From Rejected Defect To Supreme Queen

The rough hands of the guards slammed Angel onto the freezing stone slabs of the central square. Her knees hit the rock hard, the sharp pain shooting up her thighs, but the physical agony was nothing compared to the deafening roar of laughter that erupted from the crowd surrounding her.

"Look at the pathetic defect!"

"Can't even maintain a stable hybrid form. What a waste of air."

Angel gritted her teeth, her fingers curling against the icy stone. Snowflakes drifted down, landing on her thin, tattered clothes and melting instantly against her shivering skin.

A pair of pristine leather boots stopped right in front of her face. Angel looked up, her vision blurring from the cold, and saw Jasmine Roman standing there, looking down at her with eyes full of undisguised malice and triumph.

"You just don't know when to quit, do you, sister?" Jasmine's voice was loud enough for everyone to hear, dripping with fake sorrow. "Sneaking into the Chief's tent, trying to seduce him... I covered for you so many times, but you just had to embarrass our family."

The crowd's laughter turned to angry boos. The male warriors glared at Angel with disgust.

Angel tried to push herself up, to defend herself, to scream that it was all a lie, but her throat was too dry. The extreme hunger and cold made her voiceless. She could only gasp for air like a dying fish.

"Enough of this farce." A familiar voice cut through the noise.

Al Stein stepped out from the crowd. He walked over to Angel, his face twisted with a contempt she had never seen before. He pulled a white bone ring from his pocket-the symbol of their mate bond.

"You're a genetic reject," Al spat. "A zero on the Viability Index. You can't give me children. You're useless."

He threw the bone ring hard at Angel's face. The sharp edge cut across her cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. The ring bounced off her skin and rolled away into the snow.

The crowd exploded into righteous fury. "Exile her!"

"Throw the defect into the wasteland!"

High Oracle stepped onto the high platform, his face devoid of any emotion. He struck his staff against the stone, the sharp sound silencing the mob.

"Angel Haynes," his voice boomed. "For the crime of seduction and being a genetic dead-end, you are hereby stripped of your clan citizenship. You are exiled to the wasteland. Forever."

A ripple of movement went through the crowd. Two burly guards dragged a man forward and threw him onto the ground next to Angel like a piece of garbage.

It was Kain Avila. The notorious "Cold-Blood" of the clan. His eyes were tightly shut, his skin pale as death, already slipping into a near-death state of hibernation.

Jasmine covered her mouth, feigning pity. "Oh, the poor thing. Since they're both useless, why not let them keep each other warm in the wasteland?"

The crowd burst into laughter again.

A guard grabbed Angel's wrist, his grip bruising. He pulled out a rough dagger and sliced open her fingertip. Before she could react, he forced her bleeding finger down onto Kain's pale forehead, letting the blood drip onto his skin.

A simple, forced bond. A wave of dizziness washed over Angel, the weak link forming in her mind, dragging her already exhausted spirit down into a deeper abyss.

"Get them out!" the High Oracle commanded.

The guards didn't even let her stand. They grabbed Angel and the unconscious Kain by their collars and dragged them across the square. The rough stones tore at Angel's clothes and skin, but no one cared. They were just taking out the trash.

The heavy steel gates of the Embermane Clan groaned open. The guards tossed them out into the snow like discarded corpses. The gates slammed shut behind them with a final, echoing boom, cutting off all the firelight and warmth.

The freezing wind hit Angel instantly, biting through her thin clothes like a knife. She shivered violently, her teeth chattering so hard she thought they would crack.

She crawled through the snow toward Kain. He was so cold. Colder than the ice around them. She pressed her hands against his chest, trying to find a heartbeat, trying to steal even a fraction of warmth, but there was nothing. He was a block of ice.

The extreme cold and hunger blurred her vision. Her heartbeat slowed down, each thump a painful effort. The shadow of death wrapped around her like a heavy blanket.

Just as her eyes were about to close, a sharp, electronic buzzing sound exploded in the depths of her mind, piercing through the fog of her consciousness.

[Beep. The Genetic Evolution Codex has successfully activated. ]

A cold, mechanical female voice echoed in her head.

[Scanning host... Host vital signs critical. Forcing initiation of preliminary system repair. ]

A wave of warmth, sudden and intense, rushed from her heart to her limbs. Angel gasped, her eyes snapping open. She looked down at her hands in shock-her frozen, numb fingers were moving again, tingling with life.

A semi-transparent holographic panel popped up before her eyes.

[Host Status: Dormant Kitsune Prime. Genetic Viability: Zero (Suppressed). ]

Angel stared at the data, her breath catching in her throat. She wasn't a defect. She was a Kitsune Prime, a legendary being?

The despair that had been crushing her chest evaporated, replaced by a fierce, burning will to live.

[Warning! Warning! ] The system flashed red. [Consort Kain Avila's vital signs are dropping rapidly. Imminent death. ]

[Scanning Consort... Match found: Jörmungandr Geneline. Compatibility: 91%. ]

[Initiating Mandatory Novice Task: Save Kain Avila. Failure will result in termination of repair program due to insufficient energy. ]

Angel didn't hesitate. She couldn't let him die. She wouldn't let herself die.

She bit her lip hard, using the pain to force her body to move. She grabbed Kain's heavy arm and pulled with all her might. Her nails broke against the frozen rocks, blood smearing the stone, but she didn't stop.

The wind howled, the snow threatening to bury them, but Angel dragged the massive man toward a dark opening in the hillside she had spotted earlier-an abandoned cave.

It felt like an eternity, her muscles screaming, her lungs burning, but she finally hauled Kain into the deepest part of the cave, out of the wind. She collapsed onto the cold floor, gasping for breath, her body trembling uncontrollably.

But as she looked at Kain's unconscious face, her eyes hardened. The fear was gone. The despair was gone.

"I will survive," she whispered, her voice hoarse but firm. "And I will make every single one of them pay."