The amber liquid in my glass caught the low light, swirling with the ghosts of my family's legacy. My father's voice, cold and precise, still echoed in the study's paneled walls.
*"The pills were a work of diabolical genius, Knox. A slow, elegant poison. They don't just kill. They unveil. They force the beast within to the surface—sweet or savage, it doesn't matter. It reveals the true form, the core nature, without the nuisance of restraint."*
He'd sip his whiskey then, a man admiring a flawless weapon. They were the brainchild of a remorseful scientist my grandfather had patronized. A man who'd dreamed of understanding the primal self and had instead forged a key to its cage. He'd realized his folly too late, tried to burn his notes. My grandfather had him strangled with the velvet cord from his own study curtains. A fitting end. Wrath, folded into velvet.
We buried the man and his guilt. But the production? That thrived. It became our cornerstone. The prices soared into the stratosphere, making it a luxury, a forbidden sacrament for the powerful. Alphas and Enigmas flocked to it, paying fortunes for the promise of a rush that whispered directly to their inner beast. It offered a power so raw, a release so complete, it became an addiction that rotted the soul from the inside out. Gentle souls turned feral overnight. The mighty became unstoppable monsters. And still, they craved more.
Our creation became their ultimate fantasy, and their eternal damnation. With every vial sold, our empire grew taller, its foundations sunk deep into their desperate need.
The omegas… they were the collateral. The inevitable prey. When the pill's madness seized a beast, reason evaporated. Markings were claimed in frenzied, accidental bonds. Lives were torn apart by unwanted, irreversible connections. A low, humming terror settled over the vulnerable. To be an omega was to walk in a world where any shadow might hold a mindless, claiming fate.
And now, this insult. Not a week ago, a snake in my own ranks was thought to be clever. He smuggled a shipment, trying to sell our legacy to the curs of the Ironclaw gang. Amateurs. They handed them out like cheap candy, sparking chaos in the streets. It made us look weak. It disrupted the delicate ecosystem of fear and demand we'd cultivated.
I set the glass down, the crystal clicking softly against the polished wood. The hunt was already underway. The betrayer would be found. The Ironclaw would be reminded why some games are played only by kings.
The velvet wrath of my family would fall upon them all. It was, after all, our oldest tradition.