The fragile peace of the previous night shattered with the dawn. Kaelen awoke not to the gentle light of morning, but to a firestorm raging within her own veins. It felt as if her blood had been replaced with molten lead, burning her from the inside out. Her skin was slick with a cold, clammy sweat that did nothing to quell the inferno. Every nerve ending screamed, raw and exposed, as if the top layer of her being had been flayed away. A dull, throbbing ache had taken root deep in her core, a sinister pulse that was both agony and a horrifying, shameful echo of pleasure.
She dragged her leaden body from the bed, the world tilting on its axis. The simple act of standing sent a wave of nausea crashing over her. A fever, her mind supplied, a desperate, rational lie. Just a fever from the stress. hopefully.
On autopilot, a marionette with cut strings, she moved to the kitchen. The domestic ritual of breakfast felt like a cruel parody. Her hands, usually so steady, trembled violently as she tried to slice a strawberry for Iris's lunchbox. The knife slipped, nicking her finger. She stared, mesmerized, as a single, perfect bead of blood welled up, the sight somehow both grotesque and fascinating.
Sera emerged from her room, looking surprisingly restored, a soft blush of health on her cheeks. A flicker of unguarded warmth passed between them before Sera's gaze dropped, a faint, self-conscious smile touching her lips. "I can take Iris today," she offered, her voice a gentle murmur that grated against Kaelen's hypersensitive hearing. "I've got a magazine shoot across town. We'll go together."
Kaelen could only manage a stiff nod, her jaw clenched so tight her teeth ached. She handed the lunchbox to Iris, her smile a rictus of pain.
"Bye, Auntie Kae! Feel better!" Iris chirped, her small arms wrapping around Kaelen's waist in a brief, searingly hot hug before she skipped out the door with Sera.
The moment the pneumatic door hissed shut, the last vestige of Kaelen's control evaporated. Her knees buckled, and she crashed against the cold steel of the refrigerator, gasping for air that wouldn't come. She stumbled to the sink, splashing water that felt like ice against her skin, but it was a futile gesture against the internal conflagration. This was no fever.
She staggered to the bathroom, her vision swimming, and fumbled through the cabinet. Her fingers closed around a familiar vial of silvery gel. The Dominion. It would help. It would douse this fire, reassert the cold, controlled dominance that was her shield. She squeezed a generous amount onto her wrist, the cool substance a fleeting balm as she rubbed it into the gland.
For one blessed, deceptive second, the artificial chill surged through her, a wave of manufactured control. Then the System returned.
It didn't just speak; it screamed into her consciousness.
WARNING: ALPHA RUT INITIATED.
ANALYSIS: Last few months activities (School Park, Gala defense, theme park outing, mathematical assistance, Omega retrieval) deemed significantly deviant. Hostility levels critically low. Bonding protocols ignored. Cumulative penalties for sustained character inconsistency will now be administered.
The first true wave of the penalty hit. It wasn't pain. It was an unmaking. A deep, visceral tearing sensation in the very fiber of her muscles, as if her skeleton were trying to tear its way out. And intertwined with the agony was its vile counterpart a surge of that awful, slick heat, a throbbing, wanting pulse that coiled low in her gut, so intense it stole her breath. A sound ripped from her throat, a raw, animalistic cry that was equal parts pain and a shameful, choked-off moan. She was thrown from the bed, landing hard on the cold floor.
No. No, no, no.
This was a violation beyond anything she could have imagined. The System wasn't just punishing her; it was perverting her own biology, turning her body into a prison of exquisite torture. It was making her want the pain.
She crawled. The world dissolved into a smear of polished concrete and blinding, white-hot need. The suppressant. She needed more. It had to work. She had to stop the feeling.
Every inch of movement was a fresh hell. The pleasurable pulses were a violation that made her want to claw her own skin off. She reached the drawer, yanking it open with a force that sent vials of gel scattering across the floor like fallen stars. Her hands shook so violently she could barely grasp one. She squeezed another dose, then another, smearing it onto her wrist, her neck, anywhere she could reach, her movements frantic, desperate.
The artificial dominance surged again, a colder, sharper wave this time. For a heartbeat, she thought it would work. Then the System retaliated.
A brutal, electric cramp locked every muscle in her body, arching her spine in a painful bow. The pleasure-pain spiked again, stronger, hungrier, fed by the suppressants she'd poured into her system. They weren't calming the Rut; they were enraging it, twisting the chemical simulation of dominance into a catalyst for pure, undiluted torment.
A broken sob tore from her lips. She was making it worse. Her only tool was being used against her.
Blindly, she fumbled for her comms device. Her slick fingers slipped on the screen. A doctor. Mara. Anyone.
SYSTEM DENIAL: Connection blocked. Transmigrator must receive penalty.
"Please…" the word was a wet, ragged whisper, torn from a place of utter desolation. Tears of pain, humiliation, and sheer terror streamed down her face, mingling with the sweat on the floor. "Someone… help me…"
But the silence of the penthouse was her only answer. She was utterly alone. Trapped in a beautiful, powerful body that had become her personal hell.
The heat built to an unbearable crescendo, a symphony of agony and degrading sensation. The pain was a grinding, constant presence, but the pleasure was its monstrous twin, a throbbing, demanding pulse between her legs that filled her with a self-loathing so profound it was a physical weight on her chest.
Does this body have a masochistic side? The thought was a spike of pure horror. No. NO. That's too vile. I don't want this! I don't want any of this!
She was having a full-blown existential crisis on the floor, writhing in a pool of her own sweat, her mind and body at war. She wasn't just in pain; she was being systematically dismantled. Her identity, her sense of self, was being violently stripped away by the very vessel that contained it.
MISSION: User must achieve relief. Failure will escalate penalties.
The new message broke what was left of her.
"WHAT KIND OF SYSTEM IS THIS?!" she screamed, her voice cracking with hysteria, the sound raw and ugly in the sterile silence. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! A SADIST?! WHAT KIND OF SHIT IS THIS?! I DON'T DESERVE THIS! GET ME OUT OF THIS! I'D RATHER DIE! JUST LET ME DIE!"
Another surge, more intense than the last, ripped through her, a tidal wave of conflicting sensation that wiped all thought away. She curled into the tightest fetal position she could manage, her body convulsing, great, heaving sobs wracking her frame. She was disgusted. She was terrified. She was shattered.
The penthouse door hissed open.
Sera stood frozen in the doorway, silhouetted by the hallway light. She just arrived. Her relaxed, post-truce expression dissolved into sheer, unadulterated horror.
The scene before her was one of utter devastation. Kaelen was on the floor, a broken, weeping thing, her body contorted in obvious agony. The air was thick, cloying a suffocating mix of distress, pheromones gone haywire, and the metallic tang of sweat. It was the scent of pure, unmitigated suffering.
"Kaelen?!" Sera's voice was a strangled cry as she rushed forward, dropping to her knees.
"DON'T LOOK AT ME!" Kaelen shrieked, scrambling backward like a cornered animal, trying to make herself small, to hide the disgusting reality of her body. Her eyes were wild, unseeing, glazed with pain and shame. "IT'S DISGUSTING! PLEASE! I DON'T WANT THIS! I DON'T WANT THIS BODY! PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE! I'M SO DISGUSTING! I'M SO DISGUSTING! I'M SO DISGUSTING!"
Her voice broke into incoherent, gut-wrenching sobs, each one a testament to her complete and total ruin.
Sera froze, her hand outstretched, her face a canvas of stunned confusion that rapidly cycled through dawning horror and a final, staggering, earth-shattering understanding. This wasn't a fever. This was a Rut. A severe, violently triggered Rut that spoke of punishment, not passion. And the words… the raw, desperate pleas…
I don't want this body.
The 0% approval in her mind didn't just change. It exploded. It vanished, replaced by a void of pure, terrifying revelation. The math wizard. The muttered past lives. The sudden, inexplicable kindness. The theme park. The vomit. The profound, gut-deep self-loathing on the floor before her.
It wasn't a change of heart.
It wasn't a strategy.
It was a different heart entirely.
The pieces of the impossible puzzle slammed together with the devastating force of a supernova.
The woman weeping on the floor in front of her was not Kaelen Blackwood.