Day 112 Post-Impact
The network felt different.
Sarnav noticed it the moment he woke, Yuki still curled against him in the frost-covered room. The bond that connected him to his wives had always been present, a warm hum at the edge of consciousness. But now it was stronger. Deeper. Like the difference between a stream and a river.
Eleven wives. The milestone had changed something fundamental.
[11-WIFE NETWORK: FULLY INTEGRATED][HARMONY FORMATION: AVAILABLE][ALL WIFE ABILITIES: +150% EFFICIENCY]
He could feel each of them more clearly now. Nisha's quiet warmth. Elena's sharp shadows. Sana's radiant light. And threading through it all, Yuki's new cold, her ice magic humming with power that hadn't existed twelve hours ago.
But one signature felt wrong. Strained. Flickering like a monitor with a bad connection.
Jade.
He extracted himself from Yuki's sleeping form carefully, tucking the frozen blankets around her. She murmured something about data collection and didn't wake. He smiled despite his concern, pressing a kiss to her forehead before slipping out.
The compound was quiet in the early morning hours. Most people were sleeping, conserving energy for whatever came next. The entity hadn't moved since Yuki's bonding, but everyone knew it was only a matter of time.
He found Jade exactly where he expected: the server room.
She sat surrounded by screens, their blue glow painting her pale features in harsh light. Data scrolled across a dozen displays, tracking everything from perimeter sensors to network integrity to the entity's last known position. Her fingers moved across keyboards with mechanical precision, but her movements were slower than usual. Sluggish.
She hadn't slept. He could tell from the dark circles under her eyes, the slight tremor in her hands, the way she startled when he entered.
"What?" she snapped without turning around. "I'm busy."
"When did you last sleep?"
"Sleep is for people who aren't monitoring an existential threat." She pulled up another display. "The entity's energy signature shifted three hours ago. Subtle, but detectable. It felt Yuki's integration. It knows we're stronger now."
"Jade."
"The network boost is propagating correctly. All wives showing enhanced ability signatures. Your new ice princess is already outputting at 280% of her pre-bonding baseline, which confirms the theoretical models but raises questions about the upper limits of..."
"Jade."
"What?" She finally turned, and he saw it then. The exhaustion. The fear she was trying to bury under data and analysis. The walls she'd built so high even he sometimes forgot they were there.
"How long?"
"How long what?"
"Since you slept. Since you ate. Since you did anything except stare at screens and pretend you're fine."
Her jaw tightened. "I don't have time for this. The entity could move at any moment. Someone needs to be watching."
"Someone else can watch."
"No, they can't." She turned back to her screens, dismissing him. "No one else understands these systems like I do. No one else can read the data patterns, predict the fluctuations, catch the anomalies before they become problems. I'm the only one who..."
She stopped. Her hands had frozen over the keyboard, trembling visibly now.
"Jade."
"Go away, Sarnav."
"No."
"I said go away!" She spun in her chair, eyes blazing. "Go back to your new wife. Go celebrate your milestone. Go be the hero everyone needs. I'll be here doing the actual work while you..."
Her voice cracked. Just slightly. Just enough.
He crossed the room and pulled her out of the chair.
"What are you - let go of me, you idiot!" She struggled against his grip, but there was no real force behind it. "I have work to do! The entity is coming and someone needs to be ready!"
"You're not ready. You're exhausted."
"I'm fine!"
"You're shaking."
"That's from caffeine!"
"You've been awake for how long? Fifty hours? Sixty?"
"Seventy-three." The admission slipped out before she could stop it. Her struggles weakened. "Seventy-three hours. Since the Sector 7 breach. Someone had to monitor the systems. Someone had to make sure nothing else got through."
"And that someone had to be you?"
"Yes!" She finally pulled free, stumbling back against her desk. "Because I'm the only one who can do this! Because if I stop watching for even a second, something might slip through, and people will die, and it'll be my fault!"
"It won't be your fault."
"You don't know that." Her voice was raw now, stripped of its usual sharp edges. "You don't know what I've seen, what I've tracked. The entity isn't just moving through shadows. It's in the networks too. Data systems. Communication channels. It's been probing our infrastructure for days, looking for weaknesses." She laughed bitterly. "Elena thinks shadows are her domain? Digital is mine. And something is invading it. Something I can't stop."
She was crying. Jade, who never cried, who built walls of sarcasm and code to keep the world at bay, had tears streaming down her face.
"I can't stop it," she whispered. "I've tried everything. Firewalls, encryption, isolated systems. It just... learns. Adapts. Finds new ways in." She looked at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I'm supposed to be the smart one. The one who solves problems. But I can't solve this. And if I can't solve it..."
"Then we face it together."
"That's not how I work."
"Maybe it should be."
He pulled her into his arms, and she fought it for exactly three seconds before collapsing against his chest. Her fingers gripped his shirt like she was drowning and he was the only solid thing in an ocean of data and fear.
"I hate you," she mumbled into his chest.
"I know."
"I hate that you make me feel things."
"I know."
"I hate that I missed you while you were with the others. While you were saving Ananya and confessing to Yuki and having your little bonding session. I watched all of it. On the cameras. Because I'm a pathetic stalker who can't just ask for attention like a normal person."
"You watched?"
"Security protocols." Her voice was muffled, embarrassed. "Someone had to monitor for threats."
"Jade."
"Shut up." She pulled back just enough to glare at him, mascara smeared, walls crumbling. "Shut up and kiss me before I change my mind and go back to my screens."
He kissed her.
It wasn't gentle. Jade didn't do gentle. She bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, and when he hissed, she smiled against his mouth.
"That's for making me worry," she said.
"I wasn't the one who..."
She kissed him again, harder, her hands fisting in his hair with bruising force. All the fear and exhaustion transformed into something else, something hungry and desperate and demanding.
"Shut up," she growled. "Just shut up and fuck me."
They didn't make it out of the server room.
Jade shoved him against a rack of equipment, servers humming around them as she attacked his clothes with frantic efficiency. Her nails left red trails down his chest when she yanked his shirt off, and she made a satisfied sound at the marks.
"Mine," she hissed, tracing the scratches with her fingernail. "You're mine, you idiot. Not just hers. Not just theirs. Mine too."
"I've always been yours."
"Then act like it." She bit his shoulder hard enough to leave a mark, then licked the sting away. "Thirteen chapters. That's how long it's been since you touched me properly. I counted."
"Jade..."
"Don't 'Jade' me." She dropped to her knees, yanking his pants down with rough efficiency. "You owe me."
Before he could respond, her mouth was on him. Jade gave head like she did everything else: aggressively, competitively, like she was trying to win something. Her tongue worked him with vicious precision while her nails dug into his thighs hard enough to leave crescent marks.
"Jade... fuck..."
She pulled back just enough to smirk up at him, her lips wet. "That's the idea, idiot. Now shut up and let me work."
Then she took him deep, and he stopped being able to form words.
She was merciless. Every time he got close, she'd pull back, let him cool down, then start again. Edging him with sadistic precision, enjoying the control, the power, the way he groaned her name like a prayer.
"Say it," she demanded, pulling off with an obscene pop. "Say you missed me."
"I missed you."
"Say it like you mean it."
"I missed you, Jade. Every fucking day."
"Better." She stood, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes glittering with something between satisfaction and hunger. "Now earn it."
Her own clothes came off in quick, angry movements, revealing pale skin marked with the faint lines of old scars. Battle damage from before they'd met. Proof that she'd survived things that should have broken her. Her breasts were perfect handfuls, nipples already hard, and when he reached for them she slapped his hand away.
"Not yet." She backed up against the nearest desk, hopping up to sit on the edge, spreading her legs in blatant invitation. "You want to touch me? Make me come first. With your mouth."
"Demanding."
"You love it."
He did. God help him, he did.
He knelt between her thighs, and she leaned back on her hands, watching him with sharp eyes. Always watching. Always analyzing. Even now.
"Well?" She raised an eyebrow. "I don't have all day. There's an entity to track and..."
He shut her up by burying his face between her legs.
"PUK GAAI!" The curse tore out of her as his tongue found her clit. "Fuck, warn a girl before you... oh, oh that's good, that's..."
She was wet already, had probably been wet since she started yelling at him. Her thighs clamped around his head as he worked her, licking and sucking and pushing two fingers inside her. She was tight, clenching around him, her hips rolling against his face.
"More," she demanded, one hand fisting in his hair. "Faster, you useless... yes, like that, don't stop, don't you dare stop..."
He added a third finger and curled them just right, and she came with a scream that probably echoed through half the compound. Her pussy clenched around his fingers in rhythmic pulses, her whole body shaking, Cantonese profanity mixing with wordless sounds of pleasure.
He didn't give her time to recover.
He stood, grabbed her hips, and pulled her to the edge of the desk. She wrapped her legs around him instinctively, still shaking from her orgasm.
"Wait, I need a second to..."
He entered her in one hard thrust.
"DIU!" The curse tore from her throat as he filled her. "Fuck, yes, finally, you stupid..."
He didn't let her finish. He set a brutal pace, one hand gripping her hip hard enough to bruise while the other tangled in her hair, pulling her head back. She loved this. He knew she loved this. The roughness, the edge of pain, the feeling of being overwhelmed and taken.
"Harder," she demanded. "Is that all you've got? I've waited seventy-three hours for this, you better make it worth..."
He slammed into her so hard the desk scraped across the floor, and her taunt dissolved into a scream.
"Better," she gasped. "That's... fuck... that's better..."
The server room filled with the sounds of their bodies meeting, her moans mixing with Cantonese profanity that grew increasingly incoherent. Data scrolled unheeded across the screens around them. Somewhere, an alert chimed and was ignored.
"Touch me," she demanded. "My... you know where..."
His hand slid around to find her clit, rubbing in time with his thrusts. She keened, her whole body shuddering.
"Close," she gasped. "I'm close, don't stop, don't you fucking dare stop..."
He leaned over her, his chest against her back, and wrapped his other hand around her throat. Not squeezing. Just holding. A reminder of who was in control.
"Come for me, Jade."
"I-it's not like I'm going to come just because you told me to," she stammered, even as her walls clenched around him. "That would be... that's not... oh fuck, oh fuck, SEI YAN..."
She came with a scream that echoed off the server racks, her body convulsing, her pussy gripping him like a vice. He felt her pulse around him, felt the bond between them flare with heat and electricity, and followed her over the edge.
[DUAL CULTIVATION: COMPLETE][ESSENCE GAINED: +2,856][JADE: BOND REINFORCED][PROGRESS TO SECOND STAGE: 19% → 20%]
They collapsed together over the desk, breathing hard, surrounded by the hum of servers and the glow of screens. Jade's legs were shaking. His weren't much better.
"Acceptable," she muttered into the desk surface.
"Just acceptable?"
"Don't fish for compliments, idiot." But there was no heat in it. Just exhaustion, finally catching up with her now that the adrenaline had faded.
He pulled out carefully, turning her around so he could see her face. She looked wrecked in the best way, her usual sharp edges softened by satisfaction and fatigue.
"You need to sleep," he said.
"I need to monitor..."
"Serena can monitor. Or Minji. Or literally anyone else." He cupped her face in his hands. "You've been carrying this alone for too long. Let someone else take a shift."
"But..."
"That's an order. From your Sovereign."
She glared at him, but there was no fight left in her. "I hate when you pull rank."
"I know."
"I hate that it works."
"I know that too."
She slumped against him, and he felt the exact moment she stopped fighting. Seventy-three hours of vigilance, of fear, of trying to hold everything together through sheer force of will. It all came crashing down at once.
"It's inside the networks," she whispered. "The entity. I've been tracking its intrusions. It's learning our systems, our protocols. When it finally attacks, it won't just come through the shadows. It'll come through everything."
"Then we'll face it through everything. Together."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then, so softly he almost missed it: "Don't die, okay? When it comes. Don't be a hero. Don't sacrifice yourself. Just... don't die."
"I won't."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
She nodded against his chest, and within minutes, her breathing had evened out. Asleep on her feet, held upright only by his arms around her.
He lifted her carefully, carrying her out of the server room. She'd be furious when she woke up, probably threaten to encrypt all his files or something equally petty. But she'd be rested. Ready. Alive.
As he walked through the quiet corridors, he felt it. A shift in the shadows at the edge of his perception. A presence, vast and patient, turning its attention toward them.
Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow it comes.
But tonight, his family would rest.
[DAY 112]
[SARNAV: S-RANK (HARMONY SOVEREIGN - FIRST STAGE)][PROGRESS TO SECOND STAGE: 20%]
[WIFE CULTIVATION STATUS][1. NISHA - C | 2. ISHANI - C | 3. ANANYA - C][4. MINJI - D+ | 5. JADE - C | 6. SANA - C+][7. JIYEON - C | 8. SERENA - C+ | 9. ZARA - C+][10. ELENA - S | 11. YUKI - D]
[HARMONY SAFE ZONE: 1,335 SURVIVORS | 3 SECTORS]
[SEAL INTEGRITY: 93.1% (ICE COUNTERMEASURE ACTIVE)]
[ENTITY STATUS: STIRRING - ATTACK IMMINENT][DIGITAL INTRUSION: DETECTED - JADE'S ANALYSIS CONFIRMED][11-WIFE FORMATION: READY]
[WIVES BONDED: 11/32]