Page 45 of Knot Your Fated M.U.S.E.

"Like anyone gives a damn what you think," Riot snaps.

Azurite's response is immediate and ice-cold. "No one asked for your opinion either."

Watch them. Learn them. Know your allies and enemies both.

I push myself to my feet slowly, bare feet silent on the stone as I approach their makeshift circle.

Each movement is measured, careful – both from lingering effects of the gas and natural caution. Lowering myself to sit with them feels like joining a powder keg with a lit match, but the shadows assure me this is necessary.

Riot's attention snaps to me like a predator scenting prey.

"What, are you mute or something? Or just think you're too good for us because you're their precious favorite? Because those voices in your head make you special?"

Show strength without showing teeth.

I meet her gaze steadily and point directly at her.

"Riot."

Her brow furrows in confusion.

"The fuck? I'm Patient 367?—"

"Riot," I repeat firmly. My voice is rough from disuse but carries enough authority to make her pause.

Before she can recover, I turn to the next.

"Azurite."

"Patient 892," she corrects automatically, but there's something thoughtful in her mismatched eyes.

"Azurite," I insist, then shift my attention to our final companion. "Luna."

A small smile curves Luna's lips.

"Ah, I see. You're giving us names to replace our patient designations?" She tilts her head contemplatively. "I was Patient 444, though I never liked it. In Chinese culture, four is deeply unlucky – associated with death. Three fours..." She trails off with a delicate shudder.

"You're Chinese?" Riot asks, momentarily distracted from her aggression.

"Half. My mother was Chinese, my father Korean." Luna's fingers trace patterns on the floor that seem random but hold meaning only she can read. "It was already considered a forbidden union in both cultures. My blindness only added to their shame."

"They didn't know you were an omega?" Azurite asks softly, her tactical mind clearly piecing together implications.

Luna's smile turns bitter.

"No. If they had..." She draws a finger across her throat. "Firing squad would have been the kindest option. Mixed blood was bad enough. A blind, mixed-blood omega? That would have brought shame beyond redemption."

The silence that follows her words is heavy with understanding. Each of us carries our own stories of how we ended up here, our own wounds that led to these shared chains.

"I suppose I'm a forbidden mix too." Azurite's voice carries a melody of accents. "Italian mother, German father. Both fromrival mafia families that had been trying to kill each other for generations."

Her heterochromatic eyes catch the dim light as she speaks, one spring green and one molten gold, like the division in her heritage made manifest.

"It was a love story doomed from the start, really. Romeo and Juliet with more guns and better food." A sardonic smile plays on her lips. "And then they had me…already set up for failure before I drew my first breath."

The shadows whisper in my head, drinking in her story, tasting the truth of it, but have nothing to say and hum more in intrigue.

I watch the way her fingers trace unconscious patterns on her thigh as she speaks like she's playing piano keys that only exist in memory.

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