Kaylee stared at the glowing blue text hovering above the unconscious man's chest.

[Identity: Locked - High-Level Bloodline Detected]

Her brain short-circuited. She sat back on her heels, her mouth falling open.

"A dormant bloodline?" Kaylee's thoughts stuttered. "So the royal bloodline from the novel—it's real. And it's still sleeping inside him right now."

She stared at the locked identity tag hovering above his chest. A cold tendril of unease coiled in her stomach. The novel had mentioned his royal awakening, but the system was treating this like classified data—something even the book hadn't fully revealed.

"What exactly is locked behind that clearance wall?" she demanded.

"Insufficient clearance," Alex replied with maddening indifference. "Furthermore, his hidden status is irrelevant to your primary objective of basic survival."

Kaylee clenched the damp linen strip in her fist. She knew who he was supposed to be. But if the system was hiding something even from someone who had read the book, then the story she thought she understood was only the surface layer.

Kaylee dragged her hands down her face, letting out a frustrated groan. She had already learned his full history from Alex's briefing—the Moon Wolf Kingdom, the murdered parents, the traffickers, the decade of slavery. The dragon fragment lodged in his soul was the real problem, and it wouldn't matter what bloodline he carried if she couldn't stabilize his Chaos Index. Right now, he wasn't a prince or a curse-bearer. He was just a patient bleeding out on her dirt floor.

She grabbed the wet linen cloth and moved down to his chest, gently dabbing at the horrific, bone-deep whip marks.

Every time she wiped away the blood, Kaylee's own chest ached. The sheer brutality of the wounds was sickening. What kind of psychopath was the original Kaylee?

Once the wounds were clear of mud, Kaylee grabbed the bottle of hemostatic powder. She tilted it, letting the fine white dust fall onto the deepest laceration.

The moment the powder touched the raw flesh, it emitted a faint, sizzling sound.

Elijah's body violently arched off the floor. A guttural, animalistic roar of pure agony ripped from his throat.

His eyes remained squeezed shut, trapped in some hellish nightmare, but his right arm lashed out blindly.

As his hand swung through the air, the bones in his fingers cracked and elongated. Thick black fur erupted from his skin, and his fingernails morphed into razor-sharp, curved wolf claws.

Kaylee tried to throw herself backward, but she wasn't fast enough.

The tip of his black claw grazed her cheek.

Kaylee cried out, tumbling backward into the dirt. She clamped her hand over her cheek, feeling the warm, sticky slide of her own blood. Her heart hammered so violently she thought her ribs would crack.

Her cheek stung, raw fear screaming at her to run. The metallic scent of her own blood filled her nose. But as she watched him thrash, the system's blinding red warning of a soul-detonation echoed louder in her mind than her own terror. If he tore those wounds open and bled out, she would be erased from existence. Survival shoved the fear aside, replacing it with a cold, desperate adrenaline. She couldn't let him die. She just couldn't.

She scrambled forward on her hands and knees. Ignoring the terrifying black claws, she slammed both of her hands down onto his bare shoulders, using all her body weight to pin him to the floor.

"Shh... It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you," Kaylee whispered frantically, her native English slipping out in her panic.

She didn't know if it was the strange, foreign words, the soothing tone of her voice, or the medicine finally taking effect, but Elijah's violent spasms slowly began to subside.

His breathing remained ragged, but his body went limp. The black fur and claws melted away, returning his hand to a human shape.

"Chaos Index steadily declining," Alex reported, its robotic voice cutting through the silence. "Target is currently unconscious. His threat perception is dropping passively. Index now at 80% and still trending downward."

Kaylee was drenched in sweat. Her arms shook as she quickly sprinkled the powder over his remaining wounds. Less than half the bottle remained.

She grabbed a relatively clean fur from her bed and draped it over his shivering body.

Exhausted, Kaylee slumped against the wooden wall.

Night had fallen. The temperature inside the hut plummeted, the cold seeping into her bones.

Drawing on her memories of camping trips, Kaylee grabbed two flint stones and some dry moss from a corner. After several frustrating, skin-scraping minutes, she finally managed to spark a small fire in the center fire pit.

The orange flames pushed back the darkness, casting long, dancing shadows against the walls.

Kaylee's throat was parched. She looked at the pomelo on the table. She tore off the thick rind and ate half the sweet, juicy flesh, groaning at the burst of sugar.

She glanced at the remaining half of the pomelo. It was a gift from Gus, a literal political hot potato in this tribal society. Rejecting it to his face was bad, but feeding his ultimate declaration of courtship to a lowly slave was an extreme insult that could get her killed if discovered. She hesitated, her fingers hovering over the fruit. But right now, the dying man needed the sugar and hydration more than she needed to manage a tiger warrior's fragile ego. Survival first, diplomacy later. She squeezed the juice from the remaining half into a clean wooden bowl, mixing it with a little warm water from the clay pot.

She crawled back to Elijah. Slipping her hand beneath his neck, she gently lifted his head. She pressed the rim of the wooden bowl to his cracked, bleeding lips, tipping it slowly.

Elijah's throat worked instinctively, swallowing the sweet, life-saving liquid.

Kaylee watched his face soften in his sleep. Without thinking, she reached out her free hand to brush a damp lock of black hair away from his forehead.

The absolute second her fingertips brushed his skin, Elijah's eyes snapped open.

They were not human eyes. They were the glowing, predatory gold of a wolf in the dead of night.

There was no confusion in his gaze. No grogginess. There was only absolute, freezing, murderous intent.

Kaylee's hand froze in mid-air. The golden eyes locked onto hers, and it felt like she was staring down the throat of a loaded shotgun. The blood in her veins turned to ice.

Kaylee couldn't breathe. Her lungs felt paralyzed under the weight of that golden, predatory stare.

Elijah's gaze slowly tracked from her hand, hovering inches from his face, down to the clean linen robe she wore, and finally up to her face. He noticed the fresh, bleeding scratch on her cheek.

The murderous intent in his eyes didn't fade. Instead, it twisted into a look of extreme, hyper-vigilant paranoia.

He violently jerked backward, trying to scramble away from her.

The sudden, brutal movement tore at his freshly medicated wounds. A muffled groan escaped his lips as his face drained of all color, turning a sickly, translucent white.

Kaylee's instincts overrode her fear. She leaned forward, her hands outstretched. "Don't move! You'll tear the wounds open!"

The sound of her voice acted like a physical strike. Elijah's entire body went rigid, snapping taut like a bowstring.

He didn't look down at his bleeding chest. He kept his golden eyes locked onto Kaylee, watching her hands as if she were holding a venomous snake.

"Warning!" Alex's alarm shrieked in Kaylee's mind, the sound like shattering glass. "Target individual Chaos Index surging! 85%! 86%!"

Kaylee's stomach dropped. She didn't understand. She had just saved him. She had cleaned him, medicated him, and fed him. Why was his energy spiraling out of control now?

Elijah's voice broke the silence. It sounded like sandpaper grinding against stone, raw and broken. "What do you want?"

He looked at the clean fur covering his legs. He inhaled the strange, sterile scent of the medicine on his chest.

None of it brought him comfort. In his deeply traumatized mind, it only confirmed his worst fears.

In Elijah's reality, Kaylee Melendez did not do kindness. She did not heal. Therefore, this had to be a new, infinitely more twisted psychological game.

"You want to give me hope," Elijah rasped, a bitter, bloody smile twisting his lips. "You want me to think I'm safe, just so you can watch my face when you rip it all away again. Isn't that right?"

Kaylee shook her head frantically, holding her hands up in surrender. "No! I just... I cleaned your wounds. I saved you from Silas. I brought you back here to heal."

The mention of Silas caused Elijah's pupils to contract into tiny pinpricks.

He darted a look around the room, confirming he was indeed inside her hut and not hanging from the totem pole. He realized she had actually intervened.

But his twisted logic immediately found the darkest explanation.

"So," Elijah whispered, his golden eyes burning with a terrifying, hollow light. "You thought Silas was going to kill me too quickly. You want to take your time. You want to peel my skin off yourself."

"Chaos Index breaching 88%!" The system's voice was now a blaring red siren. "Soul-detonation critical threshold approaching!"

Kaylee's heart lodged in her throat.

She suddenly understood. The original owner had traumatized him so deeply that any display of genuine kindness was perceived as a horrific threat. Her gentle tone, her soft touches-they were triggering his PTSD. Her empathy was literally pushing him toward a mental breakdown that would kill them both.

If she kept acting like a nurse, they would be dead in less than five minutes.

She had to break his paranoia using the only logic his broken mind could accept.

Kaylee sucked in a sharp breath. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, burying her terror and her pity deep down in her chest.

When she opened her eyes, they were entirely cold.

She pushed herself up from the dirt floor, standing tall. She looked down at Elijah, who was curled in the corner, waiting for the torture to begin.

Kaylee crossed her arms over her chest, tilted her chin up, and let out a harsh, mocking scoff.

Kaylee stared down at Elijah, her eyes narrowed in a look of absolute, unfiltered disgust.

"Stop flattering yourself, slave," Kaylee spat, her voice dripping with venom.

Elijah blinked. The sudden shift in her tone-the familiar, degrading arrogance-was like a bucket of ice water. It shocked his spiraling mind, halting his panic for a split second.

Kaylee pointed a rigid finger at his bleeding chest. "I spent a fortune on rare herbs to seal those wounds. I didn't do it because I care about your pathetic life. I did it because I refuse to let you die and rot in my house."

She took a step closer, her shadow falling over him.

"If you die, who is going to do my heavy lifting? Who is going to go into the forest and hunt for my food?" Kaylee sneered. "You think I'm going to let Silas destroy my property before I've gotten my money's worth out of you?"

It was a brutally utilitarian, selfish argument. It was exactly the kind of twisted, self-centered logic the original Kaylee operated on.

The wild, paranoid terror in Elijah's golden eyes slowly began to recede. It was replaced by a cold, bleak understanding.

This made sense to him. She wasn't saving him; she was preserving an asset.

"Chaos Index stabilizing," Alex reported, the blaring alarm fading to a dull hum. "Index dropping to 80%."

Kaylee mentally collapsed in relief, but she kept her physical posture rigid and imposing.

She turned on her heel, marching over to the fire pit. She snatched up the wooden bowl filled with the warm pomelo water.

She walked back to Elijah and shoved the bowl roughly against his chest.

"I order you to drink this," she commanded.

Elijah looked down at the cloudy liquid sloshing in the bowl. He didn't move his hands to take it. The suspicion was back.

"Afraid I poisoned it?" Kaylee mocked.

She snatched the bowl back. Maintaining eye contact with him, she lifted the bowl to her own lips and took a large, deliberate swallow. The sweet, acidic juice hit her stomach, and she fought the urge to sigh in relief.

She slammed the bowl back into his hands. A few drops of the warm liquid splashed onto his bare collarbone.

"Drink. Now," Kaylee ordered, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Or I will drag you back out to the plaza and have Silas whip you again."

At the threat of the whip, Elijah's jaw clenched. His muscles tightened.

Slowly, his trembling hands came up to grip the sides of the wooden bowl. He lowered his head and pressed his cracked lips to the rim.

The warm, sweet liquid hit his tongue. His body, severely dehydrated and starved, reacted instantly.

He meant to take a small sip, just to appease her, but instinct took over. He began to gulp the water down greedily, his Adam's apple bobbing in rapid succession. He drank so fast that he choked, a harsh cough racking his battered chest.

Kaylee's hands twitched at her sides. She desperately wanted to kneel down and pat his back, to tell him to slow down.

Instead, she dug her fingernails into her palms and sneered. "Drink slower, you animal. If you spill that on my floor, I'll make you lick it up."

Elijah drained the last drop. He lowered the bowl, wiping his wet mouth with the back of his hand.

He looked up at Kaylee. The madness was gone from his eyes, leaving behind a guarded, exhausted emptiness.

"Chaos Index stable at 75%," the system confirmed.

Kaylee turned her back to him immediately, pretending to inspect a pile of dried roots in the corner.

She pressed her hands hard against her chest, feeling her heart threatening to beat its way out of her ribcage. Her knees were shaking so badly she had to lock them to stay standing.

Behind her, Elijah watched her slender back. His golden eyes narrowed slightly.

He noticed the way her shoulders were pulled tight. He noticed the faint, uncontrollable tremor running through her hands.

She was shaking.

Why was the cruelest woman in the tribe shaking?