ISLA POV
The alarm started screaming three seconds before my life ended.
I looked up from my microscope just as Marcus slammed the emergency door shut—from the outside. Our eyes met through the reinforced glass window. He didn't look sorry. He looked relieved.
"Marcus?" My voice came out confused, not scared. Not yet. "What are you—"
The incubator behind me exploded.
Heat slammed into my back like a giant fist. I crashed into the lab table, and glass beakers shattered around me. The fire alarm joined the contamination siren, creating a horrible screaming sound that made my ears ring.
I scrambled toward the door, my hands slipping on spilled chemicals. "MARCUS! OPEN THE DOOR!"
He stepped back, his mouth moving. I couldn't hear him through the thick glass, but I could read his lips: I'm sorry, Isla. It had to be you or me.
"You did this?" The words tasted like ash. "You sabotaged my research?"
Another explosion rocked the lab. Orange flames crawled up the walls, eating through five years of my work. Papers burned. Computers melted. The cell samples I'd spent three years perfecting turned black in their containers.
Marcus pulled out his phone and started recording. Recording ME. Dying.
My brilliant research partner. The man I'd trusted with everything. The man I'd defended when the board questioned his credentials. He was filming his murder like it was a science experiment.
Rage burned hotter than the fire.
I grabbed a chair and swung it at the door window. The chair broke. The window didn't even crack. Of course not—we'd designed this lab to contain biological hazards. To keep dangerous things from getting OUT.
I'd locked myself in my own coffin.
"The board loved your cellular regeneration formula," Marcus shouted through the door. His voice sounded tinny through the intercom speaker. "They were going to give YOU the promotion. The funding. Everything. Do you know how long I've worked here? TWELVE YEARS! And you show up with your fancy degrees and steal MY future!"
"So you're killing me?" Smoke filled my lungs. I coughed, tasting blood. "For a JOB?"
"For recognition!" His face twisted with anger. "Nobody will ever know you created the formula. The explosion will destroy all the evidence. I'll be the only one who remembers the research. I'll recreate it, publish it, and finally get the respect I deserve!"
The ceiling started collapsing. Burning tiles crashed down around me.
I should have been panicking. Screaming. Begging. Instead, my scientist brain kicked in with cold, clear observations: Fire spreading at forty-two degrees per second. Oxygen depleting rapidly. Smoke inhalation will kill me before the burns do. Estimated time until death: ninety seconds.
Ninety seconds to think about all my mistakes.
I'd trusted Marcus completely. I'd shown him every step of my research. Every breakthrough. Every formula. I'd stayed late helping him with HIS projects when mine were more important. I'd believed we were partners.
My ex-boyfriend had cheated on me, and I'd thought, "At least I have my work. At least I have Marcus as a friend."
What an idiot.
The fire reached my research station—the one with five years of handwritten notes. My backup drives. My only copies of the regeneration formula that could have saved millions of lives.
All of it burning.
"You want to know the saddest part?" I screamed at Marcus, even though I could barely breathe. "I was going to share credit with you! I was going to put your name on the paper because I thought we were FRIENDS!"
For just a second, Marcus looked uncertain. Guilty.
Then another explosion threw me across the room.
I hit the floor hard. Pain shot through my ribs. Something felt broken inside. The world tilted sideways, and I couldn't tell if the room was spinning or if I was dying.
Probably dying.
The smoke was so thick I couldn't see Marcus anymore. Couldn't see anything except orange flames and black clouds. The heat was unbearable. My skin felt like it was melting.
This is it, I thought. This is how Isla Chen dies. Betrayed and burning.
I'd spent twenty-eight years being careful. Being smart. Working hard. Trusting the right people—or so I'd thought. And it all ended here, in a lab explosion, because I'd been too naive to see betrayal coming.
My eyes burned from smoke and tears. "I wasted... everything..."
The last thing I saw was the ceiling caving in.
The last thing I felt was crushing weight and impossible heat.
The last thing I thought was: I wish I'd lived differently. Trusted differently. Loved differently.
Then—nothing.
Except... not nothing.
Pain disappeared. Heat vanished. The crushing weight lifted.
Am I dead?
I should be dead.
But I could still THINK. Still feel... something. A strange pulling sensation, like being yanked backward through thick water.
Colors exploded behind my closed eyelids—colors that didn't have names. Blue-that-tasted-like-lightning. Gold-that-hummed-like-music. Green-that-felt-like-flying.
What's happening?
The pulling got stronger. Faster. I was falling UP somehow, through darkness and light and something in between. Wind that wasn't wind screamed past me. My body felt wrong—too light, too heavy, too EVERYTHING.
Voices whispered in languages I didn't know: "...the alignment opens...""...she comes...""...the Heartweaver returns..."
Heartweaver? What did that mean?
The falling-flying-pulling suddenly STOPPED.
Silence.
Then... grass? I felt grass under my hands. Soft. Real. Cool.
How could I feel grass when I was supposed to be dead?
I forced my eyes open and immediately regretted it.
I was lying naked in a glowing meadow under a sky with THREE MOONS.
And an absolutely MASSIVE black panther was staring at me with glowing amber eyes—eyes that looked way too intelligent for any normal animal.
The panther's lips pulled back, showing teeth as long as my fingers.
Then it SMILED.
And spoke.
"Finally," the giant cat said in a deep, male voice that vibrated through my chest. "The sacred female has arrived."