2025-09-30 00:43:33Morning light slipped gently into the penthouse suite, scattering gold across the white sheets. Jake stretched, his body stiff, his mind restless.
“So this is what it feels like?” Jake murmured, blushing.
Beside him, Elara stretched languidly, her hair spilling across the pillow like spilled ink. She caught his gaze and smirked.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Jake quickly turned away. “I just… it’s my first time.” The words slipped out before he could stop them. His eyes went wide, his face twisting into a look of self-reproach.
Elara tilted her head, curiosity glinting in her eyes. “First time?” She propped herself up on one elbow. “You mean… ever?”
Jake nodded, embarrassed. “Yeah. Didn’t you notice how stiff I was last night and… how quick?”
Instead of mocking him, Elara smiled softly. “No… I didn’t feel anything strange at all. You actually seemed skilled. I was very satisfied, Brad James.”
Jake froze. Hearing the fake name spill from her lips sent a pang through him. He wanted to be known as Jake—not Brad.
“Why are you so quiet? Did I say something wrong?” Elara asked, almost pleading.
“Um… no, it’s just that I…”
Jake’s words trailed off. He looked at her closely, then shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing happened.”
“Well, if you say so. Anyway, I still don’t know much about you. I mean… where do you live?” Elara asked. “I’ve never seen you around before. Are you new in town?”
“No, I’m just… not visible in your world. I only recently met someone who helped me.”
Elara’s lips curved in curiosity. “Oh yeah? Who?”
“Damian Crowne. Do you know him?”
“Damian Crowne,” Elara repeated with a faint note of disgust. She now sat fully upright, morning light sharpening her features. “Of course. The carrion king. How on earth did you end up with someone like that?”
Jake frowned. “He’s not… that bad. I mean, he gave me a job, money, a place to live. Without him, I’d still—” He cut himself off.
“Still what?” Elara pressed. “I’m not saying this without reason. I was close to him—intimately—for three years.”
Jake flinched, eyes wide, a flicker of worry crossing his face. If Damian ever found out he’d slept with Elara, things could get dangerous fast.
“Don’t worry. He’s not that great. I know you’re scared because we slept together. By the way, what exactly are you doing for that bastard?” Elara asked.
“Something big and dangerous,” Jake admitted. “But I’m glad I’m doing it—it gives me hope to keep going with my miserable life. If it weren’t for Damian, I wouldn’t be sleeping in a hotel this fancy. I wouldn’t have met you…”
Elara shrugged. “The universe has its own ways of making two people meet. But listen, Damian isn’t your savior. He’s your leash. A pawn in his kingdom.” Her voice hardened. “And pawns don’t last long.”
Jake clenched his jaw. “What do you know about that?”
Elara leaned closer, her eyes sharp as glass. “I know enough. Damian uses people until they’re burned out, then discards them. That million dollars he gave you? That’s just the rope. He wants you dependent, desperate, obedient.”
Her words stung because they rang true. Jake had felt it, though he hated to admit it.
“So what, you want me to just walk away?” he asked. “Go back to nothing? Millions of dollars are waiting for me.”
Elara’s gaze turned sharp with suspicion. “Brad, are you working one of his dirty operations?”
Jake swallowed, cornered. He might be doing criminal work, but in front of someone he liked, his naïveté always slipped through. He couldn’t quite lie.
“Um… I…”
“Good. I’ll take that as a yes,” Elara said, her sly smile returning. “I want you to aim higher. Damian isn’t the only player in this city. There are bigger, better ones. People who value loyalty, not destroy it.”
She leaned in, her perfume intoxicating. “Work with my boss instead. He knows how to use someone like you—smart, resourceful, underestimated.”
Jake narrowed his eyes. “Your boss? What do you mean? You don’t even know what I do.”
“Haha, Brad! I’m not new to Damian’s circle. When he handpicks someone, it means they have a talent he needs. Clearly, you’re important to him.”
Elara gently stroked Jake’s face, making his heart pound.
“So who’s your boss?”
“Lucian Davenhall,” she said casually, watching his reaction. “He doesn’t deal in crumbs. He builds kingdoms. And unlike Damian, he doesn’t keep pawns—he keeps partners.”
“And you?” Jake asked quietly. “What’s your role in all this?”
Elara’s smile turned faint. “Let’s just say I connect talent with opportunity. And you, Jake… you’re wasting yourself where you are now.”
Silence stretched between them. Jake’s thoughts raced. Damian had given him a lifeline, but every word Elara spoke carved at a truth he couldn’t ignore. Still, trusting her felt dangerous—too convenient, too fast.
Finally, he muttered, “So I’m just supposed to betray the man who saved me, just like that?”
Elara slid a finger along Jake’s jaw, her voice low and coaxing. “No. You’re supposed to choose yourself. Damian doesn’t care if you live or die. Lucian might. And me…” She let the sentence dangle, staring deep into Jake’s eyes. “…I see you as more than just a pawn.”
Jake swallowed hard, torn between loyalty and survival, between the pull of Elara’s words and the shadow of Damian’s sly smile.
Elara whispered at his ear, “You have a chance, Jake. A chance to destroy your master. A chance to become a legend.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
55
Fear did not arrive with thunder, nor with the violent crack of earth splitting open beneath careless feet; instead, it arrived like a subtle pressure against the mind, a tightening sensation that crawled beneath the skin and whispered warnings with a voice too ancient to belong to any living creature.The First City of Light woke to this tension, its luminous towers flickering in unsteady rhythms that betrayed the calm façade its architecture tried desperately to maintain. There was no disaster yet, no visible threat on the horizon, but every person who stepped outside felt a tightening in their chest as if the world had decided to breathe through them whether they permitted it or not. This was not panic created by imagination; this was the world’s fear bleeding through its lungs.Mira felt it instantly when she stepped out from the central root-chamber, the ground beneath her boots vibrating with an uneven pulse that matched the thrum of an anxious heartbeat. The sky hovered in a su
54
The morning began with a taste of iron in the air, the kind that drifted across the landscape right before a storm decides to tear the horizon open. People in the First City of Light paused mid-stride, instinctively lifting their faces toward the shifting sky as it rippled with pale green threads. The sensation wasn’t quite fear and not quite awe; it sat somewhere in the space between, like a word unspoken but ready to burn on someone’s tongue.Mira stepped out onto her balcony, letting the cold wind rush across her face. She inhaled deeply, and her chest tightened. The city’s bioluminescent towers were glowing with an unusual intensity, pulsing like frantic hearts. It wasn’t the gentle rhythm she had grown used to since the world’s rebirth. It was sharper. Faster. Uneven.The city was feeling something it had never felt before.Rage.She whispered, “Elen… what are you doing?”But she already knew the truth.It wasn’t Elen acting out.It was the world itself responding to something bu
53
The dream began the way most dreams begin—softly, without edges, drifting through the mind of a child who still believed the world was a place where everything could be understood if one only stared long enough. Lio had always been quiet, the kind of Resonant boy who listened more than he spoke, sensing the faint whispers of the living earth with more ease than he understood his own thoughts. When other children played near the glowing terraces of the First City, he lingered near the roots, tracing their subtle vibrations with curious fingers.But this dream felt different.It began with light, pale and trembling, flickering like a candle trapped inside fog. Then the light bent inward, collapsing into a tunnel of crimson haze. Lio walked through it instinctively, drawn by a voice that wasn’t a voice, a warmth that wasn’t warm, a call that carried familiarity he could not explain.When the haze cleared, he found himself standing in an enormous cavern lit by threads of dark red luminesc
52
The dream began the way most dreams begin—softly, without edges, drifting through the mind of a child who still believed the world was a place where everything could be understood if one only stared long enough. Lio had always been quiet, the kind of Resonant boy who listened more than he spoke, sensing the faint whispers of the living earth with more ease than he understood his own thoughts. When other children played near the glowing terraces of the First City, he lingered near the roots, tracing their subtle vibrations with curious fingers.But this dream felt different.It began with light, pale and trembling, flickering like a candle trapped inside fog. Then the light bent inward, collapsing into a tunnel of crimson haze. Lio walked through it instinctively, drawn by a voice that wasn’t a voice, a warmth that wasn’t warm, a call that carried familiarity he could not explain.When the haze cleared, he found himself standing in an enormous cavern lit by threads of dark red luminesc
51
The first warning was not a sound but a distortion, a subtle warping of the air that sent a faint metallic taste across the horizon. It drifted above the southern ridges like heat rising from cracked asphalt, except it carried weight—an awareness pressing against the senses of everyone attuned to the living world. Even those who lacked Resonant abilities felt the change, pausing mid-step as goosebumps crawled along their arms, triggered by a shift they could not name but instinctively feared.Mira registered the disturbance seconds before the shockwave hit. She straightened sharply, her gaze snapping to the far south where the sky rippled with unnatural tension. The clouds bent inward, as though pulled by a gravitational breath from deep beneath the crust.She whispered, “It’s happening again.”A Resonant guard rushed toward her, eyes wide. “The southern plates are vibrating in fractured sequences. They’re not following Elen’s rhythm anymore.”Mira inhaled slowly and felt the strain r
50
The city did not rise from blueprints or scaffolding or human ambition; it grew, inch by trembling inch, like a luminous creature testing its limbs beneath the dawning sky. The earth shaped its walls from living stone that pulsed with bioenergetic veins, and every tower curved toward the sun the way flowers tilt for warmth. When viewed from afar, the First City of Light shimmered like a cluster of breathing lanterns—alive, watchful, and intimately aware of every heartbeat wandering through its corridors.Yet even in its beauty, something restless simmered beneath the surface.A hum threaded through the city streets, too rhythmic to be natural, too intentional to be dismissed. Humans and Resonants alike paused mid-step, drawn by the echo vibrating through the root-grown bridges connecting each district. Even the glowing archways, shaped from crystalline sap, brightened and dimmed in uneven intervals, as though responding to a pulse no one understood.Mira stood at the center of the mai
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