Beyond The Empty Altar, My Reign

Eris POV: The heavy, oppressive silence of the Vance family's primary conference room was shattered by the violent crash of expensive bone china. My father stood at the head of the long mahogany table, his face a terrifying shade of purple. He had just hurled his tea cup against the wall, sending hot liquid and porcelain shards flying across the plush Persian rug. He gripped the edges of the table, his knuckles white, a freshly lit cigar clamped between his teeth. "How could you let her out of your sight?!" my mother shrieked, pointing a manicured finger directly at my brother, Dax. "She was our most valuable asset! The Thorne alliance is the only thing keeping this family in the top tier, and you let that stupid blood bag walk out the front door!" I stood in the hallway, leaning heavily against two of my personal maids. I waited for the screaming to peak before I made my entrance. I pushed the heavy oak doors open. I took two trembling steps into the room, my breathing shallow, my face powdered to a sickly, translucent pale. I let my knees buckle exactly at the right moment. "Ah!" I gasped, collapsing onto the soft carpet. "Eris!" My mother abandoned her screaming match and sprinted across the room. She dropped to her knees, pulling my head into her lap, her hands frantically stroking my hair. "My sweet girl, are you alright? Fetch the doctor! Now!" The family physician, a man paid very well to keep his mouth shut, hurried into the room with his medical scanner. He knelt beside me, running the blue light up and down my arm. He looked at the reading and shook his head gravely. "Her Alpha pheromone levels are critically unstable, sir," the doctor reported, looking up at my father. "Her body is rejecting the synthetic hormones. She missed her specialized targeted injection last night." I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing two perfectly timed tears to roll down my cheeks. I clutched my mother's silk blouse. "I... I don't know what happened," I whispered, my voice trembling with practiced fragility. "I left the medicine on my nightstand. But yesterday... Vera was the only one who came into my room to bring me towels. And then... the medicine was gone." My father slammed his fist down on the table. The heavy thud made Dax flinch. "That ungrateful, thieving bitch!" my father roared, spitting cigar ash onto the floor. "We feed her, we clothe her, and she tries to murder her own sister!" "She probably stole it to sell on the black market," Dax chimed in eagerly, desperate to shift the blame off himself. "Those vials are worth a fortune. She needed travel money to run away with whatever street trash she's sleeping with." My mother's eyes narrowed into venomous slits. "We have to get her back before Cain realizes what she is. If the Thorne family finds out she's a defective Omega, they will ruin us." My father pulled the cigar from his mouth, his eyes cold and calculating. He looked over at the family's chief hacker, who was sitting nervously at a multi-monitor workstation in the corner of the room. "Put it out on the underground network," my father ordered, his voice devoid of any paternal warmth. "Maximum priority. Fifty million dollars. Frame her for corporate espionage. I don't care who brings her in, just get her back here alive so we can bleed her." The hacker nodded, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard. On the massive projector screen at the front of the room, a loading bar appeared. It hit 100%. "Bounty uploaded, sir," the hacker said. "It's being distributed to every mercenary terminal on the eastern seaboard." I pressed my face into my mother's stomach, hiding the vicious, triumphant smile that stretched across my lips. I loved destroying her. I loved taking everything she had. But thirty seconds later, the massive projector screen flashed a blinding, violent crimson red. "Sir!" the hacker yelled, his voice cracking with sudden panic. "We're being hit! A massive brute-force attack from an unknown IP! They're tearing through our firewalls at ten layers a second!" My father rushed around the table, staring in horror at the screen. The carefully crafted bounty poster was dissolving, the text turning into chaotic lines of corrupted code. Then, the screen cleared. A massive, pixelated, blood-red middle finger appeared in the center of the projection, accompanied by a deafening, synthesized laugh track that blared through the conference room speakers. The hacker slammed his hands on the keyboard, trying to cut the connection, but it was too late. A loud *pop* echoed from beneath his desk. Thick, acrid black smoke poured out of the main CPU tower. The fans shrieked and died. The system was physically fried. The room plunged into a stunned, terrifying silence. "Was... was that Cain?" my mother whispered, her voice shaking. "No," my father said, his face pale. "Thorne tech doesn't operate like this. This is military-grade destruction." A sharp spike of genuine panic pierced my chest. My heart rate skyrocketed. The fear wasn't faked this time. Suddenly, a searing, agonizing heat exploded beneath my skin. My fake Alpha pheromones, destabilized by my sudden spike in heart rate, began to violently clash with my true biology. I screamed—a raw, ugly sound that tore my throat. I clawed at my chest, ripping the fabric of my dress. Ugly, raised red welts were rapidly spreading across my collarbones, burning like acid. The doctor scrambled forward with a syringe of heavy sedatives. He jammed the needle into my arm, but my muscles were spasming so violently that the needle bent, unable to push the fluid into my veins. My father ripped off his tie, pacing the room like a caged, rabid animal. His control was slipping, and he hated it. He spun around and pointed a trembling finger at Dax. "Take the heavy guard! Go to the Northern border slums! That's where all the rats hide!" my father screamed, his face contorted in absolute desperation. "Bring her back! Alive or dead, I don't care!" My father slammed both fists onto the ruined mahogany table, the veins in his neck bulging. "Who is interfering with our family's internal affairs?!"