Page 237
Story: Hades’ Cursed Luna
Hades
I smoothed out my expression, but every nerve sizzled beneath my skin, and the horrible, indescribable heaviness sank low in my gut.
I clenched my fist and released, the Flux rearing its head.
"Of course," I replied, still not managing to release the strain from my voice. "Her blood will be tested."
Montegue's eyes narrowed, wary, gauging my expression. "You will have no problem with that, Your Majesty?"
I managed to ensure my eye did not twitch and nodded. "Why would I be against it?"
It was not possible. It would mean…
A knock on the door snapped the taut tension in the room. Everyone turned sharply as Kael walked over to open it. Standing eagerly on the other side was a man in a coat.
The badge stitched onto his chest told me he was from the forensic lab.
He bowed nervously, seemingly noticing the tension that still lingered in the air like a sour taste clings to the mouth.
"Your Majesty, you have a message from the lab concerning the ferals that kidnapped your nephew. You have to come now."
I glanced at Felicia and Montegue, a silent message passing between us—that we would revisit the issue soon—before I walked out with Kael at my tail. They would meet us there.
The forensic lab was as sterile as any other medical facility chamber in the tower, just with a little more of a dark, clinical aura that seemed to cling to you long after you left.
I made sure to concentrate on what was at hand and the information we needed at the moment… but how could I extinguish the eerie whisper of dread that crawled up my spine like ice?
Even in the sterile brightness of the lab, the shadows of Felicia's words clung to me.
The possibility—the impossibility—echoed louder with each step I took.
She tried to kill you once before…
I shook my head sharply.
Now wasn't the time.
Not here. Not in front of them.
Kael kept glancing at me from the corner of his eye, as if he could feel the unraveling happening behind my mask. He said nothing—wisely—but I knew he was cataloguing every crack.
A young forensic aide approached, tablet in hand. "Right this way, Your Majesty," he said, voice tight, eyes darting.
We followed him into a secure analysis chamber, its air thick with a sharp chemical tang and the buzz of machines running comparative scans. Inside, the Chief Analyst stood with arms folded, lips set in a line that did not bode well.
"Report," I ordered.
Mara tapped her screen, and a set of images and genetic sequences lit up the display.
"The ferals…" she began, eyes flicking toward me, "they're neither werewolf nor lycan, Your Majesty."
The air in the room shifted.
Kael stiffened beside me. My jaw clenched.
"What does that mean?" I asked, voice low.
Mara's tone was grave. "It means both DNA sequences are present. They are… something in between."
My heart slowed in my chest. Another anomaly.
"Hybrids?" I said aloud, the word like ash on my tongue.
I took a step forward, my hands curling at my sides.
"That's not possible. Procreation between our kinds is rare, if not downright nonexistent.
It should not be possible that hybrids have been born far back enough to be this old and trained enough to pull off such a heist. It makes no sense. "
Mara didn't flinch. "These weren't born, Your Majesty. They were made."
I stared at her, my blood slowly chilling. "Meaning?"
"They're not the result of cross-procreation. This is artificial fusion." She clicked to another screen—overlapping strands, erratic fusions, forced splices. "Forced integration of incompatible genetics. Someone designed them."
My eyes widened, my breath catching.
"Biologically altered," I muttered. "That's a violation of every known law of nature." Mixing and matching was unethical and unpredictable, especially with DNA of two very volatile creatures. There's a reason we were the only ones remaining after the moon fell.
Lycan and werewolf DNA were fundamentally different. We resembled each other—superficially—but our blood ran with different instincts, different legacies. Merging us was like mixing a cat and a dog. You'd get something grotesque. Dead—or undead, most likely.
Montegue stepped forward after slipping into the lab, his face like stone, voice clipped. "Do we know their original nature?"
"Yes. But according to what we've found, these creatures were originally werewolf. Their baseline sequence is unmistakable."
"But something's been added," Mara continued. "Something that doesn't just override the werewolf code—it bypasses it entirely. It latches onto it, hijacks it. That something—is lycan."
I turned to her, the words settling in like stone weights in my gut.
"You're saying it shifts between the two forms?"
"Exactly," Mara said. "It uses the werewolf form as a vessel, but the lycan strain gives it… enhanced aggression. Regeneration. Speed."
A horrifying thought crept through me, cold and slow.
"And control?" Felicia asked. "The lycan strain gives control."
Mara hesitated. "It is probable. We believe so. If this was engineered, then there is likely a command structure embedded somewhere—chemical, neural, psychic—we don't know yet. But they weren't acting randomly."
A long silence followed.
Kael broke it. "This changes everything."
It did.
This wasn't a random mutation or a rogue experiment. And by the way silence doused the room, the implications from the forensic analysis were clear.
"So you are telling us the person who donated the DNA that mutated the ferals was an anomaly themselves—being able to shift from werewolf to bypass DNA encryption and then shift to lycan DNA to latch onto them and alter them?" Felicia asked pointedly.
Only one person could shift like that, as the prophecy had said.
Eve was a werewolf that could shift into a lycan.
And if, because of the donated DNA, the donor could control the ferals, it would mean…
I mentally shook my head, my pulse hammering, as Mara replied.
"Yes, Your Highness. It seems so." She adjusted her glasses and shifted her gaze to me, a secret message in the gesture. "The ferals would have died anyway within a week or two."
"Why?" we all echoed.
"Their bodies…" she momentarily pursed her lips.
"The fusion of lycan and werewolf DNA in such a fashion…
is inherently unstable," Mara finished. "The cells begin to reject each other, triggering a systemic breakdown.
They burn too hot—regenerating, mutating, adapting—but without a stable core, they collapse from the inside.
Think of it like a machine running on mismatched gears.
Eventually, the friction tears everything apart. "
I could feel the prickle of the Montegues' eyes on me.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237 (Reading here)
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260
- Page 261
- Page 262
- Page 263
- Page 264
- Page 265
- Page 266
- Page 267
- Page 268
- Page 269
- Page 270
- Page 271
- Page 272
- Page 273
- Page 274
- Page 275
- Page 276
- Page 277
- Page 278
- Page 279
- Page 280
- Page 281
- Page 282
- Page 283
- Page 284
- Page 285
- Page 286
- Page 287
- Page 288
- Page 289
- Page 290
- Page 291
- Page 292
- Page 293
- Page 294
- Page 295
- Page 296
- Page 297
- Page 298
- Page 299
- Page 300
- Page 301
- Page 302
- Page 303
- Page 304
- Page 305
- Page 306
- Page 307
- Page 308
- Page 309
- Page 310
- Page 311
- Page 312
- Page 313
- Page 314
- Page 315
- Page 316
- Page 317
- Page 318
- Page 319
- Page 320
- Page 321
- Page 322
- Page 323
- Page 324
- Page 325
- Page 326
- Page 327
- Page 328
- Page 329
- Page 330
- Page 331
- Page 332
- Page 333
- Page 334
- Page 335
- Page 336