Chapter 1

I needed money, so I sold myself to that cold, handsome man for seven nights. He left behind a black card and an ice-cold eggshell, then vanished.

Three months later, a doctor found six coiled serpentine shadows inside my womb.

I discarded every trace of my identity and fled to a snowbound cabin, hoping to stay alive.

But the day I gave birth alone in a blizzard, what crawled out weren't monsters. They were six babies with golden slit pupils who called me "Mama."

My children were not priceless treasures. To the powerful guys, they were research subjects. To the other species, they were "filthy half-breeds."

When cold needles pressed against all six of my children's chests, I heard the blast door torn from its frame.

The man who had vanished three years ago stood in the smoke. Six golden threads glowed from his palm, each connected to a child, and black blood still seeped from the wounds he'd torn open breaking through the blockade.

"Get your hands off my family."

第1章

To cover my brother Liam Carter's surgery deposit, I auctioned off my virginity.

The payment was five hundred thousand dollars. The terms: move into a penthouse in Manhattan and spend seven nights with Cassian Vere. The agency's contract ran over twenty pages, with detailed clauses on confidentiality, medical exams, and payment terms.

"Miss Carter, your role is companionship. You don't need to know anything about Mr. Vere's personal life." The agent slid a pen toward me. "Payment will arrive on the first night."

The hospital's billing reminder still glowed on my phone. Liam's heart couldn't wait any longer.

I signed.

Cassian was younger than I'd expected. Tall, dark-haired, with pale skin and a ring of dark gold around the edges of his pupils. He didn't talk much, and he never treated me like something he'd purchased.

That night, he asked if I was afraid.

I nodded slowly, trembling as I undressed. In the floor-to-ceiling window, I could see the outline of my own body, my curves overlapping with his tall, lean silhouette, desire burning in the air between us.

He stepped closer. His cold fingers trailed across my skin, then gripped my waist and pulled me against him. "Relax, baby."

I breathed in his cool, sharp scent, but his breath against my ear worked like poison, and I was wet almost immediately. His hand slid lower, his fingers finding my clit, rubbing gently.

"Slow down..."

The next second, I was lifted onto the bed and pinned beneath him. His hard cock pressed against my entrance, grinding slowly, coated in my wetness.

The teasing made my whole body shudder. Finally, when I couldn't take it anymore, he held me tight and thrust deep inside...

...

After that first night, he always waited for my nod before coming close.

But something about him made me tremble on instinct. At night, pressed against his chest, the heartbeat I heard was always slower than a normal person's. Sometimes I'd jolt awake and swear that what was wrapped around my waist wasn't an arm, but a warm, powerful serpent's tail.

During the day, he'd have my favorite food sent up, but he never asked why I kept checking hospital texts. On the fifth night, I took a call from the billing office in the bathroom. When I came out, my eyes were red. He just pushed a glass of warm water toward me. "You can leave now. You'll still be paid in full."

I shook my head. I had no reason to leave. I needed the money, and this was the only way to earn it fast enough. Before the seventh night ended, he placed a black-gold eggshell in my palm.

"Keep it safe."

"What is it?"

"When I come back, I'll tell you myself."

It was the first time he'd told me he would return. I looked at his handsome profile and felt a flicker of something. He was gorgeous and wealthy, a gentleman, and incredible in bed.

Even if I had money and could order up any man I wanted, I'd never find one like him.

But on the morning of the eighth day, I woke to find the other side of the bed completely bare. He had vanished without a trace.

His assistant stood in the doorway and handed me a black card with no spending limit. "Mr. Vere had an urgent matter. Everything he left behind is yours."

"Did he say anything else?"

The assistant glanced at his phone, deleted an internal directive that had just come through, and answered without a flicker. "No."

Seven nights of warmth, and all that remained was a card and an ice-cold eggshell.

I transferred five hundred thousand dollars from the black card and deposited it anonymously into Liam's surgical account. Beyond that, I didn't touch a cent. The eggshell, I threw into the Hudson River and watched it sink into the murky water.

Three months later, I went to a private imaging center for an ultrasound.

The doctor stared at the screen, her face draining of color.

"Miss Carter, are you certain you haven't been involved in any illegal embryo experiments?"

"What do you mean?"

She shifted the probe. On the screen, there was no clear outline of a baby's head and limbs. Instead, there were six long, coiled shadows, tangled together like six small snakes sleeping inside my womb.

One of them suddenly raised its head and stared at me through the screen.

The doctor stumbled backward and reached for the alarm on the wall.

"Don't move! We need to notify public health and security—"

I rolled off the exam table and ran out the door before I'd even gotten my shoes on.

Oh my God. I was actually pregnant with six snakes!

If they caught me, there was no telling what they'd do. I'd probably end up as a live research subject.

That afternoon, I switched phones, canceled my credit cards, and logged out of every social media account. I took nothing but a few changes of clothes and the hospital letter confirming Liam's recovery, and boarded a long-distance bus to Montana.

As the bus pulled out of New York, I felt the things inside me move for the first time while I was in the restroom.

It didn't feel like a baby kicking.

Six slender forces swept across my belly at once, then settled quietly beneath my palm.

I was so scared I stopped breathing.

The city lights grew farther away. I thought of how Cassian always asked before touching me, yet never once asked if I was willing to get pregnant. I hugged my coat tighter. Whatever was growing inside me, I couldn't let the agency or Cassian find me.

Third Person’s POV

At that same moment, Cassian returned to the penthouse.

He saw the empty closet. He saw the black card sitting unused on the table. Then he looked down at his palm.

The once-complete mate mark had faded to a single faint golden thread. The black-gold eggshell, designed to track his mate's location, had gone completely dark.

"She left on her own." His aunt, Seraphina Vere, stood in the doorway, her voice flat. "Just a worthless human who got her money."

Cassian didn't answer.

He pulled up every entry and exit log from the building and found that the final message meant for me that morning had been deleted.

"Find her," he ordered his head of security, Owen Hayes.

"Global?"

"Global."

The golden thread on his palm flared for a split second.

Cassian lifted his gaze, his voice going cold.

"Find her alive. If she's dead, bring me proof."

第2章

Evelyn Carter's POV

I rented a run-down cabin outside Blackpine under a fake name.

My landlady, Mabel Greene, assumed I was a single pregnant woman fleeing domestic violence. She never asked about the baby's father. Before every blizzard, she'd leave bread, milk, and old blankets at my door.

I didn't dare go to a hospital.

During the day, I studied normal pregnancy guides at the town library. At night, I used a secondhand fetal monitor to record the sounds from my belly. Six heartbeats, all different. The smallest one was always the slowest. I assigned them numbers and logged my temperature, food intake, and any unusual reactions every day.

Five months into the pregnancy, my body started to change.

A cut from slicing vegetables would heal in minutes. I could lift a crate of firewood that used to take two people, and I began craving raw meat with a ferocity that scared me. Once, I stared at a steak on the cutting board for too long. When I snapped out of it, my teeth were already buried in the raw, bloody flesh.

I ran to the sink and gagged. But all six children inside me kicked with excitement.

"What are you?" I pressed my hands against my belly, my voice shaking.

Everything inside me went still for a few seconds.

Then all six moved at once, gently bumping against my palm.

From that day on, I was still afraid. But I never again thought about ending the pregnancy.

I didn't know who Cassian was. I didn't know what I'd truly signed during those seven nights. But these children went quiet whenever I woke from a nightmare. When I was so hungry I trembled, they'd nudge my belly, reminding me to eat first.

Mabel occasionally brought stew. I never let her in, just told her through the door that my morning sickness was bad. She'd hang the basket on the doorknob and curse the baby's father while she was at it. I never explained. To the people in town, I was just a pregnant woman abandoned by some man. That story was much safer than the truth.

They were no longer six terrifying shapes on a screen.

They were my children.

Third Person’s POV

Back in New York, Cassian discovered I had used only five hundred thousand dollars.

The money had gone to Liam's surgical account. Cassian confirmed the surgery was done. But the payment had gone through an anonymous trust, and the hospital couldn't disclose family information to an outside party. He had no way to find my new name or address.

The only lead close to me was a bus ticket to Montana.

Seraphina flagged that record as a system error.

"The border council is in revolt. You can't drop everything for one missing human." She set the European emergency report on Cassian's desk.

Cassian stared at the bus ticket for a long time, then was forced to board a plane to Europe.

I knew nothing about any of it.

Evelyn's POV

In the tenth month, the worst blizzard in twenty years hit Blackpine.

Power lines snapped. The cabin went dark. I woke in the middle of the night to searing pain and crawled from the bed to the fireplace. No doctor, no ambulance, no phone signal. All I could do was bite down on a towel and push, over and over, following the instructions I'd memorized from books.

But what came out of me wasn't a baby.

When the first black-gold serpent egg landed on the blanket, I thought I'd gone insane.

Then came a second, a third... all the way to the sixth.

They sat in a row in the blood. No crying, no breathing. The fire was nearly dead. I was covered in blood, so cold I couldn't lift my fingers.

Hunger and blood loss made my brain sluggish. I stared at the six eggs, each bigger than a watermelon, and the most absurd thought surfaced.

Fry them.

At least I'd survive.

I dragged myself to the kitchen and picked up a frying pan. Just as the rim was about to touch the first egg, all six started tapping from inside at once.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The tapping was faint, but it came one beat after another, unceasing.

The frying pan slipped from my hands and hit the floor.

I dragged myself back to my knees beside the blanket, fed the last of the firewood into the hearth, and wrapped my coat around all six eggs. Blood loss kept pulling me under. Every time I started to fade, the tapping would come again. I could only dig my nails into my palms to stay awake.

The first egg cracked.

A tiny, warm, soft hand reached out and grabbed my fingertip.

第3章

All six eggs split open before dawn.

What crawled out were six baby boys. They had golden slit pupils, small soft black horns at their temples, and tails of different colors trailing from their lower backs.

They didn't wail like ordinary newborns. Instead, they reached for me in perfect unison.

The first to hatch mumbled a single word. "Mama."

I froze.

He crawled across the blood-soaked blanket and licked the cut on my finger with his tiny forked tongue. The sting vanished, and the wound slowly closed before my eyes.

I kicked the frying pan into the corner and held him.

"Okay." I was crying so hard my voice broke. "I'll raise you."

I gave the six children names.

The eldest was Asher. He was the quietest and the first to learn how to care for his brothers. Blake had the worst temper; he bared his teeth at anyone who touched me. Caleb rarely spoke but could sense the emotions of everyone around him. The twins, Dylan and Eli, loved to squeeze into cabinets and under beds. The youngest, Finn, had a pale golden tail and the weakest body.

Each of them had a different ability. Asher could steady the fire in the hearth. Blake's scales were the hardest. Caleb could hear my heartbeat through a wall. When Dylan and Eli got nervous, fog or rain would fill the cabin. When Finn sneezed, the dead mint in the flower pot would sprout new leaves.

For three years, I raised them on my night-shift wages from a small supermarket in Blackpine.

The cabin windows stayed covered year-round. I converted the basement into their playroom. We had only three rules: no tails in front of outsiders, no using abilities, and when you hear me knock seven times on the wall, hide right away.

Whenever there was only one piece of meat on the table, Asher would cut it into seven portions. Finn ate the slowest. Blake would be so hungry his tail wrapped around the chair leg, but he'd still push his share over.

"I'm not hungry," he'd say, and his stomach would growl immediately.

The other five would burst out laughing.

I'd laugh too, then turn to collect the plates and wipe away tears when they couldn't see.

They never asked about their father. Whenever they brought up New York, I'd change the subject. Eventually, they stopped asking.

When I had a fever, the six of them would shift into arm-length snakes and coil around me one after another, trying to keep me warm. Every morning, I'd wake to find six little heads crammed onto the same pillow.

One winter, I couldn't afford enough meat. While I was working the night shift, the six of them snuck into the pantry and boiled the last two cans of beans into a thick mush. Asher declared with perfect seriousness that it was a surprise. Finn, though, was caught licking an empty meat can, and all five of his brothers clapped their hands over his mouth. We laughed for a long time that night. We were also hungry for a long time.

During those three years, we were always short on money and rarely full. But as long as all six were home, I never once considered giving them up.

On the other side of the world, Cassian's search had never stopped.

After the black-gold eggshell went dead, he began collecting records of anomalous geothermal activity, localized downpours, and missing children across the United States. He was certain the children had been born, because the golden threads on his palm would occasionally split into six, though each flare lasted only seconds.

Seraphina proposed screening for a new pureblood mate at a Council session.

"It's been three years. Even if that human is alive, she may not want to come back."

Cassian rejected the proposal before the entire assembly.

"No new selection will begin unless my mate is confirmed dead."

"What if she gave birth to half-human offspring?"

Cassian looked her in the eye. "They'd still be my heirs."

Evelyn's POV

That evening, I took the children out to gather firewood past the edge of town.

A cry for help came from the frozen river. A boy had broken through the ice, half his body already underwater.

"Stay here!" I grabbed Asher. "Someone else will help him."

But there was no one in sight. The boy's voice was fading.

Asher looked at me, then at the river.

"Mom, what if nobody comes?"

The next second, he tore free of my grip and ran.

The ice cracked again. Asher's eyes flashed to golden slits. His tail slid out from beneath his waistband, wrapped around the drowning boy's arm, and hauled him out of the water.

A neighbor standing on the bank had the whole thing on camera.

第4章

The video was four seconds long.

Asher lay flat on the ice, pulling the boy up. His pupils flashed gold, a black tail slipping out from under his jacket. The person filming swore and called him a freak.

After the video spread through the Blackpine parent group, Tommy Reed's father was the first to come to the cabin.

"If not for your son, my boy would be dead." He set down a bag of fruit, his face uneasy. "But everyone's asking... what exactly is he?"

"He's a three-year-old child."

Asher hid behind me and whispered that he'd only pulled the other boy up. Tommy actually wanted to speak up for him, but his father pulled him back to the car. Before the door shut, Tommy mouthed thank you at Asher through the glass.

Someone outside shouted, "Normal kids don't grow tails! Who knows if he's carrying some kind of disease?"

Tommy's father went pale. He stepped back and picked up the bag of fruit he'd just set down.

"Until things are cleared up, it's probably best if they stay away from my son."

Asher was standing at the staircase landing. He heard every word.

That same day, the supermarket manager suspended my shifts. Mabel also came by, her eyes red. The insurance company had seen the video and canceled the cabin's coverage. She said she could only let me stay three more days.

"I know the kids saved someone." She held my hand. "But they said if anything happens, I'll lose this house."

I didn't blame her. I just went home to pack. But Finn spiked a high fever in the middle of the night. He'd burned through all his energy trying to hold the ice steady for Asher, and his temperature wouldn't come down.

I had no choice but to take him to the county ER.

Nurse Sarah Mitchell drew a vial of blood. As the red liquid filled the tube, it coiled into black-gold patterns on its own.

She paused, then quickly turned off the shared screen by the printer and saved the raw data to a personal encrypted drive.

"I don't know what this is, but I'll treat the fever first." She kept her voice low. "If anyone asks, you didn't attack me, and neither did the child."

But the hospital's risk system had already triggered an automatic alert.

Half an hour later, a blonde woman walked into the room with people from the state child protection office.

"I'm Dr. Helena Ward from the St. Grace Children's Foundation." She crouched beside Finn's bed, her smile warm. "We specialize in helping children with rare genetic conditions."

She didn't ask about Finn's symptoms first. Instead, she asked me who the father was, whether I had formal prenatal records, and whether I'd been involved in illegal experiments.

"The father is Cassian Vere," I said. "He lives in New York. I don't have his number."

Ward had her assistant look into it for a few minutes.

"There's no one matching that description in any public registry. Ms. Carter, do you often believe that a very powerful man is coming to pick you up?"

"He's real."

"Of course." She typed a note on her tablet. "Suspected delusion involving a wealthy benefactor. Reality testing pending."

I stared at that line and shut my mouth. If I kept explaining, she'd just add another delusion to her assessment.

Third Person’s POV

At that same moment, Cassian's analysis team intercepted the four-second video.

"My King, the pupil coloration and tail scales belong to your direct bloodline."

Cassian stared at Asher's face on the screen. All six golden threads on his palm lit up at once.

For the first time in three years, he saw one of his children's faces.

"Get me a location."

"The original location data was professionally scrubbed. We can only confirm it's somewhere in the American Northwest."

Cassian stood. "Then search every frozen river, every ER, and every child-risk system in the Northwest."

Evelyn's POV

I brought Finn home once his fever broke and packed through the night, but my debit card had been frozen, the blizzard had closed the roads, and there were officers at the bus station checking IDs.

The six children didn't understand why they had to move after saving someone. Asher wound his tail under his belt on his own and asked me quietly, "If I hadn't saved him, would we still have to leave?"

I held him close. "This isn't your fault. You did the right thing saving that boy. The adults are the ones not being fair."

At nine that evening, there was a knock at the door.

Outside stood a state social worker, Deputy Aaron Garrett, and Ward. Ward held an emergency child safety evaluation order.

"Ms. Carter," she said through the door, "until we confirm these children are safe, you don't have the right to take them out of this state."

第5章

I didn't open the door.

I sent the six children to hide in the basement and demanded through the door that they contact a lawyer, bring in an independent pediatrician, and record everything on camera.

Ward's tone stayed gentle throughout. "It's only a thirty-six-hour emergency observation at most. Finn's fever hasn't broken. Every second of delay could be life-threatening."

"Then send a doctor here. Or I'll take him to the hospital myself."

"You've already been flagged for obstructing treatment. Ms. Carter, don't let your decision cost the other five children their chance."

Deputy Garrett showed the evaluation order. The paper authorized them to inspect the children's living conditions, but nowhere did it say they could forcibly remove anyone.

I was about to point that out when Finn coughed from the basement.

The door was rammed open.

Two guards rushed in first. Ward went straight for Finn. He was so frightened that his tail slid out from his pants leg and wrapped tight around my waist.

"Hostile form!" Deputy Garrett drew a stun gun. "Release the child and step back!"

"He's three years old!" I pulled Finn into my arms. "He's scared. All of you, get out!"

The current tore through my back and shoulders.

My whole body seized. I dropped hard to my knees. My teeth cracked against my tongue and blood flooded my mouth, but my hands still held Finn's clothes.

"Mama!"

All six children rushed toward me at once.

Asher shielded his five brothers. Blake stood at the front. Caleb, overwhelmed by the terror around him, pressed his hands over his ears. The twins each grabbed a fistful of my shirt. Finn could barely stand with his fever. Yet not one of them hid behind me and begged to be spared.

Blake's eyes went to slits, fangs already showing. A second stun gun locked onto me immediately.

Asher suddenly stepped in front of his brothers.

"Don't bite anyone!" He shoved Blake back and raised both hands first. "Everyone shift back. Don't let them hurt Mom again."

Six tails slowly retracted into their clothes.

They could have fought back, but they lined up for my sake and let the guards stick needles into their arms.

"Don't drug them!" I tried to get up. A boot came down on my wrist.

Sedatives were injected into six small bodies, one after another.

Finn went limp first. His temperature was already unstable. The moment the drug hit, his lips turned blue and his breathing went faint.

Before they carried him away, he was still reaching for me.

"Mama..."

My vision went black.

When I came to, I was strapped to a stretcher.

The ambulance door wasn't fully shut. I could see the children's wrists tagged in red, orange, and black. Asher and Blake were loaded into the first windowless medical van. Caleb and the twins were in the second. Finn was alone in the third.

"Don't separate them!"

I tore the restraint off my hand and jumped from the ambulance. My bare feet hit the snow, but I barely felt the pain. I saw only the third van as its doors began to close.

I chased it for over thirty feet before I slipped and crashed into a snowbank.

Six terrified little faces flashed behind the windows. Asher was pounding the glass. Blake strained against his seat belt. The twins clung to each other. Caleb had his eyes shut, searching for my heartbeat. Finn's van passed last. His small hand pressed against the glass, the black tag on his wrist nearly wider than his arm.

Three vans pulled away, one after another.

All I managed to grab was one of Finn's tiny socks that had fallen off.

Deputy Garrett dragged me back to the car while Ward dictated her report.

"Mother actively assaulted personnel during execution. Children cooperated voluntarily with transfer. Records suggest possible delusional father narrative. Recommend immediate psychiatric evaluation."

"They didn't cooperate voluntarily!" I shouted hoarsely. "The body cameras caught everything!"

Deputy Garrett wouldn't meet my eyes.

Ward placed a document in front of me. "You can sign a thirty-six-hour voluntary observation. Otherwise, we will immediately send the high-risk children to foster homes in different states."

"That's not voluntary."

"You can choose not to sign." She glanced at the tiny sock in my fist. "But from today, you may never know where they are."

I gritted my teeth and signed beneath the words "observation only."

At that same moment, Cassian's private jet had already turned toward Montana.

His security team received a report of six abnormal children being transferred across the border to Canada, and half the team requested a course change to pursue.

Cassian looked at the timestamp on the record.

"Seventeen minutes after the video went public, a complete transfer manifest appeared in the border system. That's too fast."

"You think it's fake?"

"Someone wants me in Canada." He closed the file. "Continue to Blackpine. I'll investigate it myself."

The elevator at St. Grace descended.

I was wheeled into a windowless underground level. A red digital display lit up on the wall.

Risk observation remaining: 36 hours.

Behind three silver-gray doors, all six children cried out for Mama at once.

I threw myself against the wall and tapped out our seven-beat code with my knuckles.

One, two, three. A pause. Then four.

The countdown ticked to 35:59:59.

The suppressors engaged. The children's cries cut off abruptly.

From the other side of the wall, there was no answer.

第6章

There was no day or night underground.

The only way I could tell time was the countdown on the screen. The children had been gone for eight hours.

Ward had put silver alloy bands on their wrists, claiming they monitored heart rate. On the surveillance feed, all six were shivering. The isolation chambers were kept at fifty-four degrees. The bands suppressed their abilities. They couldn't even shift into snake form to warm each other.

I recited every temperature and feeding record from my pregnancy journal to the medical staff and demanded they add it to the charts. Ward had my words logged as "delusional parenting protocols," then had the temperature dropped another four degrees. Two minutes later, Asher started shaking. The observer immediately wrote "thermal instability" in the report.

The food sent in was only bread, vegetables, and a sliver of meat.

Asher gave his portion of meat to Finn and told Blake to hold their youngest brother. He sat down against the wall himself. His color drained steadily until he finally pitched forward beside the metal bed.

"Raise the temperature!" I slammed my palms against the glass. "They need high-calorie food. Take the bands off. They're going to die!"

Ward pulled up a video.

The footage showed me thrashing and kicking after the stun gun, blood smeared around my mouth. Everything before that had been cut. All that remained was an out-of-control mother.

"We have reason to believe you've been fabricating the children's symptoms to maintain your role as caregiver," she said. "Until the psychiatric evaluation is complete, you're excluded from all medical decisions."

"Then why are you even talking to me?"

Ward placed a blood-draw kit on the table. "Because maternal samples help us understand them. Provide blood and reproductive tissue, and you can have ten minutes of visitation."

I knew she was using me.

But on the monitors, Finn no longer had the strength to sit up.

"I see all six children first."

"After the samples."

When the needle went in, I realized they'd used the line to sedate me. When I woke, my abdomen was covered with unfamiliar markings, and old delivery injuries were throbbing again. Ward said the exam was routine. She never told me what she'd done, and she never asked for my consent.

The ten-minute visit finally began.

All six children were brought into the same room, but they were too weak to stand. I had barely gathered Finn into my arms when his body went slack.

No breathing.

"Finn!"

I pressed him against my chest, trying to warm him with my own body heat. I gave him mouth-to-mouth and counted the seconds.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen...

The other five gathered around me. Asher was barely conscious himself, but he pressed his hand against his brother's foot. Blake bit down on his own lip, not daring to cry.

On the eighteenth second, Finn finally gasped. A cry as weak as a kitten's escaped him.

Before I could hold him tighter, Ward snatched him away.

"Note: following maternal contact, the subject exhibited severe respiratory suppression."

"It's the silver bands and the cold!"

"Take her back."

Before the door closed, I saw Finn reaching for me over the nurse's shoulder. His arm made it halfway up before it fell.

Ward delivered six transfer orders.

"After the observation period, they'll be sent to six different states. Sign permanent guardianship transfer, and you'll at least receive an annual report."

"And if I don't sign?"

"Finn's temperature can't stabilize. We'll prepare him for a Level Four core biopsy before midnight."

I flipped to the back of the document, where a line in tiny print read "possible damage to transformation core." Ward pulled the papers away before I could read further. But I memorized the project number and the lead surgeon's name, scratching them into the underside of the bed frame with my fingernail in case the drugs made me forget.

She made it sound like a routine exam. She never told me what the needle would extract from behind Finn's sternum. She never mentioned he might die on the table.

Third Person’s POV

At that same moment, Cassian stood inside our cabin.

Seven unwashed bowls still sat on the table. Wedged in the floorboard cracks were the metal barbs from a stun gun, next to a dried smear of my blood. In one corner of the basement lay the black-gold snakeskin Asher had just shed.

When Cassian touched the blood, the mate mark on his palm cracked open. The pain dropped him to his knees.

A few seconds passed before he stood again.

"County transfer records point to the St. Grace Foundation," Hayes reported. "Once the files entered the state system, the addresses were changed to twelve shell facilities."

"Seal every record." Cassian looked at the seven bowls. "Cross-reference cooling power usage, medical transport vehicles, underground construction, and midnight data overwrites. I need an exact address."

第7章

Evelyn's POV

The underground PA system crackled to life.

"Level Four candidate's vitals declining. Advancing core-biopsy preparation."

On the other side of the wall, Finn's tapping stopped.

I looked up. The countdown had just jumped to 23:59:59.

Ward reclassified the six children.

Asher was labeled Group Control. Blake, Aggression. Caleb, Psychic Manipulation. Dylan and Eli were filed under Concealment and Environmental Disruption. Finn's file read: "Highest core value. Lowest stability."

"After observation ends, they'll be sent to six states." Ward fanned the files out in front of me. "Siblings will be permanently banned from contact to prevent group resonance."

"They were just protecting each other."

"Dangerous organisms also protect their group."

She forced me to stand behind one-way glass and watch their so-called tests.

Blake was strapped to a chair while staff banged a baton against the table, over and over, until he bared his fangs. Caleb was sealed in a room of blinding light and piercing noise. Dylan and Eli were shoved into pitch-black, narrow boxes. Finn lay under a breathing mask, a red circle drawn on his chest.

Every time a child reacted, the observer added a point to the risk score. They never documented what the staff had done, only what the children did. When Blake held back a snarl, Ward ordered the baton strikes louder. The moment the twins stopped crying, cold air was blasted into the black boxes. The final report listed only "bared fangs" and "produced cold fog."

Asher suddenly looked into the camera. "I made them do it."

He squared his shoulders and stepped in front of all five brothers.

"I told them to save that boy, and I told them to fight back. Punish me. Let them go."

Ward had him placed in a colder, transparent observation box.

I threw myself at the door. A guard pinned me from behind. The instant his knee drove into my ribs, I heard something crack inside me. The old injury had torn wide open.

On the other side of the glass, Asher pounded the door in a frenzy. I couldn't hear what he was shouting, and he couldn't hear me.

Ward played a recording for the children.

My voice came through the speakers: "I agree... to separate them..."

It had been spliced. What I'd actually said was "I did not agree to separate them."

The six children stared at the recording device. None of them said a word.

Ward leaned over me. "They already know you don't want them."

"They won't believe you."

"Children believe what they see with their own eyes. You're here. They're in there. After dawn, you'll never see them again."

Sarah came to treat my ribs. Her hands were trembling.

She angled her body to block the camera and wrote a number on the back of the gauze.

Twenty percent.

"If Finn gets the core biopsy now, his survival rate is under twenty percent." She pressed close to my ear. "The original servers will be wiped at midnight. I can only save one backup."

Footsteps sounded outside. She immediately returned to a normal volume. "Please don't touch the wound."

Ward pushed the permanent guardianship transfer form in front of me.

"Sign, and Finn will receive stabilizing treatment. Refuse, and the biopsy happens at midnight. By dawn, the other five will be loaded onto separate vans."

I looked at every camera in every corner of the room.

I stopped begging Ward to let them go. I looked directly into the nearest camera and spoke every word clearly. If even one recording survived, people on the outside would know I'd refused.

"I refuse."

Ward's smile faded.

I repeated myself, word by word. "I have not consented to any experiment, and I have not given up my children. I will not sign this document."

She shut off the room's audio feed. What she didn't know was that the hallway, the visitation room, and the body cameras had already captured my voice.

To terminate my visitation rights, Ward fabricated a toxicology report claiming I'd been dosing the children with veterinary drugs over a long period. Deputy Garrett noticed that the report was dated before the samples were taken. He finally grew suspicious, but he still did not intervene. He only copied the original body-camera cache to a private hard drive.

Meanwhile, Cassian found ten months of heartbeat charts in my pregnancy journal at the cabin.

Every child's temperature, food intake, and ability response was logged clearly by date. Tucked into the last page was a receipt for seven dinner bowls.

The data team reported at the same time. "Of the twelve facilities, three show anomalous cooling power in the same time window. The load at the Blackpine location matches exactly six suppression chambers."

Seraphina remotely cut Cassian's access to the Serpent Council's search system.

Cassian didn't request it back.

He took a federal inspector and an independent medical team and boarded the plane.

Alarms suddenly erupted throughout the underground level at St. Grace. When Ward learned an outside investigation was closing in, the warmth finally dropped from her face.

"Move up the biopsy."

The countdown plunged from eight hours, twelve minutes, and forty-three seconds to one hour and thirty minutes.

Six transport pods were rolled into the corridor.

Ward leaned down and told me, "In ninety minutes, you'll lose the youngest first. Then the other five, forever."

第8章

Sarah hid an access card inside a medication cup.

"One use, two doors at most." She spoke with her back to the camera. "The inspector hasn't reached this site yet. At midnight, every original record gets wiped."

I tucked the card under my tongue and told Ward, "I'll sign."

She stopped.

"But before I sign, I need to confirm all six children are still alive."

Ward needed my signature. She agreed.

When a guard wheeled me past the first door, I let my body slide from the chair on purpose. While they bent down, I cut the wrist restraint, swiped the pass, and bolted into the corridor.

Every breath drove a spike through my ribs. I followed the seven-beat tapping and crashed through the second door.

There wasn't one operating table inside.

There were six.

Finn was already intubated, a core extraction needle suspended above his chest. Asher had been wheeled out of a cryogenic box, his lips blue. Blake, Caleb, Dylan, and Eli were chained to the other four tables with silver shackles.

Ward had never planned to test only Finn.

She intended to complete deep tissue sampling on all six before midnight, load them into separate vehicles, and destroy every original record.

I threw myself at Finn's bed, ripped out the IV, and covered his chest with my body.

"Mama!"

A suppression baton cracked across my back.

My vision went black. My ribs felt as if they'd been shattered. A guard grabbed my legs, but I locked my arms around the metal frame and called each child's name, over and over.

"Asher, look at me. Blake, don't bite. Caleb, listen to my heartbeat. Dylan, Eli, hold on to each other. Finn, don't fall asleep."

They pried my fingers loose one by one.

Ward dragged me into a thirty-two-degree cold room next to the operating theater. Through the one-way glass, I could see all six tables. I could hear the countdown and the children crying.

"Sign, and the procedures stop." She activated the intercom.

I was too cold to hold a pen.

With a bleeding fingertip, I wrote on the glass, one stroke at a time:

I do not consent.

Ward read it from the other side, then ordered someone to wipe it off. Sarah stepped in front of the cleaning staff, insisting it was an explicit refusal and had to be entered into the record. Ward confiscated her badge on the spot and had security drag her out of the surgical area.

"These children's blood could save lives," Ward said over the intercom. "You don't even have a job or a place to live. What gives you the right to refuse treatment for them?"

"They're not your medicine." I pressed my bloody hand against the glass again. "Without my consent and theirs, you cannot touch them."

Sarah, outside the door, used her last remaining login to sync this exchange to a backup server without the guards noticing.

"Lower the needles," Ward said.

The instruments powered up.

On the other side of the glass, Asher realized my eyes were closing. He stopped fighting the restraints and instead tapped the bed rail, using the code we'd practiced for three years to wake his brothers.

Caleb suddenly heard my heart rate fall from forty beats per minute to twenty-eight.

He tapped the rail once. Asher joined in immediately. Then Blake, Dylan, Eli, and finally, weakest of all, Finn.

One, two, three. Pause. Then four.

Our family's seven-beat code.

The six children bit through the silver alloy bands and channeled all their remaining body heat into Finn. Asher then bit open his own palm and drew a black-gold symbol on the floor, a mark no one had ever taught him.

"Dad," six small voices called out at once. "Find us."

Caleb looked through the glass toward me and added the last words through tears.

"Mama's dying."

The suppressors overloaded for seven seconds. The distress signal slipped through into the Serpent network.

Hundreds of miles away, the mate mark on Cassian's palm cracked open.

He heard six children's heartbeats at the same time, and he heard mine growing weaker. The signal came from underground in Blackpine. Of the three candidate addresses, only one remained.

"Lock down every road, airport, server, and underground exit in Blackpine." Cassian stood. "Medical team goes in first. No evidence is to be destroyed."

Ward discovered the system had been locked from outside and barked, "Extract now!"

The core needle descended toward Finn's chest.

The cold room's heart monitor let out one long, unbroken tone.

One second before the needle touched skin, the blast door was ripped from its frame.

Smoke billowed. Alarms screamed.

A tall man stood behind the shattered door. Dark hair, golden slit pupils, six offspring marks burning on his palm.

He strode past the six operating tables and his gaze landed on me, covered in blood.

The man who had disappeared three years ago without so much as a goodbye had finally come.

"Get your hands off my family."