The canyon narrowed in the distance behind them. Eden and Kai moved in silence, ensuring they remained hidden in the shadows for not just their own safety, but for the safety of anyone who dare try to interfere on their journey.
The shard given to them by the rogue Archivist was embedded in Eden's neural thread now, its encrypted code slowly unfolding like a flower made of pure light. It didn't hurt, but it wasn't comfortable either. It felt like truth—raw, unfinished, forceful.
Kai walked beside him, his hand brushing Eden's every few steps, not for reassurance but for sync. Eden felt Kai's curiosity, his unease, his quiet grief. Kai felt Eden's focus, his protective edge, the way his mind kept circling the coordinates to Haven like a prayer.
They stopped at a shallow alcove carved into the canyon wall. It wasn't marked, but Eden knew it was meant for them. The glyphs etched into the stone responded to his presence, flaring briefly before dimming. A pulse of confirmation spread through the air, and the entrance opened.
Inside was a small entry chamber, circular, lined with memory glass. It wasn't a shelter. It was a vault.
Eden stepped in first, his breath catching as the walls flickered with glyphs of light, and then the glass began to come alive. Not with sound. Not with video. Echoes.
Kai followed, his eyes wide. "What is this?"
Eden didn't answer. He couldn't. The glass was showing him something he hadn't seen in years.
His father's voice.
"If you're seeing this, the Eden Protocol was successful and the EDENPULSE bond has formed. It means the Enigma has awakened because the Pulse Omega is no longer surpressed, and IS alive."
Kai froze. Eden reached for his hand.
His father was speaking to his very soul, healing a part of him he thought would forever be damaged. An incurable loss.
"Eden, my beautiful boy. My son, you were never meant to be alone. The Pulse was designed to balance you, to anchor you, to make you whole. But the Architect and the system feared that wholeness. It feared what you would become together."
The glass shifted, showing Kai's father now—tired, fierce, eyes burning.
"James and I built Haven for you and Kai. Not as a fallback, but a safe place protected from any hacks and locators of any kind. A place for you and Kai to grow old and raise a family. A home."
Kai held Eden's hand as the tears betrayed his beautiful eyes full of emotion. They listened quietly, as Eden's father continued.
"As a new beginning. As a place where the world could be rewritten. But we couldn't protect you from everything. Cash was supposed to be your shield. He failed."
Kai's breath hitched. Eden felt the spike of emotion through the bond—shock, betrayal, grief.
"When he leaked Kai's data, he didn't leak all of it, and he did not know just the amount he did leak would make him a target. He didn't know what he'd done until it was too late and we had to scramble and split the data to ensure the rest of the data could never be discovered, compromised, or replicated."
Kai was getting heated because he trusted Cash but something in him always prevented him from getting too close, and now he knew why. Eden interlocked their fingers, soothing the skin on Kai's hand to ground and anchor him as his father continued.
"When he realized we learned of his betrayal and caught him red handed he didn't try to deny it. He couldn't. Instead he tried to fix it by suppressing, you, Kai and by hiding the truth from you. It stopped being about keeping you safe, but because he was conditioned by the Architect to be afraid of what the two of you would become once bonded... once mated. Kai, he focused on keeping you small and under the radar. Purposefully keeping you from Eden."
YOU ARE READING
Slaved by an Alpha, Saved by an Enigma
Fanfiction~Every 'defect' is a weapon. Every new bond, part of a revolution.~ The Architect built a world where only perfection is allowed. Those born blind, deaf, scarred, missing pieces, or too broken to bond are branded "defects"-discarded, erased, forgott...
