CHAPTER 24
THE NEURAL INTERFACE HUMMEDagainst Nadine’s skull like an angry wasp, its artificial whispers trying to drown thought with manufactured compliance.
She sat motionless in the reinforced chair, silver-laced restraints burning her wrists, watching Gregory pace the sterile laboratory with a satisfied air.Watching him orchestrate the systematic betrayal of everything she’d believed about their relationship while she fought against technology designed to turn her into the perfect weapon against her own mate.
The beauty of the system,Gregory said to the technicians he’d assembled to witness her descent into a mindless automaton,is that she won’t remember ever having fought against this.Nor will she recall choosing to cooperate.In fact, once I’m done with her, she won’t remember being here at all.The implant, controlled by the interface and combined with our newly developed neural suppression chemicals, will make rebellion literally unthinkable.
Her voice remained locked behind those neural suppression protocols, but Nadine’s mind burned with crystalline fury despite the artificial calm being forced on her nervous system.
Through the laboratory’s reinforced windows, she could see the desert compound Gregory had built—a sprawling facility masquerading as a research station but functioning as a command center for the final phase.
The Omicron Protocol wasn’t just about activating sleeper assets.It was about turning the strongest wolves against their packs—including his own daughter.
The subject is showing remarkable resistance to behavioral modification,Dr.Vera Petrov reported from her control console, professional frustration edging her voice.Neural pathway integration is proceeding slower than projected.
Gregory paused, focusing on Nadine with calculating intensity.She always was stubborn.Even as a child, Nadine required creative motivation to accept necessary truths.
The casual admission that their entire relationship had been built on manipulation should have broken something inside her.Instead, it crystallized her resolve into something harder than diamond.
He never loved me.Never saw me as anything more than a tool to be shaped.
The interface pushed back against her growing rage, flooding her system with artificial calm that made her limbs feel heavy.But beneath the technological suppression, her wolf paced with a vicious intent no human science could fully contain.
Perhaps we should increase the chemical dosage,Dr.Petrov suggested even as she adjusted settings on the interface.The subject’s resistance ability seems unusually strong.
No,Gregory said sharply.Too much chemical suppression will interfere with the mate bond connection we need to exploit.The beauty of this operation is that she’ll eliminate her mate willingly, believing she’s protecting him.
They want me to kill him.The thought cut through the interface’s suppression, through the chemicals flooding her system.They want me to destroy the only good thing I’ve found.
The psychological profile indicates maximum emotional impact,another operative added, consulting stolen intelligence about pack dynamics.Mate-on-mate violence will create trauma patterns lasting generations.
Anger swirled through her.
The plan was elegant in its cruelty.The interface would gradually reshape her perceptions, making her believe Conall was the real traitor, that the evidence pointed to him rather than Quinton.In her altered state, she’d return to Sunburst territory, convinced her mate was working for Chimera—that eliminating him was the only way to protect the pack.
But even as fury built beneath artificial calm, another part of her mind worked with clinical precision, cataloging details Gregory couldn’t know she was processing.Guard rotations.Security protocols.The facility’s layout based on glimpses through doorways.
Years of training with the man who’d shaped her into a weapon were about to work against him.
Bonded pairs create unique vulnerabilities,Gregory continued, settling into a chair with casual confidence.The mate bond makes them predictable, willing to sacrifice strategic thinking for emotional satisfaction.Their greatest weakness.
No, Nadine thought.It’s their greatest strength.And you never understood the difference.
The neural suppression protocols were sophisticated, designed to override conscious resistance through biochemical manipulation.
But they’d been calibrated for normal wolf physiology, not for someone who’d spent years with Gregory.
The fascinating aspect,Dr.Petrov said, reviewing interface readouts,is how the technology can transform love into hatred while preserving emotional intensity.She’ll feel the same passion—but directed toward destruction rather than protection.
Poetic justice,Gregory agreed.She chose that pack over family loyalty.Now she’ll destroy it with the same misguided conviction.
He’s wrong about the mate bond.Wrong about what it really means.
Love wasn’t a weakness or vulnerability to be exploited.It was the kind of strength that came from choosing to trust, from deciding someone else’s well-being mattered as much as your own survival.
It was the difference between existing and living.
And it also fed the growing fire the interface couldn’t quite contain.
