Chapter 140

Amelia

We followed Darius underground.

The stairwell behind the cathedral organ was older than anything else in the building. It reeked of dust, metal, and long-dried blood. The panel hiding the stairs had been smashed in. Not forced with brute strength, cut with precision. Someone had wanted him to find it.

I stayed close to Richard, the torchlight glinting off the blade strapped to his hip. My skin prickled with something that wasn’t fear. Just tension. The scent of wolfsbane was faint but unmistakable, clinging to the old stone like smoke.

The steps spiraled down farther than I expected, passing abandoned storage cells and an old iron bell chained into the wall, half-crumbled with age. When we reached the bottom, the tunnel split in three. All of it was old Cathedral construction, arched stone, cramped and low-ceilinged, but someone had made updates. Modern sensors wired into the corners. A trail of boot scuffs still fresh in the dust.

Darius had been here.

We found the chamber tucked behind a slab of wall that hissed open when Richard tapped a command into his phone. Whatever security system had been here before had already been bypassed.

Inside, it looked like a lab. Not the sterile kind with steel and white light, but an archive twisted into a testing site. Files were stacked on wide stone tables. Shelves lined the walls, full of re-bound ledgers and vials filled with preserved samples in cloudy fluid.

The papers weren’t just reports. They were obsessive. Notes scribbled in the margins. Diagrams of the nervous system overlaid with hormonal cycles. Tables tracking gene markers and bond compatibility. Handwritten phrases repeated across multiple pages:

Reactivity to heat triggers remains unstable.

Subject tolerance exceeded prediction. Retest with direct exposure.

Secondary cravings progressing. Requires containment.

One thick file was labeled “CONCORD.” Another, “SANGUINE STRAIN.”

I flipped through it and felt my mouth go dry. These weren’t theoreticals. These were experiments. Trials involving hybrids. The kind of work people got executed for.

Buried near the back of one ledger was a sealed envelope. Handwritten. Not labeled. Tucked carefully into the spine of a gutted book.

I pulled it free.

My heart stuttered. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, but something about it made my pulse pound. The seal was cracked. I slipped it into my coat before Richard turned around.

Then we heard it. Footsteps above. Moving fast.

Richard didn’t hesitate. “Split and flush. West ramp. I’ll circle north.”

I took off without answering.

We nearly caught him. I smelled his sweat. Heard the echo of his boots scraping stone as he bolted through the corridor that led back to the side chapel stairs. But by the time I rounded the corner, all that remained was dust in the air and a faint trail of bitterness I couldn’t place.

I stayed still for a long moment. The blood in my ears was louder than my breathing.

He’d known we were coming.

Back aboveground, I didn’t speak. Neither did Richard. We filed everything. Photographed what we could. Tagged the ledgers for further analysis.

But my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

I couldn’t focus that night. Couldn’t calm down. I reread the letter twice in my office. The writing was dense, full of half-erased names and clipped phrases. It wasn’t addressed to anyone. But one line stuck:

She is a threshold. Not a subject. Not a tool. If the shift completes without guidance, she will collapse.

I folded the page again. Slid it into my drawer. Then I went to him.

Richard didn’t ask questions when I knocked.

“Still burning?” he asked quietly, eyes flicking over my face.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

He let me in, closing the door behind me without another word.

We kissed like we were starving.

His hands were rough with tension. Mine were shaking. I stripped him down in silence, until I was on my knees between his legs, mouth on his skin, his head falling back with a curse. I wanted to consume him. Wanted to be filled so full there was no room left for the buzzing in my veins.

He pulled me up and into his lap, kissed my shoulder as I climbed onto him, panting against my skin like he was holding back a dam.

“This isn’t normal,” he said, voice low. “You shouldn’t still be this... activated.”

“Don’t say that,” I whispered. “Don’t make it worse.”

“You’re not in heat anymore, Amelia.”

“Then why does it feel like I’ll die if you stop touching me?”

I moved against him, desperate, dragging my hips down until I gasped. His hands clenched on my waist.

“You need to talk to a healer.”

“Not yet.”

“Amelia.”

“I need this more than I need answers.”

He gave in.

I rode him hard, chasing something just out of reach. He let me. Watched me with wide, reverent eyes like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. I pressed my forehead to his, breath coming fast. The pressure built fast and sharp. It wasn’t just pleasure. It was relief. Like I was wringing something out of myself.

I cried out and came so hard I nearly blacked out, and still I didn’t stop. Still I needed more. I kissed him too hard. Bit his shoulder. Rocked my hips until I was begging again, not even sure what for.

He flipped us, pushing me down onto the mattress and pinning my wrists above my head.

“I’ve got you,” he said, voice wrecked. “You’re alright.”

His thrusts turned deep, steady, like he was anchoring me with every movement. I wrapped my legs around his waist, whimpering as another orgasm built behind the first. He kissed me through it, soft and grounding, even when my body shook beneath him.

When I came again, it was with a broken sound. And when he followed, it felt like something cracked open inside me.

We collapsed together, bodies damp and trembling.

I didn’t sleep much. Neither did he.

By morning, he was in his study. Screens open. I caught glimpses as I passed:

aberrant post-rut patterns. heat triggers via blood bonding. hormonal distortion in hybrids.

He didn’t hide it from me. But he didn’t say anything either.

We reviewed the architectural pages together. One drawing showed an unfamiliar floor plan beneath the cathedral’s north wing. Labeled symbols suggested there were chambers beneath the chambers. Underground hollows laced with runes and energy veins.

One word was circled in thick red ink: glyph.

“Think it’s a ritual site?” I asked.

Richard frowned. “Or a weapon.”

The paper vibrated faintly in my hand. I wasn’t sure it was from the page or from me.

The next morning, I was still buzzing. Still hot in my skin. Richard tried not to notice, but I saw the way he stared at my mouth when I bit into a slice of fruit.

I slipped my hand under the table and brushed his thigh.

His eyes snapped to mine.

“I thought this was under control,” he muttered.

I dragged my fingers higher. “It was. Then you started reading about blood magic.”

Before I could touch him again, Nathan opened the side door.

He didn’t blink. “You’re going to want to see this.”

I pulled my hand back. Richard coughed into his coffee.

We joined Nathan like nothing had happened.