Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 46

POV: Jax

In the deepest dark before the dawn, the silence was absolute. Two black, armored vehicles moved like ghosts through the forest path bordering the Blackwood estate, their engines specially modified to be nearly soundless. I sat in the front passenger seat, my eyes scanning the tactical tablet displaying the manor's security schematics. One by one, the red lines of sensor grids and patrol routes turned green as my team sliced through them, a silent, digital decapitation. Everything was proceeding according to plan—a quiet, swift, surgical extraction.

My sister, Seraphina, the girl whose smile had always been the brightest thing in any room, was trapped in that cold cage. According to her last message, she would be ready. My mission was to get her out without leaving a single trace.

My team moved like shadows, slipping past the physical patrols and breaching the manor's side wing. The guest quarters were silent as a tomb. We silently picked the lock to her room, and I was the first one through the door, ready to greet my sister, ready to take her home.

And then, my world froze.

The air was thick with a smell so nauseatingly familiar it made my stomach clench—the coppery tang of blood, and underneath it, the strangely sweet, acrid scent of abortifacient herbs I'd only ever encountered on the most brutal of battlefields. This wasn't a room prepared for a rescue. This was a slaughterhouse.

My sister wasn't by the window, or packed by the door. She was on the bed, or rather, in a pool of it. The white sheets were stained a horrific, dark crimson. She was wearing a torn nightgown, her face as white as paper, devoid of life. If not for the faint, almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest, I would have thought she was already dead.

The medic behind me swore under his breath and rushed forward. But I didn't move. I just stood there, staring at the broken, battered form of my proud, strong sister. The emotion that rose in me wasn't grief, or even pain. It was a cold, pure rage I had never experienced before, a killing intent so absolute it felt like the temperature in the room had dropped to below freezing.

The room was empty. The bed was a nightmare of blackened, dried blood, a grotesque flower blooming in the center of the white sheets. The window was thrown wide open, the cold night air billowing the curtains in a mocking dance.

I lunged for the window, my heart hammering against my ribs. I was just in time to see a single flash of taillights at the edge of the forest, a falling star that winked out and disappeared into the darkness.

She was gone. No, she had been taken.

I stood alone in the bloody, empty room, the searing pain of the severed bond now eclipsed by a greater, more terrifying emotion: fear.