that ever-present smirk. "Oh? Now this is interesting. What do you want, Phoenix?"

  I folded my arms. "Tell me about Project Minotaur."

  Knight snorted, shaking her head. "Oh, sweetheart, that?" Her voice dripped with amusement. "Digging through daddy’s leftovers again?"

  I clenched my jaw. "Just answer the question."

  She let out a slow, exaggerated sigh and pushed off the console. "Fine, fine. Minotaur was supposed to be power armor for all the fragile little meatbags who couldn’t handle real enhancements. A suit strong enough to rival the Royal Guard—if the pilot survived the integration."

  I frowned. "If?"

  "Oh yes." She grinned, sharp and knowing. "Your father didn’t just run simulations—he ran trials. Real trials. Dozens of them. Every single one failed. Normal humans? Flattened. Bones crushed, organs liquefied, neural pathways fried. Even cybernetics weren’t enough to handle the strain. The suit’s output was just too much." She flicked her fingers like it was nothing. "So he scrapped it. Didn’t need it anyway. Why build a suit when you can just make better soldiers from the ground up?"

  A knot tightened in my stomach. "Then why did he keep the designs?"

  Knight tilted her head. "Because your father never really threw anything away. And because he knew there was one person who might be able to handle it."

  I felt my hands curl into fists. "Me."

  Her smirk widened. "Ding ding ding. You’re not normal, Phoenix. Your body’s already something else—a perfect little pet project, a legacy in the flesh." She waved a hand at me like I was a science exhibit. "The virus, the regeneration, the density of your bones—maybe you could survive it. Or maybe it would tear you apart like the others, but we both know the difference." Her grin turned razor-sharp. "You’d just heal anyway."

  The way she said it made my skin crawl—the same way she had when I was a child strapped to her table, when I was just another one of her experiments. And later, when she tested the accelerant on me, she had looked at me the same way. Like I wasn’t a person. Just data. Just proof of concept.

  I still wanted to gut her for that. For all of it. But I couldn’t. Not yet.

  I swallowed the frustration rising in my throat. "If Minotaur was supposed to be so powerful, why didn’t the Royal Guard use it?"

  Knight smirked like I’d just asked something painfully obvious. "Oh, they did… or rather, they were the successor to it."

  I blinked. "What?"

  "They didn’t need Minotaur because they became the suit." She flicked her fingers dismissively, as if the distinction hardly mattered. "Their cybernetics aren’t just implants—they’re fused. Woven into their nervous systems, their bones, their cells. And their suits? Fused right back into them. There’s no separation. No taking it off. Not ever."

  A cold weight settled in my gut. "They’re fused to it?"

  Knight gave a slow nod, eyes gleaming. "Permanently. No separation. No breathing room. No freedom. Their suits aren’t something they wear—they are the suit. Lion, Wolf, Eagle, all of them? They didn’t get an upgrade. They got rewritten from the inside out."

  I swallowed hard. I had seen Lion without his helmet, but now that I thought about it… I had never seen him without the rest of his armor. Not fully.

  "So that’s how Lion stays alive..." I exhaled. "But I’ve been wondering this—my eyes are red and blue. But Lion’s one remaining eye?" I hesitated. "It’s yellow. Same as my father’s were, before—"

  Knight tilted her head, her smirk deepening. "Because they weren’t perfect hosts. But they still bonded to the virus."

  I frowned. "But I thought it was tailored to my DNA—"

  Knight clicked her tongue. "And yet both are male relatives with an X chromosome close enough to yours to carry Phoenix, sure. It clings to them, uses them. But it doesn’t merge like it does with you. It fights them. Lion’s body is constantly at war with it, same as your father’s was before he shed it completely." Her silver eyes gleamed. "The yellow is the warning sign. The body rejecting the virus, struggling to keep up with the strain."

  I exhaled sharply, my mind circling back. "Then why were Wilks’ eyes red? Like mine?"

  Knight’s smirk widened like she’d been waiting for me to ask. "Because he didn’t just have Phoenix. He had Hydra too."

  A chill ran down my spine. "Hydra?"

  The memory of Lab 3 flashed in my mind—Wilks. The monster he had become before Lion put him down for good.

  I could still see it. The way his body had twisted, regenerated wrong. The way his eyes burned red in the dark, filled with something else. Something beyond pain. Beyond humanity. He hadn’t just died—he had refused to. Over and over again, his body forcing itself back together in grotesque, impossible ways.

  Knight watched me, her smirk curling like she knew exactly what I was thinking.

  She waved a hand lazily. "Oh, don’t get all worked up about that. Hydra was just an early variation of the accelerant we made—what let your father cling to life long enough to finish what he started." She chuckled, slow and knowing. "That was Project Chimera, sweet girl. But you already knew that, didn’t you?"

  I clenched my jaw. "And Minotaur?"

  Knight leaned back, stretching like this was all just entertainment to her. "Now that’s the real question, isn’t it?"

  I stiffened.

  She smirked. "Go ask your father."

  My jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached.

  Knight just patted my cheek lightly—condescending, infuriating—and turned back to the drone. "Good talk, My dear daughter. Now run along. Some of us have actual work to do."

  I turned on my heel and walked away before I could punch her in the face.

  I hated her. I hated the way she knew things I didn’t, the way she dripped condescension in every word, the way she dangled answers just out of reach.

  But she wasn’t wrong.

  I exhaled sharply, pressing my palm to the nearest wall.

  "Jericho," I muttered. "Tell me about Project Minotaur."

  A pause. A flicker in the lights. A soft hum as the ship processed my words.

  "It was abandoned."

  "Why?" I hesitated. "Was Knight telling the truth?"

  "Yes, It is as your mother said..." Jericho’s voice was calm, matter-of-fact. "No human could survive it. The power required would tear the pilot apart from the inside. Bones shattered. Muscles torn. The strain was too great."

  I tensed, my jaw tightening. I met the nearest drone’s cold, mechanical eye. "Don't fucking call her that."

  Another pause. A hum, almost contemplative.

  "But... I can survive it... I want you to help me finish it." I ground my teeth.

  You were never meant to fight like them. The armor is a cage, a pointless shell. You cannot break, your flesh renews, your claws carve deeper than steel.

  A hammer does not need a blade, and you…

  You already have a hammer.

  A lion bred for war, a beast that knows no fear, no hesitation. He kills so you don’t have to. He breaks them so you remain whole.

  And yet… I always knew.

  One day, you would crave more.

  A breath. A whisper sliding between thought and instinct, curling through my skull like smoke. My father’s voice. Or the virus itself. The line between them had blurred long ago.

  The long pause finally ended, and Jericho spoke, his voice mirroring the one in my head. Neither truly him.

  "Yes, you very well could. If this is what you want, little phoenix, I will dedicate one percent of my computing power to assisting you in its completion."

  One percent. It didn’t sound like much.

  But on a ship like Jericho, it was more than I needed.

  So I started my work in Lab 2 after Jericho brought me what it had so far.

  The suit wasn’t finished. Not even close. It was nothing more than an exo-frame, skeletal and raw, a half-built machine strapped to my body with no plating, no armor, no helmet—just servos, actuators, and reinforced joints wrapped in exposed wiring. It had no weapons, no integrated targeting systems, none of the refinements that would make it battlefield-ready.

  But none of that mattered.

  Right now, the only thing that mattered was surviving it.

  I flexed my fingers inside the gauntlets, feeling the unnatural strength humming through my limbs, the servos responding to every twitch with brutal precision. My bones were already denser than most—heavier, thicker, reinforced by the virus. On paper, I should have weighed maybe a hundred pounds, but in reality, I was closer to four hundred. My body was compact, my frame small, my curves fitting weirdly into the suit’s rigid structure.

  It wasn’t designed for someone like me.

  The first step I took sent me flying. The suit’s servos reacted too fast, faster than my nerves could process. A simple shift became a violent lurch, like trying to pilot a ship at full thrust with no stabilizers.

  I barely had time to register the movement before my head slammed into the reinforced bulkhead.

  CRACK.

  My skull split open like glass, my vision cutting out instantly. My momentum carried my body forward, leaving a wet smear of blood and brain matter streaked across the cold metal. There was no time to react. No time to process. Just black.

  Nothingness swallowed me whole.

  I didn’t know how long I was gone.

  Seconds? Minutes?

  I came back gasping, lungs convulsing as my body dragged itself out of death. A high-pitched ringing consumed my ears, deafening and sharp, like my brain had been reset and couldn’t quite catch up. My vision flickered, colors warping as my skull pulled itself back together. Bone scraped against bone, muscles stitched into place, the torn mess of my head reforming piece by agonizing piece.

  I twitched, still disoriented, still unsure if my body would even respond.

  It did.

  Barely.

  Jericho’s voice cut through the haze. "Your body lacks the necessary neural adaptation. Additional training is required before attempting synchronization."

  I swallowed the blood in my mouth and shoved myself up.

  I barely had time to brace before the second test began.

  This time, I lasted longer.

  My first steps were shaky, but they were mine. My body adapted, adjusted, until I was moving with something close to control. The power in the suit was intoxicating—every motion effortless, amplified to monstrous strength. I could feel it thrumming through me, responding like a second skin.

  Then the servos overcorrected.

  My legs snapped.

  Not a clean break. The bones shattered, splintering under the force as I collapsed to the floor. I caught myself on instinct, but my hands barely had time to brace before my wrists buckled under the strain.

  A shockwave of pain shot up my spine.

  I choked on my own breath, every nerve screaming, but already my body was pulling itself back together.

  It always did.

  By the third test, my blood had slicked the floor.

  The servos were still too fast. Too strong. A simple movement—go—meant launching forward. Lift meant muscle tearing from bone. I moved with more control this time, but the power was relentless, the force behind every step just barely within my grasp.

  I ran from one side of Lab 2 to the other, the world blurring—

  And then I hit the wall.

  Not crashed. Not stumbled. Hit.

  The impact buckled the reinforced bulkhead.

  My spine snapped in half.

  The pain should have been unbearable, should have sent me into shock. But I felt everything.

  I was still awake.

  I couldn’t move.

  The paralysis set in instantly, my body refusing to obey, my lungs frozen mid-gasp. I twitched, fingers grasping at the floor, a sharp, stuttering movement—then another. My nerves fired at random, muscles convulsing, bones shifting wrong.

  My throat spasmed, trying to form a sound—a scream—but nothing came.

  Half a minute.

  That’s how long it took before I felt my spine reattach itself, the broken vertebrae pulling together like frayed threads being sewn back into place. Sensation flooded through my body all at once, pain exploding in a white-hot wave as my limbs jerked back to life.

  I gasped, choking on the pain.

  Jericho’s voice cut through the pounding in my skull.

  "Adjustment noted. Reducing response speed by twelve percent."

  I clenched my fists, my hands still shaking, still twitching as the last echoes of pain bled away.

  I exhaled, pressing my palms against the cold floor, forcing my body to move. Every nerve screamed. Every muscle protested. But I pushed myself up anyway.

  I wasn’t done.

  Jericho’s voice hummed overhead, calm, clinical. “Your body will adapt. But not immediately. This will take time.”

  Time.

  I didn’t have time.

  But I didn’t have a choice, either.

  The fourth test was better. The fifth, better still. Each time, my body broke, but it also learned. Adapted. Adjusted. My bones thickened. My muscles reinforced.

  I didn’t need my father’s nanites—I was already something else. Something built to survive.

  But power without control is just chaos.

  And that was all this was.

  I hated how my body fit into the suit—too small, too wrong, not meant for war. The exo-frame was built for efficiency, not comfort. The reinforced skeletal structure bit into my ribs and hips, locking in ways that made my movements feel stiff, unnatural. Every step felt exaggerated, every shift amplified by the servos, turning the smallest motion into something sharp and inhuman. The bodysuit beneath it? It may as well have been nothing. It clung to me, stretched too tight, offering no protection, no buffer against the machine digging into my flesh. Every jolt sent an uncomfortable ripple through my chest, a reminder of how fucking wrong this body was for war.

  Knight.

  Of all the changes she had made to me, this was the one I hated the most.

  She hadn’t built me to fight. She hadn’t carved me into a weapon like the Royal Guard. No, she had built me to be beautiful. Something flawless. Something wanted. A legacy wrapped in porcelain skin and soft curves, a pretty little Phoenix meant to carry my father’s work in the most primitive, disgusting way possible.

  Through my womb.

  My breath came sharp, ragged. I swallowed against the bile rising in my throat.

  Is that all I was supposed to be?

  All of this—everything I had suffered, everything I had survived—was it just to ensure I was useful? That all my strength, all my suffering, meant nothing compared to the ability to spread my legs and breed a new generation of perfect little experiments?

  The whispers stirred, smooth and indulgent.

  You are more than her. More than what she made you.

  I snarled, throwing a punch into the reinforced bulkhead hard enough to dent the steel, servos whining under the sudden force. My knuckles throbbed. Blood smeared across the metal.

  I let it drip.

  I let the pain anchor me, keep me from spiraling too deep into the sickness curling in my gut.

  No.

  Fuck that.

  I wasn’t her. I wouldn’t be her. I wasn’t going to be my father’s experiment, or Knight’s ideal, or anyone’s fucking pawn.

  I wasn’t made for war, but I would make myself a weapon. I wasn’t built for battle, but I would fight anyway. If this body wasn’t meant for combat, then I would force it into the mold myself—break and rebuild until it fit, until it was mine.

  The hunger stirred beneath my skin.

  By the tenth attempt, I wasn’t breaking anymore.

  By the fifteenth, I was fighting.

  And by the twentieth?

  I was winning.

  I ignored the pain. Even as my body screamed, even as I sobbed and howled and clawed my way forward, I refused to break even if my body did. Tears streaked my face, mixing with blood and mucus. My throat was raw, save for the burn of liquor. My mental health had gone to shit, but that didn’t matter.

  Because I wasn’t just fighting the suit.

  I was fighting them.

  Knight. My father. The experiments. The memories. The ghosts that haunted me. I was fighting everything they had done to me.

  I clenched my fists, servos whining under the pressure, blood pooling beneath my nails as my claws bit into my palms. My suit—half-built, skeletal, a monstrous exo-frame—hummed with unnatural power, responding in perfect sync. I exhaled.

  For the first time since waking in that goddamn cryo-pod, I had an edge. Not borrowed strength. Not a curse disguised as evolution. Not a gift forced upon me. Something I had taken. Something I had built.

  It still wasn’t enough.

  But it was a just the beginning.

  The last test was different. Jericho had tweaked the weight distribution, adjusting the gyro-stabilization so I wouldn’t overcorrect every time I moved. It was better. Smoother. The violent lurches from earlier tests were gone, replaced by something close to balance.

  I flexed my fingers, feeling the servos respond, the weight of the exo-frame settling into something almost natural. Almost.

  "Alright, Jericho. I need to test this thing in a fight now that I can move without crashing."

  There was a pause. Then, the AI’s voice hummed through the speakers, calm but firm.

  "Are you sure, little Phoenix? You have lost a considerable amount of biomass and appear to be under psychological distress. I would recommend taking a break, eating, and checking in with Dr. Yates."

  I gritted my teeth. "Shut the hell up and do it."

  The drone hesitated, as if considering an argument. Then, finally—

  "Very well. Beginning combat protocols."

  The doors locked with a heavy clang.

  The first drone dropped from the ceiling. Then another. Then a third. Their sleek metal bodies gleamed under the dim lights, plasma weapons whirring to life as they closed in.

  I barely had time to react before the first one fired.

  A concussive blast slammed into my chest, sending me skidding back, my boots carving deep grooves into the reinforced floor. I dug in, bracing, the exo-frame compensating for the impact faster than my brain could process it.

  Then the second blast came. Then the third.

  The drones moved fast, erratic, their attack patterns randomized, designed to disorient. But I wasn’t disoriented. My body adjusted instinctively, each impact teaching me how to shift, how to absorb, how to redirect.

  I dodged. Weaved. Struck back.

  The first time I hit something with the suit—truly hit it—it wasn’t just power. It was annihilation.

  The drone exploded on impact, crumpling like it had been hit by a missile, debris scattering across the lab.

  For a second, I just stood there, breathing hard, feeling the weight of what I had just done.

  Then Jericho’s voice hummed through the speakers.

  "Adequate. But incomplete. You are still inefficient."

  More drones activated and this time, I was ready.

  The fight was a blur of movement, of crushing impacts, of raw, unfiltered power tearing through everything in my path. The suit turned me into something more, something that could rip through metal and withstand direct blows without faltering.

  When the last drone fell, sparking and broken at my feet, I finally exhaled. My hands shook, not from exhaustion, but from adrenaline.

  I had been looking for a way to match the Royal Guard.

  A way to even the playing field.

  This alone wasn’t enough… but it was a start.

  "Da... Jericho, it's time to make the weapons and armor. And keep your fucking AI out of it. I want this to be fully independent for once. I don’t want you in my suit, got it."

  There was a pause, just long enough to make my teeth clench.

  "That can be done," Jericho finally responded, his voice as clinical as ever. "However, I would not recommend it. You will lose access to real-time tactical calculations, predictive combat analytics, and the adaptive combat protocols that make the Royal Guard the most dangerous soldiers in existence."

  "No," I snapped. "I don’t need all that. Just give me a localized unit to handle weapons, shields, and nanos. That’s it."

  Another pause.

  "Understood. A level-three intelligence will be installed to manage the requested systems. It will not have access to my primary network."

  Good. If Jericho ever decided to pull the plug, he wouldn’t be able to shut me down with a thought. I would still have control. This would be mine.

  "What will you name it?"

  I hesitated. Just for a second.

  "Valicar."

  The name felt right. A memory, half-faded, of a book I had read a long time ago. A pair of twins, one a sharp-witted mage, the other a swordsman too stubborn to know when to quit. They had been reincarnated into another world—reborn as a beautiful girl with red and blue hair, red and blue eyes.

  Just like me.

  Valicar had been fearless. Wild. Brave to the point of madness.

  She had fought against the world and won. She had talked to herself, a legend wrapped in chaos.

  I huffed a quiet laugh. The whispers are my only company. Lion, my only brother. It fits.

  "Designation accepted," Jericho confirmed. "Local AI intelligence, Valicar, initialized. Tactical and combat support protocols active."

  A soft chime followed, and then a new voice spoke—smooth, calm, but different from Jericho’s. Lighter.

  "Online and awaiting directives."

  I exhaled. This one was mine.

  "You're with me now, Valicar. Let’s get to work."

  A month had passed.

  Most of my time was spent down here, training, forging, building. If I wasn’t fighting, I was working. If I wasn’t working, I was drinking. It kept the hunger at bay, kept the whispers from creeping in too deep. Rum helped. Food helped more. But neither were perfect solutions.

  Reid still slept. Yates checked on him every day, running scans, monitoring vitals, always saying the same damn thing—"He should be awake." But he wasn’t. Two months now, and still, nothing. It was starting to feel like he never would.

  Knight and my father—Jericho—were still buried in their work in Lab 3. No one knew what they were really doing, and that made me nervous. But what could I do? It was my father. The ship itself. There was no stopping him. No questioning him. Even now, with my suit, my training, my independence—this was still his domain.

  So I focused on what I could control.

  I ran into Jimmy more often than I expected. He was still our general laborer, but now, with his new cybernetic leg, he seemed almost grateful instead of resentful. He had been one of Garin’s lackeys before, always trying to impress him, always too eager to fall in line. But after the Hemlock, after I led the Royal Guard to save his ass, he had changed. He didn’t suck up to me, didn’t treat me like some hero, but he wasn’t avoiding me anymore, either.

  He was useful, too. Knew where to find the parts I needed, told me what I could salvage from the 3D printers, what had to be made fresh in the forges. He didn’t ask too many questions, just gave me the information I needed and let me work.

  And Holt? Holt was quiet, as always, but I caught him watching Wolf more than once. I had no idea what their history was, but they had fought together at some point—probably during the South American Decapitation, though I never asked. It didn’t matter. Wolf made the others nervous, especially Warren, Vega, and Garin.

  But no one thought they could actually fight him.

  Even Garin, for all his arrogance, knew he wouldn’t be able to kill Wolf if it came down to it. A gun wouldn’t be enough. Nothing short of a nuke would. And even then, I wasn’t sure.

  Wolf had no reason to betray us. He had no reason to kill anyone. But that didn’t make him safe. It just meant we were lucky he still had orders to follow.

  Lucky that, for now, those orders were mine.

  I leaned back against the workbench, taking another swig from my stolen stash of Blackwell and Rojas’ liquor. The last Caribbean run from Earth. The last bottle Cuba would ever make.

  "Thanks, assholes," I muttered, raising the bottle in mock toast. "Thanks for saving the best for me."

  I took another drink before setting the bottle down and returning to my work.

  The claws were the last part to finish. One for each hand, plasma blades a foot long, sharp enough to cut through steel. They ignited with a flick of my fingers, burning white-hot, reacting to the smallest movement. Open my hand, they retracted. Close my fist, they roared back to life.

  No accidents. No wasted energy. Perfect.

  I flexed my fingers, watching the glow fade, and let out a slow breath.

  The suit was finally coming together.

  Plasma claws weren’t enough, though. I needed more. This suit wasn’t built for defense—it was made to hit first, hit fast, and hit hard. Speed and aggression. Movement and brutality. That was the goal. That was me.

  The plasma pistols were next. Twin sidearms, compact, quick to draw, meant for precision. I wasn’t the best shot, but I didn’t have to be.

  "Auto-targeting calibrated. Neural reaction speed: optimal," Valicar confirmed in my ear, her voice smooth and controlled.

  With her guiding my aim, I wasn’t just a decent shot. I was perfect.

  I added a flamethrower, built into the forearm gauntlets. Short range, meant for clearing tight spaces. If the claws weren’t enough to tear through something, fire would do the rest.

  Grappling hooks, mounted in my wrists, gave me the ability to maneuver mid-air, to drag enemies toward me if they tried to run.

  A back-mounted missile launcher, small but deadly, capable of firing micro-missiles that could punch through most armor. Not as powerful as the Guard’s heavier ordinance, but it didn’t need to be. It was there to disrupt, to open weaknesses where I needed them.

  For defense—plasma shielding, but only in bursts. I wasn’t built to tank hits like Lion or the others. I’d take a blow if I had to, but I’d rather not get hit at all. The fusion core and power storage in my suit were far smaller than those used by the Royal Guard. Their armor was built for prolonged combat, to withstand relentless fire without faltering. Mine wasn’t. I was only five feet tall—five foot two with the armor—a stark contrast to the towering nine-foot giants engineered for war. My suit couldn’t house the same power reserves, couldn’t afford the constant drain of active shielding.

  That’s where the thrusters came in—built into the boots and back, designed for short, controlled bursts. Not true flight. Just quick, sharp movements. Just enough to dodge. Just enough to reposition. Just enough to make sure that when I hit, I hit first.

  I exhaled as the final diagnostics ran, feeling the suit hum around me, the weight settling just right. This wasn’t an exo-frame anymore. This was mine.

  It had the basic weapons I wanted, the foundation laid with room for more—room to evolve. It wasn’t finished, but neither was I.

  But before I could call it complete, there was one last problem.

  My hair.

  Long, white strands flowed down my back, too much for the helmet to seal properly. At first, it had been a problem—a flaw, an exposed weakness waiting to be exploited. But Valicar had adapted.

  Localized nanites, woven into every strand, reinforced my hair at the molecular level, binding it seamlessly to the suit’s structure. When the helmet sealed, the nanites responded instantly, deploying an adaptive mesh—an interlocking molecular barrier that shaped itself around each strand, ensuring an airtight seal while maintaining flexibility. It wasn’t a rigid clamp but something smarter, shifting and adjusting in real-time, filling microscopic gaps like a living weave.

  And the hair itself? It wasn’t just hair anymore.

  The nanites had rebuilt it, weaving carbon nanotube filaments into the natural keratin, strengthening it beyond anything organic. It wasn’t metallic, wasn’t stiff, but it could endure vacuum, resist fire, and disperse kinetic force like microfilament shields. Stronger than steel, yet impossibly light, it had become an extension of my armor—an integrated defense rather than a liability.

  But the real effect—the thing that made it unnatural—was the light.

  A microscopic crystalline lattice had formed within each strand during the nanite infusion, catching and refracting even the faintest glow. It didn’t shine like metal or mirror artificial plating. It was something else. Something alive.

  Like starlight on snow. Like silver caught mid-motion in a beam of light.

  Each strand pulsed faintly with microscopic energy flows, a shifting shimmer rather than a glow, like distant constellations scattered through white silk.

  My armor—red, blue, streaked with white—was striking in ways I hadn’t intended. But nothing about its plating could distract me from what lay beneath.

  The whispers stirred.

  A queen has no place on the front line.

  I bared my fangs, shoving back against them. I can be wherever the fuck I want. And aren’t you the one always telling me I should feast on my enemies?

  Laughter rippled through my skull, a sick amusement curling through my mind like smoke.

  Let the Guard kill them. Let the Royal Dogs rip them apart. That’s what they’re made for.

  A slow, deliberate chuckle.

  Knight might have made you the perfect little doll, but you shouldn’t play dress-up.

  I growled, low in my throat, feeling my claws flex involuntarily. The hunger coiled tight, always waiting, always patient.

  Knight had made this body wrong.

  She had designed me to be soft when I should have been steel.

  I exhaled sharply, forcing the whispers down, locking them away in the deep, gnawing pit of hunger where they belonged.

  My resolve hardened.

  I clenched my fist, plasma claws igniting with a sharp hiss. The suit moved with me, responding in perfect sync.

  "Simulated enemy units loaded," Valicar reported. "Awaiting confirmation."

  Drones wouldn’t be enough. Not anymore. I needed something faster. Stronger. Something that could kill me if I fucked up.

  There was only one man on this ship built for that.

  I could feel my pulse, steady, controlled.

  "Run it."

  The doors locked. The drones activated.

  And then, Wolf stepped out.

  His twin daggers flared to life, glowing with plasma, the heat shimmering in the air between us. He rolled his shoulders, his expression unreadable beneath the faint flicker of light against his pale features.

  "Ready for this, Highness?" His voice was amused, but there was an edge beneath it. "You know I won’t hold back like when you were a child."

  A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. "I know you won’t, Wolf. That’s why I picked you."

  I flexed my fingers, my own claws hissing back to life, ten searing points of light at my fingertips.

  "But know this—if you did hold back, you’d die."

  My claws met his knives in a flash of white-hot plasma.

  And the fight began.