The journey from the laboratory was long and silent.

  Rex carried the cage over his shoulder like it was just another pack. Each step made the bars sway gently. Inside, I clung to them with trembling pseudopods, as if they were the only thing keeping me together.

  The outside air had taste. It had weight. It entered through my eyes, my mouth, my skin that still didn't know if it was skin.

  It hurt.

  It filled me.

  It scared me.

  Rex didn't talk much. Only occasionally a low mutter, almost to himself:

  "Easy, little one. We're almost there."

  He didn't look at me. But I looked at him.

  The fresh scar on his left cheek was still bleeding a little. He'd earned it for me, even if he didn't say so.

  They reached a place where water fell like a silver curtain from high rocks. Rex parted the water with one hand and they entered.

  Inside was a cave. Larger than it looked from outside. A small fire burned in the center, lighting stone walls covered in moss and deep gouges, as if something huge had tested its strength there over and over. Weapons hung on the walls, a bed of furs, an improvised table with maps and vials. It smelled of smoke, leather, hot iron, and something else… life that moved.

  And then I saw him.

  A red draconian stood by the fire. Tall. Scaly. Horns curved backward. His amber eyes glowed like living embers. He wore a dark tunic with golden edges, and in his right hand he held a staff topped with a blue gem that pulsed softly, like a small heart.

  He looked at me.

  He said nothing at first. Just watched. As if measuring whether I was a threat… or something that needed to be destroyed.

  Rex dropped the cage to the floor with a sharp thud.

  The draconian stepped forward. His steps were heavy, deliberate. He stopped in front of the cage and crouched to meet my eyes.

  Eight red eyes against two amber.

  "What the hell did you bring here?"

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  Rex shrugged, trying to sound casual.

  "An experiment. From the same guy I killed a few hours ago. I pulled it out before everything blew up."

  The draconian didn't look away from me.

  "It reeks of death. Corruption. Something that doesn't belong here."

  I didn't move. I just stared. My yellow mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out. Only acidic drool that dripped and hissed on the stone floor.

  Rex crossed his arms.

  "It didn't attack. Not even when I opened the cage. It just… clung. Like it was scared."

  The draconian let out a short, dry laugh.

  "Scared. Right. Things like this don't feel fear. They imitate. Thanatos designed it to be useful. And now it's loose. In my cave."

  Rex took a step forward.

  "It's not a weapon. It's… I don't know. Something that doesn't know what it is."

  The draconian stood. His hand tightened on the staff. The blue gem glowed brighter.

  "Then we should kill it. Now. Before it learns to be dangerous. Before it kills us while we sleep."

  I felt something new.

  It wasn't hunger.

  It wasn't pain.

  It was fear.

  *I don't want to die.*

  *I don't want to be alone again.*

  My red eyes blinked fast. A pseudopod stretched toward the bars, not to attack, but to touch them. As if trying to say something it didn't have words for yet.

  The draconian stepped back. The staff rose slightly. The blue gem crackled.

  Rex stepped between us.

  "Not so fast. If we kill it now, we'll never know what it's capable of. And if Thanatos wanted it alive… maybe it's worth keeping."

  The draconian stared at him.

  "Worth keeping? Are you insane? This is an abomination. A walking rift. You know that as well as I do."

  Rex clenched his fists.

  "And you know as well as I do that not everything Thanatos created was trash. Some of his experiments… some of us… came out alive."

  The draconian narrowed his eyes.

  "Don't bring that up. Not now. Not here."

  The tension rose. The air grew heavy. The gem on the staff glowed brighter. Rex's hand hovered near a dagger at his belt.

  I trembled inside the cage.

  My pseudopods stretched further. They touched the bars. An acidic hiss escaped my mouth.

  The draconian raised the staff.

  "Last chance. Step aside."

  Rex didn't move.

  "No."

  Silence.

  The fire crackled.

  Then the draconian spoke. Voice low, almost a growl.

  "**Ryu**… don't do this."

  Rex exhaled the breath he'd been holding.

  "**Rex**… calm down. We're not killing it. Not yet."

  The draconian lowered the staff slowly. The gem dimmed a little.

  Rex turned toward me.

  He looked straight into my eyes.

  "And you, little one? Do you want to live?"

  I couldn't answer.

  I just nodded. A clumsy, trembling motion.

  Rex straightened.

  "Then it lives," he said. "For now."

  Ryu turned his back, muttering something in a language I didn't understand.

  I stared at the fire.

  For the first time… I was not alone.

  But I was far from safe.

  And far away from there…

  beneath stone, blood, and a circle that never fully broke…

  something pierced through the heart

  breathed.

  (End of Chapter 3)

  A killer saved me.

  A dragon almost killed me.

  And Thanatos's name has not yet spoken its last word.

  The tension between Rex and Ryu is at its peak… do you think Ryxar will survive that glare? Or will Rex have to choose between his companion and the creature he saved?

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