Kyle sat with his back against a cracked concrete wall on the fourth floor of a half collapsed apartment building, the stolen memories still throbbing behind his eyes like a second heartbeat. Wind whipped through the open side of the structure where an entire wall had been ripped away, exposing the floor to a straight drop down to the street below. Zombies shuffled in loose clusters on the pavement, their groans rising and falling like a sick, broken song.He could not stop seeing her face.Vivian Cross. The black serpent. The first wife the original Kyle Cole had destroyed.The memories played out in sharp, ugly detail. The original had stood in front of the government matching terminal the day the results came in, staring at Vivian's profile with his face twisted in rage. A black serpent. Not even a rare breed. Not a golden serpent, not a storm serpent, not anything that would have made his neighbors shut their mouths. Just a common, injured black serpent with cracked scales and a h

Another crash. Riley cried out, a short, bitten off sound full of pain."I swear on my life," Kyle whispered, and his voice was shaking so badly the words barely held together. "I swear I will sign it. Just don't let her die. Please.""Divorce!" Riley's voice tore across the basement from somewhere beneath the bear's shadow, raw and ragged and furious. "I want one too! Sign mine first, you hear me? Mine first!"Vivian's eyes moved from Kyle to Riley and back again. Something shifted behind that amber gaze, something calculating and cold, measuring the weight of his words against every lie the original had ever told her.Then she let go of his ankle."The restraints on this cage," Vivian murmured, rising to her feet inside the cell with a slow, fluid grace that made Kyle's skin crawl. "They were designed to suppress beast Abilities. Serpent class, specifically."She placed one hand flat against the iron door."They never worked on me. Not once. Not for a single second."Black fog poure

Kyle ripped two pieces of cotton from the roll on the nightstand and stuffed them deep into both ears. Riley's screaming faded to a muffled buzz. He sank onto the edge of the bed, his heart hammering, his hands shaking, and let out a long, slow breath through his teeth."She can scream all she wants," he murmured to himself. "The law says a wife cannot divorce without the husband's written consent. As long as I don't sign, they can't leave. And as long as they can't leave, they have to keep me alive."It was a horrible thought. He knew it was a horrible thought. But it was also the only thought keeping him breathing.He pulled up the terminal beside the bed. The small screen glowed pale blue in the dim room, and he navigated to the star map, the government registry that held the profiles of every matched wife under his name.Five files. Five faces.Riley Fox. Three star Firetail Cat. Combat rating: low. Primary Ability: advanced healing and cellular regeneration. The system classified

The room went still. Even the buzzing overhead light seemed to hold its breath."So here's what's going to happen." Kyle pointed at the plate. "You are going to take this thing back into the kitchen, throw it in the garbage, and make me something I can actually eat. Spicy wings. I want spicy wings. And if I don't have a plate of spicy wings in front of me in twenty minutes, I'm walking upstairs and signing all four certificates tonight. Every single one of you walks free, which means every single one of you loses the bond, which means the burial law no longer protects you from each other or from whatever is out there in the dead zones. Is that what you want, Bianca?"Bianca's smirk was gone. Her dark eyes had gone wide, just a fraction, and her jaw was locked so tight Kyle could see the muscles jumping beneath the skin."You wouldn't," she whispered."Try me." Kyle held her gaze and did not blink. "Spicy wings. Twenty minutes."Bianca stared at him for five long, silent seconds. Then

The energy in the room changed instantly. Riley's anger went cold. Bianca's jaw unclenched. Even Scarlett lowered her teacup half an inch, which for her was practically a standing ovation."The terminal is linked to my biometrics," Kyle told them, leaning back with his arms folded. "I'm the only one who can access the star map. I'm the only one who can accept missions. And I'm the only one who can authorize any of you to cross the fog barrier into the west side, where the star stones you need to rank up are actually located."He let that sink in for a moment."The previous version of me," Kyle chose his words carefully, "did not accept a single mission for the past six months. Not one. He sat in this house and watched all five of you stagnate while the protagonist next door sent his wives on missions every week. His golden flood dragon ranked up twice. His tiger evolved a new Ability. And meanwhile, every one of you has been stuck at the same level since the day you were matched."Nob