Ina stepped into the living room. The sunlight streaming through the dirty windows was blinding after the darkness of the basement. Dust motes danced in the air.

She scanned the room. Behind the sofa, in the shadow of the overturned furniture, she saw a flash of gold.

Angel. He was sitting on the floor, his knees pulled to his chest. He was still shivering. The bandages she had left him were wrapped around his torso in a messy, haphazard way. Some of the cuts were still bleeding through the gauze.

Ina sighed. She walked to the coffee table and picked up the bottle of disinfectant. She moved slowly, making sure her footsteps were audible, toward the back of the sofa.

Angel heard her. His golden ears flattened against his head. He pressed himself harder into the wall, a low whine escaping his throat.

Ina stopped a few feet away. She crouched down, bringing herself to his level. She held up her hands, showing him the bottle and the clean cotton pads she had grabbed.

"Let me redo this," she said, her voice soft. "If you don't clean it properly, it will get infected."

Angel shook his head frantically. Tears welled in his eyes. The original owner's memories were too strong. Every touch meant pain.

Ina didn't push. She sat down on the floor, a half-meter away. She placed the bottle between them. "I won't hurt you," she said. "I didn't hurt you earlier, did I?"

Angel hesitated. He looked at her, his blue eyes filled with confusion. She was right. She had given him water. She had backed away. It didn't make sense.

"Target loyalty fluctuating. Current status: Extreme fear mixed with confusion."

Ina saw the crack in his armor. She inched forward, moving slowly. She reached out and gently touched the edge of the sloppy bandage on his arm.

Angel went rigid. He squeezed his eyes shut, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. He waited for the pain.

But it didn't come. Ina's fingers were careful. She untied the knot, her touch light. She avoided the raw skin. Her hands were large and calloused, but her movements were surprisingly gentle.

Angel opened his eyes. He stared at her hands, confused by the lack of cruelty.

Suddenly, the front door exploded inward.

The sound of splintering wood was deafening. Ina and Angel both jumped.

A man stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the bright sunlight. He was tall, his shoulders broad. His silver hair was disheveled, and his clothes were dirty and torn. In his hand, he carried a bag of cheap nutrient fluid.

Denton Carr. The white tiger.

He had just come back from a day of hard labor in the city. He had been working to pay off the original owner's debts.

His eyes swept the room. He saw Ina crouching over Angel. He saw the bottle of disinfectant in her hand. He saw Angel cowering against the wall.

The angle was bad. From where he stood, it looked like she was forcing something on the boy. The memories of the original owner's "medicine"-the acid, the poison-flashed through his mind.

His amber pupils contracted into thin slits. A deep, terrifying roar ripped from his chest. He dropped the bag and lunged.

He was fast. Faster than Harlan. He crossed the room in two strides.

His hand closed around Ina's wrist. His grip was crushing. He yanked her away from Angel with brutal force.

Ina lost her balance. Her heavy, momentum-laden body was violently shoved backward. She couldn't catch her footing, stumbling back several clumsy steps under the sheer power of the beastman before crashing heavily into the glass coffee table.

The glass shattered. The sound was sharp and violent. Pain flared across her back and arms. Shards of glass bit into her skin.

"You crazy bitch!" Denton roared. He stood over her, his chest heaving, his eyes wild with fury. "You promised! You promised if I went out to work, you wouldn't touch him!"

Ina lay in the wreckage of the table. She pushed herself up, wincing. Her hand was cut, blood dripping from her fingers onto the floor.

Angel peeked out from behind the sofa. He looked at the furious Denton, then at the bleeding Ina. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but no sound came out.

Ina looked up at Denton. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She didn't beg. She just stared at him, her eyes cold and assessing. It was the look of a soldier evaluating a threat, not a victim fearing an abuser.

Denton faltered. The coldness in her eyes threw him off. This wasn't the whining, hysterical woman he knew.

Ina stood up. She wiped the blood from her hand on her pants. Her voice was low, cutting through the tension like a blade.

"If you don't need your eyes, I can donate them for you. Look closely at what I was doing."

She kicked a piece of glass aside. She pointed at the floor. There lay the disinfectant, the cotton pads, and the unused bandages. No acid. No poison. Just medicine.

Denton followed her finger. He saw the supplies. He looked back at Angel, noticing for the first time that the messy bandages had been partially unwound, and the wounds beneath were clean.

His body went stiff. The anger drained from his face, replaced by a stunned confusion.

Denton stood frozen, his amber eyes fixed on the medical supplies scattered on the floor. He saw the expensive disinfectant, the clean gauze. It wasn't poison. It wasn't acid.

He slowly turned his head to look at Angel, who was still hiding behind the sofa. The boy's wounds were indeed cleaner. The blood had been wiped away.

Denton's massive frame seemed to shrink. He didn't know what to do. He was used to fighting the monster, not dealing with... this. He searched Ina's face for some sign of a trick, some hint of malice. He found nothing but a calm, steady gaze.

Before he could speak, a new sound shattered the silence. The high-pitched whine of a hovercar engine. It was loud, obnoxious, and getting closer.

A bright pink hovercar descended from the sky, landing right on the overgrown lawn. The door swung up, and a woman stepped out. She wore a tight leather skirt and high heels that sank into the dirt.

Charlee Guthrie. The daughter of the Black Soil City lord.

She walked up the steps, two burly bodyguards trailing behind her. She didn't knock. She just walked right in, waving a scented handkerchief in front of her nose to ward off the smell.

Her eyes immediately found Denton. They lit up with a greedy, possessive hunger.

"Denton," she purred, ignoring the broken glass and the bleeding Ina. "You've been in this trash heap long enough, haven't you?"

Denton frowned. He took a step back, his expression disgusted. "This is none of your business, Miss Charlee."

Charlee's smile vanished. She turned her attention to Ina, looking her up and down with obvious contempt.

"Ina, look at you. You're a mess." She laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "I'll offer you five million Star Coins for Denton's contract. That's enough to pay off your debt to the loan sharks, and maybe buy some diet pills."

Denton's fists clenched. He knew the situation. He knew Ina was desperate for money. Five million was a lifeline. He felt a cold despair settle in his stomach. He was going to be sold.

Angel grabbed Denton's sleeve, his eyes wide with fear. If Denton left, there would be no one to protect him.

Ina casually wiped the blood from her hand onto her cargo pants. She straightened up, her chin raised. She looked at Charlee like she was looking at a piece of rotten meat.

"Five million? Do you think this is a scrap yard?" Ina's voice was flat, devoid of the original owner's usual fawning tone.

Charlee blinked, surprised by the defiance. "Don't be ungrateful," she snapped. "My father runs this city!"

She gestured to her bodyguards. "If she won't take the deal, take him by force. Let's see who can stop us."

The two guards stepped forward, reaching for Denton's arms. Denton's eyes narrowed. He prepared to fight.

"Bang!"

The gunshot was deafening in the small room. A bolt of blue energy struck the floor inches from the guard's foot, leaving a smoking, black crater.

Everyone froze. The guards jumped back. Charlee let out a short scream, clapping her hands over her ears.

Ina stood there, holding an old-model electromagnetic pistol. She held it with both hands, her stance perfect, the barrel steady and aimed directly at Charlee's forehead. Her eyes were cold. This was the look of someone who had killed before.

"Take your dogs and get out of my house," Ina said, her voice low and dangerous. "Take one more step inside, and the next shot goes through your skull."

The killing intent radiating from Ina was real. It wasn't a bluff. Charlee felt it like a physical force. Her legs went weak. Her face turned pale.

She stumbled backward, nearly tripping over her heels. The guards grabbed her arms and dragged her toward the door. They scrambled into the pink hovercar and sped away, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Ina watched them go. She let out a breath, flicked the safety on the pistol, and tucked it back into her waistband.

She turned around. Denton was staring at her. The shock on his face was unmistakable. He had never seen her like this. He had never seen anyone handle a weapon with such casual deadliness.

Ina ignored his stare. She didn't lower her guard immediately, taking a slow, steadying breath as the adrenaline began to ebb away. The silence in the room was thick, suffocating, broken only by Angel's ragged breathing from behind the sofa. She looked down at the medical supplies scattered on the floor, then at Denton's rigid posture.

"Put the medicine on him," she said. "We'll deal with the broken door later."

She turned and walked toward the stairs, leaving Denton standing in the ruined living room, his world turned upside down.

Ina paused at the foot of the stairs. She looked back at the two men still standing in the wreckage of the living room.

"Put the medicine on him," she said, nodding toward the supplies on the floor. "If you don't want his wounds to fester." She didn't wait for a response. She climbed the stairs, her heavy footsteps fading away.

Denton watched her go. He swallowed hard. He bent down and picked up the disinfectant and the gauze.

Five minutes later, Ina came back down. She had washed her hands and changed into a clean t-shirt. The cut on her hand was covered with a bandage.

The living room was quiet. Denton had finished bandaging Angel. They sat on the sofa, the tension between them thick enough to cut with a knife.

Ina walked over and sat in the armchair opposite them. She looked at Angel. The boy was still trembling, his ears flat. The earlier shock had rattled him badly.

The external threat was gone, for now, but Ina's gaze softened as it fell on the terrified golden-haired boy. The trauma etched into his very posture was a deeper, more festering wound than any physical harm Charlee could inflict. Arno's data files surfaced in her mind, detailing the unique biological mechanisms of this universe. She remembered what Arno had told her. In this world, females had a natural ability to soothe the mental turbulence of beastmen. It was a biological mechanism, a way to calm the violent instincts that lurked inside them.

Ina stood up. She walked over to Angel. Denton immediately tensed, his muscles rigid, but he didn't stop her. He just watched, his eyes wary.

Ina slowly reached out her hand. She didn't grab. She didn't force. She just gently placed her palm on top of Angel's golden hair.

The moment her skin touched his, something happened. A faint blue current of energy flowed from her palm into Angel's body.

Angel gasped. His golden ears shot straight up. His blue eyes widened in shock.

The energy was warm. It felt like sunshine after a long winter. It seeped into his bones, soothing the aches, calming the storm of fear and pain that had been raging inside him for years. The chaotic energy factors in his body, driven mad by the abuse, began to settle.

But Ina had underestimated the power hidden in this body. She didn't know how to control the "spiritual soothing" unique to this world. She pushed too much energy, too fast.

It wasn't just soothing. It was overwhelming.

Angel's breathing suddenly turned ragged. His face flushed a deep red. The whites of his eyes began to glow with a feral golden light.

"Target Angel Baldwin entering Primal Surge," Arno warned in her head. "Energy overload. Instincts taking over."

Angel's fear was gone. In its place was a burning, desperate need. He looked up at Ina, his eyes wild with a hunger that was far from fear.

He lunged.

His arms wrapped around Ina's waist with surprising strength. He buried his face in her stomach, inhaling deeply. A low, needy whine escaped his throat.

Ina froze. This was not the reaction she had expected. "Angel? What are you doing? Let go!"

But Angel couldn't hear her. He was lost in the surge. He pushed forward, trying to pin her to the sofa.

Denton reacted instantly. He recognized the signs. This was a gene rampage caused by high-level mental soothing.

"Angel! Snap out of it!" Denton roared. He grabbed Angel by the back of the collar and hauled him off Ina.

But Angel was strong. Stronger than he looked. In his berserk state, his latent power had awakened. He swatted Denton away with a backhand, sending the larger man stumbling back two steps.

Ina fell back onto the sofa. Angel was on top of her, his hot breath on her neck. The scent of his pheromones was thick and sweet, filling the air.

Her combat instincts screamed at her to knee him in the gut, to disable the threat. But her mind held her back. This was Angel. He wasn't attacking her out of malice. He was sick. He was out of control.

Denton steadied himself. His arms rippled, faint white stripes appearing on his skin. He charged again, this time using his beastman strength. He grabbed Angel's arms and wrenched them behind his back, forcing the boy down onto the floor.

Angel thrashed and roared, his eyes fixed on Ina, full of desperate longing.

Ina scrambled up, her heart pounding. She looked at the struggling boy on the floor. "What's happening?" she demanded.

Denton gritted his teeth, struggling to hold Angel down. He looked up at Ina, his expression a mix of anger and disbelief. "You don't know? You just gave him a deep mental soothing. You triggered his gene resonance!"