’Helena’ let out a low whistle. "How did you know it was there?"
"Master has the sense not to put us in these easily detectable places."
’Lilianna’ said, wiping the residual blood from her shoulder. The wound was already closing, the flesh knitting itself shut with unnatural speed.
"I almost got forced to be flushed out into existence prematurely. If I hadn’t been placed inside the secondary gland instead of sowhere obvious, they would have found and purged before I ever woke up."
’Helena’ made a popping sound, smacking her lips together with theatrical appreciation. "Master really is the best."
’Lilianna’ saw that the blood had stopped dripping and the body was already okay to move.
She said, "Let’s go."
What happened next defied every known human anatomy that Neville knew.
From the flesh of the upper backs of both ’Helena’ and ’Lilianna’. Sothing simultaneously stabbed outward.
It was a skeletal structure, thin and segnted and chitinous. It punched through skin and fabric alike.
The exoskeletal fras extended from the shoulder blades in paired sets, stretching outward and upward like the armature of wings stripped of everything but bone.
Their clothes split along the back. Flesh parted around the protrusions with wet, organic sounds.
Blood welled briefly around each ergence point before coagulating almost instantly; the wounds were self-sealing as if the bodies had anticipated this and prepared accordingly.
The skeletal fraworks extended to their full span, perhaps a ter and a half from tip to tip, and then paused, quivering.
Thin as wire, as complex as circuitry. The structure of each wing-fra was segnted, jointed, and covered in a lattice of veins that pulsed with visible movent.
Then the fluid ca.
From within the bone structures themselves, a luminescent green substance began to seep outward, following the vein-patterns like water filling irrigation channels.
It spread with purpose, coating every strut and crossbar, filling the spaces between them. It expanded into mbranes that caught the red ergency light and turned it into sothing that glowed faintly green.
In less than ten seconds, the fraworks were no longer fraworks.
They beca wings.
Full, functional, translucent forewings that humd with a frequency just below the threshold of human hearing.
The green mbranes shimred, and beneath them, the vein-patterns pulsed in rhythmic waves, as if the wings had their own heartbeat.
’Helena’ flexed hers once, testing.
A gust of displaced air scattered dust and debris across the basent floor, ruffling the hair of the dead.
’Lilianna’ didn’t bother with a test flight. She already moved toward the blast doors at the far end of the corridor.
They left and flew upward and fast, through maintenance shafts and ventilation systems designed for equipnt.
Behind them, the basent was already beginning to burn with an accelerant that ’Helena’ had placed earlier. It was tid to the minute, consuming every single piece of evidence that they might’ve left accidentally.
By the ti they breached the surface and hit open air, the fire had already reached the ground floor.
By the ti they left the institute’s airspace, the explosions had already started to explode one by one.
By the ti the first Imperial Military alert pinged across every light brain within a hundred-kiloter radius, they were already gone.
Two dark shapes against the sky, wings catching the sunlight, leaving nothing but things that would keep the military busy for weeks.
○●○●
Night settled over Grayson’s penthouse.
Grayson sat on the edge of his bed, still in the dark gray dress shirt he had worn in the office today.
The top two buttons were undone. His jacket hung over the bed next to him. His shoes were already off, cluttered on the ground in front of him.
He lay his back on the bed and looked at his wrist.
The pearl bracelet caught the ambient light from the outside. He held it up, and each small pearl glead with a soft, iridescent warmth that seed to co from sowhere inside the gem itself rather than from any external source.
It was really beautiful, delicate, and elegant.
Neville had given it to him.
Just the thought of it made him smile.
Grayson unconsciously traced his thumb over the largest pearl and felt his heart uncontrollably beat.
He caught himself doing it, but he didn’t stop.
Grayson was aware that this was probably what people ant by the word "love". Although he was already aware of his feelings and he already gotten Neville on the premise of ’fake’ dating.
But he had no idea how to take it to another level.
In the anti, he had planned to cherish their feeling with each other and take it slow from there.
But now, Neville handed him a gift ant as a couple’s item. It made him helpless at how Neville managed to think about these little things faster than he could.
Should he really just do what those rich alphas in Crysis do? Handing over a gift and dating? Was it really that simple?
But he would never know if he would try.
But it was worth a try since he wasn’t about to sail on two boats at the sa ti like those people.
With this resolve, Grayson began to think.
What could he give him in return?
Grayson stared blankly at the pearl bracelet that glowed softly against his skin and saw the ti.
It was already this late
Just as he was about to stand up and take a bath, he rembered the pearl bracelet on his wrist.
Neville had said that it was waterproof, so he didn’t need to take it off.
But Grayson still wanted to. Not because he doubted the quality, but because the bracelet was precious, and precious things deserved to be protected from unnecessary wear and tear.
Just as he was about to reach for the clasp—
His light brain buzzed.
The caller ID read: PETE ROWAN.
Grayson’s hand stopped halfway to the clasp.
Pete Rowan calling at this hour ant one of two things: either the man had finally discovered a plant species that genuinely excited him enough to share at an unreasonable ti, or sothing had gone very wrong.
Pete’s voice, when Grayson answered, eliminated the first possibility imdiately.
[Have you heard from the military?]
No greeting. No preamble.
Pete’s tone was filled with urgency, which was rare for his usual calm temperant.
Grayson’s posture changed, subtly straightening his spine, a slight squaring of the shoulders like he was back in the military.
"What’s going on?"
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