Awareness began to seep into me like leaden threads, heavy and cold.
The first thing to pierce my isolation was that monotonous humming—the ceaseless drone of medical equipment, piercing my head like a thin needle.
I felt a strange coldness inhabiting the place; a coldness unlike the warmth of my room, but a sterile, dry chill that penetrated my pores, accompanied by a throbbing pain gnawing at my body as if I had fought a battle whose details I could not yet remember.
I tried to lift my eyelids, but they weighed tons. When I finally succeeded, I was greeted by an overwhelming whiteness—a brilliant light that blinded my sight for moments and forced me to close my eyes again in pain.
Amidst this white noise, I felt a warm pressure surrounding my hand—a human heat that was the only thread connecting me to reality.
Then came his voice, deep, charged with a tone I was not accustomed to from him, as he uttered my name:
"Aria.."
I hummed faintly, my voice nothing but a dry rattle in my throat. I wondered inwardly, while the fog still enveloped my mind:
"Kaios? What is he doing in my room at this time?"
But, as my senses gradually returned, questions began to collide in my mind.
I tried to inhale the air, but I did not find the scent of incense and flowers that filled my private wing.
Instead, I was attacked by the sharp smell of disinfectants—that scent that reminds one of hospitals and death.
I opened my eyes again, this time with greater focus, to see the face of Kaios sitting beside me.
His features, which had always suggested strength and solidity, now seemed drowned in a mixture of anxiety and anticipation.
My heart rate suddenly accelerated; my memory began to retrieve fragments of images: the transparent liquid, the narrow capsule, and that darkness that almost swallowed my soul.
I looked at him with trembling eyes, trying to ask him what had happened, but his golden gaze was trapping me, as if trying to protect me from the truth or perhaps hide its ugliness from me.
As soon as I inhaled that cursed scent, the dam of memory exploded in my mind.
Images flowed like glass shards tearing through my consciousness: the faces of the men, Andrew's looks, then that terrifying boiling in my veins... the moment I was no longer
"me."
I remembered the explosion—that roar that swallowed everything in its path.
"Damn... I destroyed everything! Did I kill them all?"
The idea spun in my head like a hurricane, and I felt a terror gnawing at my chest—not from what they had done to me, but from what I had done to them.
Driven by pure panic, I tried to straighten up violently; I wanted to escape from this reality, from this body that had betrayed me and turned into a ticking time bomb.
But the pain was faster than me; a searing electric shock shot from my spine to paralyze my limbs, and a muffled, painful groan escaped me that shook my being.
No sooner had my body recoiled than I found Kaios standing like a mountain before my bed.
With a swift movement charged with a force I could not resist, he gripped my shoulders with his broad palms and forced me back down onto the mattress.
His face was so close to mine that I felt the heat of his angry breath, and he shouted in my face with a voice that shook the silence of the room:
"Have you gone mad, Aria?! You have just returned from the clutches of death!"
His eyes were sparking fire—a terrifying mixture of overwhelming anxiety and smoldering rage.
I lay in my place, my chest rising and falling violently as I struggled for air, while curses escaped from between my trembling lips like a shield I used to face my helplessness:
"Damn... damn everything..."
I was cursing fate, cursing that power that dwells within me, and cursing the weakness of my body now.
I looked at Kaios with eyes brimmed with tears of oppression; I was afraid of him, and afraid of the truth that awaited me behind the door of this sterile room.
His anger told me that the disaster was greater than I imagined, and that I was not just a victim, but had become the "danger" that everyone feared.
In that moment, his eyes were not the only ones watching me; rather, I felt something deeper—something gnawing at his soul just as the pain gnawed at my chest.
Suddenly, Kaios jolted as if the lightning bolt that struck my heart had hit his soul as well.
He sensed my pain through the Bond; I saw it in the trembling of his golden pupils, which contracted with a terror I had never witnessed in him before.
His anger was no longer just a loud voice; it turned into a silent ache overflowing through the bond that unites us.
He leaned over me with his massive body, and I felt through our spiritual connection waves of burning anxiety invading my mind, as if my moans were echoing inside his own skull.
"Aria... stop!"
He roared it, but with a sharp tone this time. He placed his broad palm over my hand which was squeezing my heart, and I felt through the touch and the bond his desperate effort to absorb those sharp stings.
He was trying to pull the pain out of me, opening his spiritual paths to take the weight from me, and his own breathing accelerated in sync with my troubled breathing.
He was hurting for my pain—not out of pity, but actual participation. I saw the veins of his neck bulge as he gritted his teeth, as if he was the one being stabbed in the chest.
His sense of terror at losing me reached me—an overwhelming feeling that made me realize that our bodies might be separate, but our hearts were now beating with a single ache.
He whispered, trying to broadcast his forced stillness into my veins:
"Calm down... I am here, feel my pulse... do not let the pain swallow you, you are not the only one who feels it."
His words were piercing the fog of my consciousness, and the bond between us pulsed with a sad and troubled rhythm, telling me that every gasp of pain that escaped me tore a piece of his soul as well.
But the humming of the devices became sharp and screaming, as Vasilios entered the room like a hurricane.
He headed immediately toward the screens, his eyes following the vital signs that were fluctuating wildly. He said in a commanding tone while trying to steady me:
"You must calm down, Aria! Your condition is not yet stable, and this agitation of yours is pushing your body toward collapse!"
I did not hear him, and I did not want to hear him. I screamed at them with all the strength I had left, my voice cracking with tears and anger:
"I will not calm down! I will not calm down until you tell me what happened! Did I kill them? Is it all over?"
With this scream, I felt an internal explosion behind my eyes, and a liquid heat flowing onto my lips.
I felt my nose weakly to find blood staining my hand. At that moment, Kaios lost the last bits of his patience; he roared with a voice that shook the walls of the room—a voice that was a mixture of deadly fear and smoldering rage:
"Damn you, Aria! Calm down! Nothing happened... everyone is fine, I swear to you, just calm down!"
I froze in my place, and my racing breath began to slow due to the shock of his tone.
I stared into his golden eyes, which were gleaming with a suppressed terror, then slowly turned my gaze toward Vasilios, searching his face for the truth.
The latter nodded to me calmly, placing his hand on the device to quiet the buzzing:
"Everything is truly fine... he intervened at the last moment, forming a shield that isolated the bullets before anyone was harmed. There were no fatalities, only some physical damage to the Academy."
His words came down on me like a chill extinguishing the fires that were eating my insides.
My heavy body slumped onto the bed, while Kaios still held my shoulders as if refusing to let me drown again, my eyes still fixed on his face, trying to comprehend that I am not a murderer... at least not today.
I saw a look in Kaios's eyes I had never known before; that cold cruelty he usually threw at me as an adversary vanished, replaced by an instinctive terror tinged with disgust at seeing my weakness.
He froze for a second as he watched the crimson thread of blood making its way over my lips, as if the sight of me collapsing before him provoked his pride as an enemy who does not accept such a humiliating defeat.
With a rough and quick movement, he pulled out a handkerchief and approached me with his awe-inspiring body.
His touch was not gentle; it was firm, strong, as if he was trying to erase the trace of defeat from my face.
He pressed the handkerchief against my nose with a force that made me flinch, his golden eyes piercing mine with a coldness beneath which a volcano of conflicting emotions boiled.
He said in a low voice, sharp as a knife blade, as he wiped the blood sternly:
"Don't you dare die here, Aria... not before you pay the price for every ounce of destruction you caused. Your death now would be a cowardly escape, and I will not allow my enemy to leave this easily."
Despite his hostile tone, the hand that held the handkerchief was trembling slightly—a tremor he could not hide and which reached me; it told me that he was not just angry with me, but was terrified of the idea that our war would end here, on a cold hospital bed.
He was wiping the blood as if wiping the shame of my helplessness, and in his eyes was a strange look of challenge, as if ordering death to retreat because I am his "own" in the arena of enmity, and no one else has the right to end my life.
While I lay there, I felt an overwhelming urge to kick his damn ass; what is truly wrong with him?
One moment he screams at me like a predatory beast, and the next he wipes my blood with terrifying seriousness as if I am private property whose damage he forbids.
This contradiction drives me crazy more than the pain itself.
I raised my heavy arm and placed it over my eyes to block the sight of his provocative face, and whispered through my teeth in a tone dripping with resentment:
"Go to hell... you bastard."
A heavy silence descended upon the room—a silence I felt pressing on my chest.
I wished he would leave, but I felt the sudden stillness of his movement.
He lowered his hand that had been wiping my nose, and I heard a sharp exhale escape his chest—a faint, mocking laugh that did not reach his eyes.
He leaned over me more, until I felt the coldness of the metal of his clothes approaching my ear, and he whispered in a resonant voice overflowing with threat and arrogance:
"Hell? I have just returned from it for your sake, Aria... so get ready, for I shall not go to it again unless you are trailing the tails of disappointment before me."
I felt his fingers press on my shoulder for a single second—a press that was enough to tell me that he would not grant me the luxury of calm.
He did not move away in anger as I expected, but remained crouching like a nightmare beside me, watching my helplessness with a provocative coldness, as if enjoying seeing the fires of my resentment burning without me being able to move.
This man is not satisfied with being an enemy; he wants to be the curse that haunts me even in my dreams.
Amidst the fog of pain hanging in the room, another curtain lifted in my memory.
I saw Andrew's face again, and the other face that was with him... it wasn't the features that froze the blood in my veins, but that cursed tattoo.
A black dragon coiling harshly on their cheeks and extending downward until it disappeared beneath their chests.
It's the same tattoo.
The same lines, the same dark majesty that Kaios carries.
I moved my arm from my eyes slowly, ignoring the sting of pain in my heart to stare into Kaios's face with a seriousness our strained relationship had never known.
My breath was still troubled, but my voice came out sharp as a blade:
"Who are they? And why do they have the same cursed tattoo as you?"
A suffocating silence prevailed. I saw Kaios's features stiffen, and his golden eyes, which had been overflowing with anxiety a moment ago, turned into forests of mystery.
He stared at me for a while, as if his mind was weighing every word before he uttered it, as if the truth was a heavy stone he feared to throw lest it shatter us together.
I did not wait for his delayed answer, but added in a tone full of suspicion, while watching the finest details of his face:
"You are of the same blood, right?! Are they your brothers... or something of the sort?"
In those seconds, I felt through the bond something I had never known in Kaios before: confusion. His massive body shook for a moment, and his jaw muscles stiffened so hard I thought his teeth would shatter.
His confusion flowed to me like cold waves, breaking his usual pride.
He took a deep breath, tinged with the smell of disinfectants and blood, then said in a low voice, heavy with an ancient bitterness:
"They are my brothers... from my father."
He fell silent as if swallowing a lump, before adding, the sparks returning to his eyes—but this time directed toward the unknown:
"It seems that the news of our bond... and your presence by my side, has reached the ears of my cursed family faster than I expected."
His words were like thunder in my ears. His brothers? These monsters who tried to destroy me are of his blood?
I felt the bond between us fluctuate violently; the war I thought was only between me and him turned out to be just a small chapter in a larger family hell, and I have now become the favorite target of his brothers.
My eyes widened in a bewilderment I could not suppress, and the puzzle pieces began to arrange themselves in my mind in a way that caused shivers.
I looked at him intently, as if seeing him for the first time; that latent ferocity in his eyes, that deadly pride... yes, they are similar in essence even if they differ in features.
I said in a low voice, the question escaping from between my lips before I realized its danger:
"Brothers from the father?.. That means each of you is from a different mother, isn't it?"
In that moment, I felt as if the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room.
Kaios's features stiffened terrifyingly, and his golden eyes turned into smoldering fires that almost burned me just by looking at them.
He was no longer that man who wiped my blood with caution; the predator had returned—the one who hates anyone touching his old wounds.
He approached me sharply, and his voice came out like the hiss of a snake, wounding and harsh:
"Do not interfere in matters that do not concern you, Aria. Know your limits!"
That sharp tone did not terrify me as much as it fueled the flame of doubt in my chest.
Through the bond, it wasn't just anger that reached me, but a wave of suppressed pain and violent rejection, as if I had placed my finger on a wound that had not yet healed.
Why did he erupt like this?
Were their mothers merely tools in the power struggle within his cursed family?
Or is there a secret regarding his mother specifically that he refuses to reveal?
I stared into his harsh face, which had become like a marble statue, suspicion gnawing at my mind.
This man hides behind that dragon tattoo a hell of secrets, and his violent reaction was nothing but a desperate defense of a forbidden zone in his soul.
Damn... my curiosity has now become a curse.
The more he tried to push me away, the greater my desire grew to dig behind those frozen features.
I felt that the enemy relationship between us was nothing but an outer shell, and that the truth he was trying to hide was the real monster Kaios feared more than his brothers themselves.
Despite that gaze which almost melted my bones, and despite the aura of death that suddenly emanated from him, my head did not bow.
I felt my rebellion boiling in my veins faster than the blood that had been flowing from my nose moments ago.
Fear? I had exhausted my entire supply of it in that cursed capsule, and what remained for me now was nothing but a defiance that rivaled his tyranny.
I fixed my gaze on his glowing eyes, ignoring Vasilios's silent warning in the corner of the room.
I said in a calm, provocative tone, piercing the wall of his explosive silence:
"Why all this anger, Kaios? Did I strike a sensitive nerve? Or does the fact that you are all mere pawns in your father's game hurt your great pride?"
I saw the veins in his neck bulge like taut ropes, and his body stiffened to such a degree that I thought his golden energy would explode and shatter the room over our heads.
He did not retreat; instead, he lunged toward me until his face was only inches away from mine. I felt the heat of his anger scorching my skin like a burning fire.
A hurricane of dark emotions reached me; it wasn't ordinary anger. It was a terror of exposure, and an overwhelming desire to silence me at any cost.
He pressed his hand onto the iron edge of the bed until I heard the groan of the metal shaping under his grip, and he said in a voice choked with fury:
"I told you... shut up! Do not test my patience, Aria, for I am not in a state that allows me to play the role of the gentle savior right now."
I didn't even blink. I smiled with bitterness and disdain, feeling my heart dance to the beat of his revolution:
"The gentle savior? You? Don't deceive yourself. You are just another version of those monsters who attacked me; the only difference is that you have a more beautiful brand and a sharper tongue. Tell me... was your mother another victim in this family hell?"
At that moment, his fury reached its peak.
I saw the black line in his eyes split violently, and the medical equipment around us shook from the pressure of his energy spiraling out of control.
His pride was being destroyed before me, and as dangerous as the situation was, I relished seeing this "dragon" writhing under the whip of my words.
I saw Vasilios out of the corner of my eye taking a step back, his usually calm features overtaken by a suppressed dread.
He shot me a sharp look of reprimand, as if screaming at me silently:
"Have you gone mad? You are messing with a volcano that will explode in all our faces!"
His looks told me that I had crossed every sacred red line in Kaios's world, and that this curiosity of mine might be the final nail in the coffin of my peace.
I blinked slowly, and my sight did not waver from Kaios's eyes, which had turned into boiling golden embers.
Vasilios's reprimand did not shake me; rather, it increased my persistence. I felt the air around me grow heavy, and that distinctive metallic scent of Kaios's energy began to fill the place, announcing an imminent eruption.
He was breathing with difficulty, his chest rising and falling like the rhythm of war drums.
What reached me was no longer just anger; I felt a hurricane of black memories he had tried to bury, as if my words were the dagger that slit an old wound no one had dared to touch before.
He leaned in further until his shadow completely covered my face, and said in a voice as calm as the silence before a storm—a voice trembling from extreme self-control:
"Vasilios... get out."
He didn't even turn to him; his eyes were fixed on me like a shackle of fire.
Vasilios hesitated for a second, giving me one last look as if saying goodbye, before withdrawing and closing the door behind him with a slight creak that heightened the tension in the room.
Now, the room was empty except for me and my rebellious "dragon."
I did not blink, nor did I retreat; instead, I raised my chin with even greater defiance, feeling my heart rate accelerate—not out of fear, but out of the intoxication of this clash.
I knew I was playing with fire, but seeing Kaios lose his legendary control in the face of my words was worth all the risk.
I said to him in a provocative whisper, while his golden energy stung my skin:
"There, the only witness has gone... so what will you do now, O son of the 'great' family?"
I saw Kaios's features shatter before me—not out of weakness, but as an explosion of everything he had suppressed for years.
The golden aura around me was no longer just light; it became a suffocating hurricane pressing on my chest with every word that came from between his clenched teeth.
"You want the truth, haaa? You want to know about the 'mothers'?"
His voice vibrated with a terrifying metallic ring, and he drew so close that I felt the heat of his breath burning my face.
He continued, pressing on the edge of the mattress:
"They were mere vessels... vessels only to give birth to our curse! And as soon as we come into life, they die; because their bodies are eaten away from the inside by our merciless energy!"
A funereal silence prevailed for a second—a silence heavier than his shouting.
I saw the redness in his eyes increase, as if blood would explode from his pupils.
He finished in a tone dripping with venom and pain:
"The lineage of the Dragon Soul does not bond... Women to us are nothing but vessels to give birth to these cursed heirs only!"
In that moment, I no longer heard his voice with my ears alone; through the bond, I felt waves of brutal pain gnawing at his soul—an old, black ache that made me shiver in my place.
I swallowed hard, and for the first time since I knew him, I felt a searing regret for my damn curiosity.
I had dug into a cemetery that was never meant to be opened. He fixed his bloodshot eyes on mine and added in a tone charged with threat:
"And because of my bond with you and the completion of the spiritual contract, I am the only one of my entire lineage who dared to break this custom... therefore, in their eyes, I am a traitor to their laws and filthy traditions! Are you satisfied now? Has your curiosity been satiated?"
He was panting heavily, his massive body trembling before my eyes like a volcano that had exhausted its lava.
I looked at him in shock; I realized now that I was not just an enemy or a partner, but the crime Kaios committed against his own blood, and the reason his brothers were hunting him and hunting me.
I had destroyed his pride with my question, but he had destroyed my world with his truth.
In a way I hadn't planned, and driven by a strange instinctive impulse that broke all barriers of enmity between us, I found my hands rising to rest on the sides of his head.
I pulled him toward me with force.
I did not care for the "dragon" power he possessed, nor for the solidity of his body which surpassed my strength; I only wanted to extinguish that fire raging in his soul.
I rested his head on my chest and held him to me in a warm embrace that did not carry a shred of malice.
Meanwhile, my other hand began to pat his back with regular, calm movements, trying to absorb that heavy burden and the black ache that overflowed from the bond to drown my being.
I whispered in his ear in a tone I never imagined would come from me to him:
"It's okay, Kaios... don't worry, everything will be fine. I will tear their heads off if they dare to come near us... I promise."
For a second, I felt his body stiffen in my arms like a statue of stone. His hot, scorching breath stopped completely, as if the shock of tenderness was stronger than the shock of our enmity.
I felt his heart beating violently beneath my chest—a troubled rhythm telling the story of a man no one had touched with such kindness since time immemorial.
Then, very slowly, that stiffness began to fade. I felt his long exhale against my shoulder—an exhale that carried years of secrecy and loneliness.
He did not push me away, nor did he mock me; instead, he leaned his head further onto my chest, as if he had finally surrendered to the anchor of safety I offered him.
Through the bond, a feeling of overwhelming confusion mixed with sudden relief reached me.
Kaios, the monster everyone fears, seemed in my hands now like a child who had found his refuge after a devastating storm.
His hands gripped the bedsheet beside me with force, but he did not pull away.
He remained silent, but his silence this time was not a threat; it was a terrifying gratitude.
I had broken his pride with my embrace more than I had with my words, making him realize that the "curse" of our bond might be the only healing for his deep scars.
As my fingers wove through his thick black hair, I felt a strange calm settle over his body, which moments ago had been a mass of fire.
I wanted to tear down the walls between us, to make him see that I was not just an enemy, but a partner in an orphanage of another kind.
I said in a faint voice, the words coming from my depths as if they were a long-awaited confession:
"You know, Kaios... I have no family, and I don't know if they are alive or not. No mother, no father, no siblings..."
His body movements stopped completely under my hand, and I felt his hearing sharpen for every letter.
I continued bitterly:
"Mother Joanna found me as an infant on the steps of her church. I was in my first week, without a name or lineage connecting me to this damned world... She found me on the coldest of nights and named me Aria. But the question that always gnaws at my mind is: Why? Why did they throw me away like that? Did they not want me to that extent?"
At that moment, I felt his arms wrap around me suddenly—not with a harmful force, but with an embrace full of the desire for possession and protection.
He raised his head from my chest slightly, so that his golden eyes met mine, but the look in them had changed completely; the ferocity had vanished, replaced by a terrifying depth of understanding.
An overwhelming feeling of shock reached me, followed by a sharp wave of "belonging." Kaios realized that we were not just two victims of two different families, but two exiled souls who had found each other in the crowd of fate.
He placed his broad palm on my cheek, his thumb wiping a tear I hadn't realized had fallen, and said in a resonant voice full of certainty:
"Perhaps they threw you away because they didn't realize they were getting rid of a sun that would one day burn their worlds, Aria..."
Then he tightened his embrace and whispered near my ear in a tone full of authority and a sincere promise:
"Your family rejected you, and my family wants to kill me... that makes 'us' the only world we need. From now on, anyone who approaches you, I will make them wish they had never been created—not just because you are my partner in the contract, but because you are the only one who dared to touch the 'monster' without fear."
I felt his body relax completely for the first time, as if my confession was the key that released him from the prison of his pride.
The boundaries of enmity faded, and nothing remained in the room but two pulses trying to repair each other.
I chuckled faintly, and despite the pain that was still gnawing at my chest, I felt a kind of strange freedom.
My laugh carried the bitterness of the past and the irony of the present, while my hand was still caught in his black hair.
I said to him with a tone accompanied by a pale smile:
"Damn, Kaios... I didn't expect even for one percent that we would agree on something one day, let alone that this thing would be the fact that we are outcasts from the world!"
He did not move away; instead, I felt his chest shake with a short, stifled laugh—a laugh that didn't reach his eyes but broke the ice that was enveloping him.
His golden gaze in that moment was completely devoid of enmity, carrying instead a mysterious appreciation for this madness that unites us.
He fixed his gaze on my face and said in a resonant voice carrying a tone of mockery mixed with respect:
"Fate has very poor taste in choosing allies, Aria... but it seems that the 'outcasts' are the only ones who have the courage to burn the laws that shackled them."
I sensed a feeling of calm I had never known from him, as if our mutual confession of orphanage and exile had created a solid ground we never imagined existed.
We were no longer just "enemies" exchanging stabs, but two distorted souls realizing that their wounds matched in a terrifying way.
He tilted his head slightly and added as he slowly moved back to give me back my own space, but his hand remained holding the edge of my hand for an extra second:
"Don't get used to this calm... for the world will not leave two 'traitors' like me and you laughing for long without trying to tear them apart."
I realized that this agreement of ours was the beginning of a larger storm, but for once, I did not feel resentment; because I knew that the dragon that had been hunting me had now taken my side against the coming hell.
I raised my hand before his face, clenching my fingers so hard my knuckles turned white, as if I were tightening my grip on the necks of all who had failed us.
A wicked smile formed on my lips—a smile born from the womb of pain and rebellion—and I looked into his golden eyes, which shone with a similar demonic glint.
"So... let's make them regret it, my ally."
The word came from my throat in a tone that had enough threat to shake the throne of his father.
I was no longer that delicate girl searching for her identity; I had become a flame ready to burn the forest that had spat her out.
When my tongue uttered the word "my ally," I saw a transformation—terrifying and exciting at the same time—in his features.
The same smile extended to his lips, but it was the smile of a dragon that had finally found a justification to unleash its fires.
He raised his massive hand and wrapped his fist around my small fist, squeezing it with a force that wasn't painful so much as it was a bloody covenant.
He said in a calm voice full of hissing, his eyes never wavering from mine:
"We will make them beg for death and not find it, Aria. I will burn the world beneath your feet, and I shall be the hell that swallows anyone who dares to look at us as prey."
There was no longer any pain; instead, a torrent of dark, wild power flowed.
I felt my energy and his energy blending in that fist, as if our fate had been sealed with the blood of the betrayal we had suffered.
In that moment, we were neither enemies nor lovers; we were a disaster walking on two legs, and our decision to seek revenge was the official announcement of the end of the system that tried to crush us.
He released my hand slowly, but his gaze remained shackling me, and he added in a tone of sovereignty:
"Get ready... for the Academy and the entire universe will soon know the meaning of the 'outcasts' rage'."