The mechanical voice inside Kyle’s skull was still broadcasting, and what it said next made his blood boil hot enough to cook an egg.[System Warning: Targets Vivian Cross, Hailey Grant, and Riley Fox show no active contract marks from registered husband Kyle Cole. These three remain viable for secondary acquisition. However, targets with existing intimate bond markers from another male carry significantly reduced spiritual transfer value. Blake Sterling has expressed strong preference for unbonded partners only.]Blake’s voice came through the relay next, tight with frustration that his public smile had no idea existed.[I don’t want secondhand goods. If he’s already touched them, the spiritual return drops by sixty percent. What’s the point of acquiring a five star serpent if her bond value has been halved by a man who was one star three weeks ago?][Recommendation: proceed with unbonded targets only. Vivian Cross, Hailey Grant, and Riley Fox show no intimate markers. These three rem

“Because I’m HEARTBROKEN, Vivian!” Kyle spun toward his wives, tears flying off his face, and collapsed against Scarlett’s chest with the dramatic commitment of a man who had studied soap operas as a combat skill. “Take me home. I can’t be near him anymore. The betrayal is too fresh.”Scarlett caught him without expression. Her golden eyes moved from Kyle’s sobbing face to Blake’s frozen smile, and something cold and knowing passed behind them.“Let’s go.” Scarlett turned with Kyle still pressed against her chest and walked toward the exit route. The other four fell into formation behind her, and the entire group moved away from Blake’s household in a tight, protective cluster, leaving Blake standing alone in the fog with a cracked smile and a system that had just told him every plan he had was dead.Back at the house, the front door barely closed before the interrogation began.“You kissed all four of us in ten minutes.” Vivian’s voice was ice. “In public. In front of Blake’s entire h

The shockwave that left her body was not visible. It was not loud. It was simply force, raw and absolute, a wall of ten star pressure that hit the villa like a silent explosion. The front doors disintegrated. The windows shattered outward. The curtains vaporized. The picture frames on the walls turned to splinters. Every piece of glass, wood, and fabric within twenty feet of Wren dissolved into fine dust that settled across the floor like gray snow.The divorce papers, torn and scattered, fluttered through the ruined doorway and out into the fog, completely intact. Not a single mark on them. The only things in the entire villa that Wren’s power had chosen to leave undamaged.“Indestructible printing.” Wren examined her glove. “Cost me extra. Worth it.”Kyle stood in the center of the devastation with both arms extended, one hand pressed against Vivian’s chest pushing her backward, the other hand flat against Wren’s coat pushing her the opposite direction.“STOP!” Kyle screamed, his vo

Kyle opened his eyes to a ceiling made of crystal.Not glass. Not ice. Actual crystal cores, thousands of them, fused together in interlocking patterns that caught light from somewhere deep within the stone and scattered it across the walls in pale blue and gold. The bedroom he was lying in was the size of a ballroom, with carved pillars lining both sides, silk curtains hanging from arched windows, and a bed so massive it could have held ten people with room left over for a small garden.He sat up and immediately noticed two things. One, his terminal showed no star map signal. Two, a stack of divorce papers sat on the pillow beside his head with a fresh rose placed on top.“She is relentless,” Kyle muttered, picking up the papers and reading the pre filled names. Scarlett Reyes. Bianca Steele. Vivian Cross. Riley Fox. Hailey Grant. “Five divorces and a flower. What a romantic.”He threw the papers on the floor, swung his legs off the bed, and walked to the nearest window. What he saw

“Every room.” Wren spread one arm in a slow sweep that took in the crystal walls, the glowing ceilings, the pearl lined corridors, the jeweled displays he had just emptied. “Every stone. Every pearl. Every piece of furniture, every weapon, every bolt of silk. I’ve been building this place for two hundred years. Every mission, every hunt, every treasure pulled from the fog and the deep water went into these walls.”“Two hundred years.” Kyle stared at her. “You’ve been building a palace for two hundred years. For me.”“For the boy who made me a promise.” Wren’s voice changed. The lazy warmth peeled back, and underneath it was something raw, something old, something that had been sitting at the center of a ten star fallen beastwoman for longer than Kyle’s entire civilization had existed. “A long time ago, when I was small and frightened and hiding in a place very much like this, a boy found me in the dark. He was weak. Human. Completely powerless. And he sat with me until the sun came up