Page 210

Eve

The roar that beast let out should have shattered the screen. The hairs on my skin rose, every fiber of my being locking up as I watched the impossible unfold before my eyes.

The corpse—her corpse—had vanished.

In its place stood something monstrous.

Towering, its body sleek with shifting shadows, its eyes a haunting, abyssal crimson.

A Lycan, but this was no ordinary Lycan, and it was certainly not me.

Clawed hands flexed at its sides, its broad shoulders rising and falling with each ragged breath.

The beast was neither fully Lycan nor entirely beast, but something in between—something wrong.

Yet something familiar.

Rhea stirred violently inside me, a hurricane of unease. "I need you to calm down. You cannot react. You mustn't falter," she whispered, but her voice was laced heavily with agitation.

On the screen, the beast snapped its head toward the gathered crowd.

Then it moved.

Fast.

Then—chaos.

A blur of sinew and fury, it tore through the execution platform with a single bound, its claws slicing through armor and flesh alike. The once-orderly ceremony erupted into madness. Screams. Gunfire. Blood.

My father leaned forward slightly, a satisfied gleam in his eye. "Now this is where it gets interesting."

I barely heard him. My mind was a maelstrom of conflicting thoughts, of memories that weren't mine clashing with what I was seeing.

Because this creature—this impossible, vengeful thing—wasn't just something I had painted in nightmares.

It was something I knew.

"It isn't you, Evie," Rhea's voice was pleading.

An image flashed—an extraction. Agony blossomed at the base of my spine, and I had to bite back a yelp. I had always wondered why they had extracted my spinal fluid.

As it would turn out, it was so that they could create beasts that served their agendas. To make things even more terrifying, those were the memories my mind didn't drown out—the ones I still recalled.

What else had they done?

What more could they be capable of?

The thought shook me to my core.

The beast tore through the crowd like a hurricane of death.

Guards opened fire, their bullets tearing through the air in rapid succession.

The deafening crack of gunfire rang out, but it did nothing.

The bullets—ones meant to tear through even the thickest Lycan hides—sank into its flesh, only to be spat out moments later, the wounds sealing as if they'd never been.

I gritted my teeth, my fingers curling into fists beneath the table. My heart pounded against my ribs, bile rising in my throat as the scene continued to unfold.

They had made this.

They had made it from me.

Civilians ran in every direction, their panicked screams rising over the gunfire.

Chaos swallowed the execution grounds whole.

People tripped over one another, crushing the weak underfoot in their desperation to escape.

A mother dragged her child behind her, stumbling—but she was too slow.

The beast lunged—one massive clawed hand closing over her back—and with a single motion, she was gone.

The child's wail was lost beneath the next volley of bullets.

The bile in my throat thickened. My stomach churned violently. I wanted to look away, to tear my eyes from the screen, but I couldn't.

I have to watch. I have to see what they've done.

The beast moved again, its crimson gaze sweeping the platform, its breath ragged, its form shifting, warping, as though its very existence was unstable. Another set of guards rushed it, their weapons drawn. One of them—a Beta by the look of his uniform—raised a silver-tipped spear and lunged.

The beast turned.

And then, with a flick of its claw, the man's torso separated from his legs.

A sickening wet sound filled the air as his remains collapsed onto the stage.

A chorus of horrified gasps filled the room.

Even James, for all his amusement, let out a low whistle. "Brutal."

Rhea's presence in my mind was blistering with tension. "Breathe, Evie. Do not react."

I forced myself to inhale slowly, to steady my trembling fingers beneath the table. But I couldn't stop my eyes from lingering on the bodies, on the blood painting the ground in thick, blackened pools.

And it was the civilians that made my chest constrict the most.

They were not soldiers.

They had not signed up for this war.

They were just people.

People who had believed in my father's words. In his righteousness. In his justice.

And now they were dying.

Dying beneath the claws of a beast that should not exist.

A beast made from me.

My father exhaled through his nose, gaze still locked on the screen. "Such a waste," he murmured, his voice smooth, impassive.

"Eve was such a monster," he whispered.

My stomach knotted.

I knew this was not me.

But this was made from me, and to the people I once thought I would be a Luna to, I was the monster that took their families, the plague that ripped into their brothers and sisters.

I was the ruin that the prophecy spoke of.

"Listen to me, Evie." Rhea's voice curled around my mind like a warm chain. "You must not let him pull you into his web. He wants you to break. He wants you to react."

I clenched my jaw, my nails digging into the fabric of my pants beneath the table, hidden from their prying eyes. My father's words still hung in the air, an insidious whisper laced with accusation, with certainty.

Eve was such a monster.

A deliberate statement. A carefully placed knife.

I wasn't foolish enough to believe this was just about my supposed crimes.

This was about perception.

About control.

About shaping the narrative.

And I could feel it—like a thousand eyes turning, shifting, reevaluating.

Monster.

I swallowed, keeping my breath steady.

This is what they want.

They want me to crumble.

To bear the weight of their sins as if they are mine to carry.

"You must not allow it," Rhea murmured, her voice no longer sharp with urgency but steady, wise. "You know the truth. And so does he. He did this. Not you. You are the victim, not the perpetrator."