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ONE

WHISPERS FROM THE PAST

~JINX~

~On the Nature of Daylight — Orchestral Version~

Max Richter, Lorenz Dangel

The straitjacket embraces me like a lover – too tight in all the right places, restricting in ways that make my skin crawl with perverse satisfactio n.

Seven days of captivity etched into my bones through systematic starvation and methodical torture that would break lesser beings.

But I am not lesser.

I am Jinx fucking Blackwood.

My legs remain crossed despite the discomfort, physical discipline mastered years ago through training that would make military commanders weep with envy. The padded cell stretches around me in pristine white – their feeble attempt at sensory deprivation.

As if emptiness could ever silence the chaos in my mind.

A laugh bubbles up from my chest, escaping through cracked lips as I tilt my head back against the wall. The sound echoes off the institutional padding, transforming into something that would make psychiatrists reach for their prescription pads with shaking hands.

"Twenty-seven minutes until they come back," Maverick's voice crackles through the subdermal implant nestled behind my ear. "You should conserve your strength instead of giggling like a maniac."

I ignore him, lips pursing into a whistle instead – a hauntingly familiar melody that feels like home in ways no physical structure ever has. The notes drift through recycled air, dancing with memories I usually keep locked behind carefully constructed walls.

But what's the point of walls when I've finally come home?

"You're doing that thing again," Maverick sighs, his concern evident even through the technological distortion. "That dissociative thing the doctors warned about. Your vitals are all over the place."

Silly beta. Always worrying about physical indicators when the real damage lives in places no monitor can reach.

"I heard that,” he mutters.

A technical error in my consistency at not talking out my thoughts.

Oh well.

The tune grows stronger as my mind splinters with practiced ease, part of me remaining present in this sterile hell while another part drifts backward through time.

Six years, then more – reaching for the memories that matter, the ones that have kept me functioning through a life that never belonged to me.

My first heat.

My first Alpha.

Riot.

The whistling falters as his name echoes through neural pathways, triggering a cascade of sensation that no amount of medication has ever fully suppressed.

His face forms in my mind's eye with perfect clarity – not the feral creature these walls have likely created, but the man who first showed me what protection felt like.

The memory pulls me under like a riptide, and I surrender willingly to its embrace.

Seven years ago…

The underground fighting arena stinks of blood, sweat, and primal dominance.

Alpha pheromones thick enough to choke on saturate the air as I huddle in the gilded cage suspended above the combat pit. My body burns with unfamiliar heat, skin hypersensitive beneath the flimsy white dress they've forced me into.

I don't understand what's happening – only that something fundamental has changed within me overnight. The doctors had been ecstatic, their clinical masks barely hiding their excitement as they documented my "breakthrough."

"Early onset presentation – remarkable response to experimental treatment protocol."

"Subject 496 demonstrating classic omega heat symptoms despite chronological age indicators suggesting premature development."

"Blackwood genetic markers proving exceptional once again."

Their voices blend together in my memory, clinical detachment masking the predatory interest beneath. All I know is that I'm burning from the inside out, and these men in the pit below are fighting for the privilege of extinguishing that fire – or fanning its flames higher.

Twenty alphas entered the pit at the announcement of an omega in heat.

Only one remains standing now.

He moves like violence given form, each strike carrying deadly precision despite exhaustion clearly weighing on his massive frame.

Blood mats his dark hair, running in rivulets down skin decorated with tattoos that shift and dance with each powerful movement. His opponent – the nineteenth to fall – spits crimson onto the concrete as he struggles back to his feet.

"Just stay down," the tattooed fighter growls, voice carrying that distinctive rumble that makes something primal inside me respond. "I don't want to kill you over this."

"Fuck you," the other alpha snarls, lunging forward with desperate aggression. "She's mine. I smell her calling to me!"

The tattooed fighter doesn't bother responding verbally.

His movements blur with impossible speed as he sidesteps the attack, pivoting on his heel to drive an elbow into his opponent's temple with surgical precision.

The impact resonates through the arena like a gunshot.

The nineteenth challenger crumples without another sound, body hitting the concrete with the finality of the truly defeated. The victorious alpha stands over him for a moment, chest heaving with exertion, before raising his gaze to my suspended cage.

Our eyes lock through golden bars, and something electric passes between us that transcends the clinical understanding of alpha-omega dynamics they've forced into my developing mind.

I should be terrified – this man has systematically destroyed nineteen opponents, his knuckles shredded and his tattooed skin glistening with both his blood and theirs.

Every evolutionary instinct should be screaming danger, predator, threat.

Instead, my hands grip the bars of my cage tightly as unfamiliar warmth pools in my core, my body responding to his presence in ways I have no context to understand.

"The victor has been determined!" Charles Press's voice carries through the underground arena, cultured tones at odds with the barbarity he's orchestrated. "Patient 628 has earned the privilege of first contact with our newly presented omega specimen!"

The crowd of white coats and government officials observing from raised platforms erupts in polite applause, their excitement barely contained behind a veneer of scientific objectivity.

This isn't science to them.

It's entertainment dressed as research, cruelty masquerading as progress.

My cage begins its mechanical descent toward the fighting pit, the mechanism whirring with ominous precision.

Panic claws at my throat as reality crystallizes with brutal clarity – I'm seventeen years old, trapped in a body that's suddenly betrayed me, about to be handed to a man who's fought through nineteen others for the privilege of. ..

What, exactly?

The clinical briefings had been deliberately vague, designed to maintain my ignorance while simultaneously documenting my "natural responses" to the situation.

But I'm not stupid. The way they'd examined me that morning, the clinical photographs, the invasive testing – all pointed to something that made bile rise in my throat.

The cage settles onto the blood-spattered concrete with a metallic thunk, and the gilded door swings open automatically. I retreat to the furthest corner, knees drawn to my chest as if I could somehow make myself smaller, less visible, less present .

The alpha – Patient 628 according to Press – approaches slowly, his movements calculated to appear less threatening. Blood drips from multiple wounds across his body, yet he stands tall, powerful muscles shifting beneath skin that serves as a canvas for his extensive tattoos.

"Five minutes of interaction," Press announces from above. "Physical contact permitted but sexual activity restricted to preliminary bonding behaviors only. We're measuring compatibility, not breeding capacity...yet."

Yet.

Meaning inevitable.

Depending on their needs. Not mine…

The clinical words hit, each one clarifying my role in this twisted experiment. I'm not a person to them – I'm a specimen, a breeding vessel, a means to an end I can't even comprehend at seventeen.

The alpha stops just outside the open cage door, his massive frame blocking the entrance without actually stepping inside my space. His scent reaches me even through the metallic odor of blood – something unexpected, like rain-washed earth and woodsmoke with hints of something darker beneath.

It calms the fire in my blood even as it intensifies the awareness of his presence.

"What's your name?" he asks quietly, his deep voice pitched low enough that the observers can't hear.

I blink, startled by the question.

No one has asked my name since I arrived at Ravenscroft.

I've been "Subject 496" for so long that the syllables of my actual identity feel foreign on my tongue.

"J-Jinx," I stammer, the admission feeling dangerously intimate. "Jinx Blackwood."

Something flickers across his face – recognition, perhaps, though I can't imagine how he would know my family name.

"Riot," he offers in return, the single word sounding like both introduction and warning.

"Is that your real name?" The question slips out before I can stop it, curiosity momentarily overriding fear.

A smile touches his bloodied lips, transforming his battle-hardened features into something unexpectedly gentle.

"It's who I am in here," he answers, gesturing vaguely at our surroundings. "The name they gave me when I refused to respond to numbers anymore."

His gaze drifts upward to where observers document our interaction with clinical precision, and something dangerous flashes across his expression.

"I need to touch you," he says, attention returning to me with laser focus. "They'll punish us both if I don't. But I won't hurt you. I swear it."

The promise hangs between us, fragile and precious in this place where vows mean nothing and cruelty is standard procedure. I should doubt him – this man called "Riot" who's left nineteen others broken and bleeding on the concrete beneath my cage.