Later, Lana would wonder if it had been real.
A hallucination. A prophecy. A warning burned into her blood.
It began with the key. Rusted, warm, and humming against her palm.
She stood in the ruins of the panic room—sheets bloodstained, the air humid with breath and sweat. Her reflection in the mirror blinked, but the woman staring back wasn't entirely her.
Her eyes pulsed gold. Her lips were parted. Her neck throbbed from where he'd bitten her.
Kieran dressed behind her, silent, each motion mechanical and precise. His wounds closed in real time, his bare chest slick with the sheen of accelerated healing. When he fastened his silver cufflinks—the ones shaped like wolves' heads—the rubies in their eyes caught the light and flickered.
"Lab Nine," he said, fastening the second cufflink. "Off-grid. Your mother had clearance. Only one other ever did."
Lana lifted the key. It smelled like lavender. Violet. Her mother's perfume, faint but unmistakable, clinging to the rusted grooves.
"Why would Lysander give me this?"
Kieran didn't answer right away. He stared at her in the mirror.
"Because some poisons taste sweetest when you choose them."
---
PART TWO: THE BONE CORRIDOR
The elevator dropped far below the known floors. No display. No music. Just silence and pressure.
Seventeen sublevels deep, the doors opened.
And Lana almost screamed.
The hallway was constructed of bone.
Ribcages fused into gothic arches. Skulls mounted between junctions. Yellowing spinal columns twisted into railings.
Instead of filing cabinets, research folders were stuffed into pelvic hollows and eye sockets.
Kieran led her down the corridor slowly, reverently, dragging a hand along one vertebrae-studded wall.
"First generation hybrids," he said. "We didn't know how to bring them back."
Lana's stomach twisted. Her claws itched beneath her skin.
They stopped before a massive oak door, blackened with age. Etched into its surface was a family tree—names trailing into snarling wolf heads, dates ending in red-inked death.
The key screamed as it turned.
---
PART THREE: LAB NINE
The lights flickered on.
Hundreds of photographs lined the walls. Evelyn Carter in a lab coat. Evelyn screaming into a lens. Evelyn holding a scalpel to Kieran's human throat as he sobbed.
"She made me beg," Kieran said, voice low. "And still took the blood."
At the center of the room: a glass case.
Inside:
A vial labeled Eve's Tears
A silver rattle shaped like a DNA helix
A wedding ring, wide enough for Kieran's hand
Lana picked up the ring. Inside the band: To K, my first mistake — E.
A buzz.
Monitors ignited.
Evelyn's face appeared. Hollow-cheeked. Furious.
"Lana. If you're seeing this, it means they've activated you. Noctis isn't preserving a species. They're building a weaponized bloodline. Your blood carries the counter-gene. You are the failsafe. Don't let them crown you."
Static.
Then: Lysander.
In the present. Smiling.
"Hello, little heir. Let's discuss what Mommy really did."
---
PART FOUR: THE GALA
The ballroom sparkled.
Noctis shareholders drank champagne beneath chandeliers shaped like fangs. The walls shimmered with digital projections of the moon.
Lana wore black. Sleeveless. Her arms still bore claw marks where restraints had been. She walked beside Kieran, and for the first time, no one looked away.
Lysander stood at the podium in a snow-white tuxedo, unbuttoned.
His chest was bare.
Across it, in jagged scar tissue:
MONSTER
He raised a glass. "Let the prodigal bloodline rise."
Then chaos.
Board members dropped to all fours. Spines cracked. Suits tore.
A man's torso split into jaws. Another sprouted talons from his back.
Lana didn't hesitate. Her vision tunneled. Her skin rippled.
She shifted.
Her first kill was clean—a throat ripped, blood hot on her tongue.
The taste awakened something.
Kieran leapt through the air, mid-transformation, his human face splitting into something ancient and terrible. His eyes met hers mid-fight.
And he smiled.
---
PART FIVE: THE THRONE
The rooftop wind cut through her blood-drenched dress. Dawn painted the city in blood-red light.
Kieran lay broken on the rooftop. Bones cracked. Breath shallow.
Lana held the syringe of Eve's Tears.
Lysander's voice floated in the wind.
"She didn't give you the real cure. She gave you the choice. He was never immortal. Just afraid."
Kieran looked up at her. Eyes dulling. Voice ragged.
"Don't become what she feared."
She leaned in. Kissed his mouth.
"I won't."
She walked back into the blood-soaked boardroom.
The surviving shareholders rose to greet her.
She sat in Evelyn's chair. Crossed her legs. Smiled.
"Let's discuss quarterly projections."
---
PART SIX: THE WAKING
She gasped.
Back in the dark.
The bed beneath her cold. The air acrid.
No chandeliers. No boardroom.
Just the hum of fluorescent lights, the taste of blood in her mouth, and the weight of a future she hadn't lived.
Yet.
Her claws were still out.
And in the corner of the room—something was watching her.
[End of Vision]