The Fragile Truce

The morning light was a fucking insult. It crawled across the floor of the master suite like a goddamn golden snake, hitting Wenlang's eyes and making his brain feel like it was being poked by a shitty hot needle. He groaned, a long, sound that vibrated in the back of his throat, and tried to roll over.

His body felt weird. Not the jagged, agonizing withdrawal weird, but... stable.

His head wasn't fucking thumping like a shitty horse fell in his fucking head for once. He felt grounded, the bond humming at a low, steady frequency that was almost—fucking almost—peaceful.

He oppend his eyes and nearly jumped out of his goddamn skin.

Hua Yong was right there. He wasn't in the chair anymore; he was sitting on the edge of the bed, a tray of coffee and some shitty looking artisanal toast resting on the nightstand. He'd changed into a fresh suit—black, sharp, and looking like it cost a fucking year's salary—but his face looked like a goddamn map of a war zone. Dark circles were etched under his violet eyes, and his jaw was set in a line so hard it looked like it was made of fucking granite.

"Morning, Alpaha," Hua Yong rumbled.

His voice didn't have the usual predatory bite. It was... quiet. To fucking quiet.

"What the fuck?" Wenlang rasped, sitting up and clutching the duvet to his chest like a goddamn shield. "Why are you looking at me like I'm a fucking dying puppy? And what's with the shitty breakfast?"

"You need to eat," Hua Yong said, his hand moving toward the tray. "Your blood sugar is in the goddamn basement after the spike yesterday. Drink the coffee. It's black, just the way you like to complain about it."

Wenlang stared at the coffee, then back at the Enigma. This was fucking terrifying. The "Sovereign" was being... attentive? It felt like walking into a goddamn trap where the floor was made of fucking landmines.

"Is this poisoned?" Wenlang asked, his gold eyes narrowing into a suspicious, sweary glare. "Did you put more of that shitty sedative in here so you can drag me to the office in a body bag?"

"Just drink the fucking coffee, Wenlang," Hua Yong hissed, a flash of his usual temper flickering in his eyes before it died down into that weird, unsettling stillness. He reached out and brushed a stray lock of brown hair away from Wenlang's forehead. The touch was slow, deliberate, and so goddamn lingering it made Wenlang's heart do a shitty somersault in his chest.

"Stop that," Wenlang muttered, pulling away. "Stop acting like... you fucking care. It's creepy as shit."

"I'm ensuring my asset is functional," Hua Yong lied, but the words tasted like goddamn copper in his mouth. He stood up, smoothing out his jacket. "Eat. Get dressed. We have to go to the office in thirty minutes. The board is already calling, and the press is hovering around the lobby like a bunch of fucking vultures on a carcass."

Wenlang watched him walk toward the door, his movements stiff and strange. The air in the room was thick with the scent of cedar and a dark, suppressed longing that made Wenlang's skin crawl with a confusing, sweary heat.

"Hey, prick," Wenlang called out just as Hua Yong reached the door.

Hua Yong paused, his hand on the handle. "What?"

"If you ever watch me sleep again, I'm going to fucking stab you in the eye with a cocktail fork," Wenlang snapped, his voice shaking with a mix of hate and a terrifying, Newfound vulnerability.

Hua Yong didn't turn around. He just let out a low, dark chuckle that sounded like goddamn gravel. "Eat your toast, Wenlang. We have a company to protect."

He closed the door, leaving Wenlang alone with a cold cup of coffee and the realization that the fucking monster wasn't just in the room anymore—he was under his goddamn skin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The limousine ride to the office was a goddamn pressure cooker on wheels. The interior of the car felt like it was fucking shrinking, the black leather seats smelling like expensive chemicals and the lingering, shitty scent of Hua Yong's dark-as-hell pheromones.

Wenlang sat as far away from the Enigma as he could, his back pressed against the door, watching the city blur past the tinted glass like a shitty, grey fever dream. His skin was still fucking buzzing from the way Hua Yong had touched his forehead earlier—a ghost of a sensation that felt like a fucking parasite burrowing into his skull.

"Are you going to keep staring at the glass like a goddamn cat in a cage, or are we going to talk about the fact that you're shaking like a fucking leaf?" Hua Yong's voice cut through the silence like a goddamn jagged razor blade.

Wenlang spun his head around, his gold eyes flaring with a light that looked like molten fucking acid. "I'm shaking because I'm trapped in a fucking metal box with a lunatic who spent all night lurking in the corner of my room like a goddamn sleep-paralysis demon! What the fuck was that, Hua Yong? What was with the shitty toast and the 'attentive' bullshit?"

Hua Yong didn't even blink. He just sat there, his legs crossed, looking like a goddamn king on a throne made of other people's misery. "I was monitoring your vitals. You nearly died yesterday because you're a reckless, sweary brat who doesn't understand biological limits."

"Liar!" Wenlang roared, his voice bouncing off the reinforced glass of the limo. "You weren't monitoring shit! You were watching me! I felt it! Every goddamn second! It was fucking creepy, and it was fucking weird, and I want a goddamn explanation that doesn't sound like a shitty medical report!"

Hua Yong's expression shifted. The "Chairman" mask didn't just crack; it fucking disintegrated, revealing a raw, jagged intensity that made the air in the car feel like it was being sucked out by a goddamn vacuum. He lunged across the seat, his hand slamming into the upholstery next to Wenlang's head with a sound like a goddamn gunshot.

"You want an explanation?" Hua Yong hissed, his face inches from Wenlang's. The violet in his eyes was a fucking raging wildfire, chaotic and terrifying. "The explanation is that I couldn't fucking leave! I stood at that door three times to walk the fuck out and my feet wouldn't move! I hate that I can feel your pulse in my own goddamn veins! I hate that when you were screaming on that floor, it felt like my own fucking soul was being shredded!"

Wenlang's breath hitched in his throat. He tried to shove Hua Yong back, but the Enigma was a fucking wall of solid muscle and dark intent. "That's just the bond! That's the shitty accident from the sidewalk talking! It's not... it's not real!"

"Don't you fucking dare tell me what's real!" Hua Yong barked, his fingers tangling in the front of Wenlang's charcoal suit jacket, jerking him forward until their noses were touching. "I've had bonds before! I've had Alphas on a leash for years! None of them felt like this! None of them made me want to burn the goddamn world down just to make sure they were still breathing! I fucking hate you for this, Wenlang! I hate that you're the only thing that makes this shitty life worth a damn!"

Wenlang froze. The air in the limo was thick with a scent that wasn't just dominance anymore—it was a heavy, suffocating mix of desperation and a terrifying, Newfound loyalty that felt like a goddamn death sentence. He looked into Hua Yong's eyes and didn't see a butcher; he saw a man who was just as fucking ruined as he was.

"You're... you're crazy," Wenlang whispered, his voice a jagged, sweary wreck.

We're both fucking crazy," Hua Yong rasped, his grip on Wenlang's jacket loosening just enough to let his knuckles graze the Alpha's chest. "But we're in this mess together. And if you ever try to pull that 'alone' shit again, I will fucking lock you in that penthouse and melt the goddamn keys."

The limo pulled up to the curb of the Shen Corporation building. The crowd of reporters outside looked like a sea of fucking vultures, their cameras flashing like shitty strobe lights.

Hua Yong pulled back, straightening his tie and smoothing his hair back into that perfect, terrifying mask of corporate ice. "Adjust your suit, Wenlang. You look like you've been wrestled in a dumpster. We have a board to execute, and I'm not doing it with a partner who looks like a goddamn victim."

Wenlang sat there for a second, his heart hammering a frantic, shitty rhythm against his ribs. He adjusted his collar, his fingers brushing the mark on his neck that was currently humming with a dark, terrifying warmth.

"I still fucking hate you," Wenlang muttered, shoving the door open.

"Good," Hua Yong replied, a real, jagged grin touching his lips as he stepped out into the glare of the flashbulbs. "Hate is a much better fuel for what we're about to do."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The limousine door hissed open like a goddamn viper, and the world outside was a screeching, flashing cage of pure fucking chaos.

Wenlang stepped onto the pavement and was immediately hit by a wall of noise that sounded like a thousand shitty chainsaws. The reporters weren't just hovering; they were a goddamn swarm of flies on a fresh carcass, shoving microphones and cameras into his face with a desperate, sweary hunger.

"Mr. Shen! Did you know about the Singapore subjugation projects?"

"Is it true Hua Holdings is a front for biological racketeering?"

"Wenlang! Your sister released the files! Do you have a fucking comment on being marked by a war criminal?"

Wenlang froze. His heart didn't just drop; it fucking plummeted into a dark, bottomless pit of icy sludge. Meiling actually did it. He'd thought she was bluffing, thought she was just a hysterical, hurt sibling making shitty threats in a bedroom. But she had pulled the goddamn pin on the grenade and tossed it right into the center of his life.

"Get the fuck back!" Hua Yong roared, his voice a low-frequency thunder that literally made the nearest reporter stumble into a goddamn trash can.

Hua Yong moved like a predator through a pack of shitty scavengers, his arm wrapping around Wenlang's shoulder with a grip that was less like a hug and more like a goddamn iron vice. He steered Wenlang toward the lobby doors, his face a mask of cold, murderous perfection that looked like it had been carved out of a block of fucking obsidian.

"Keep walking, Wenlang," Hua Yong hissed into his ear, his breath hot and smelling like the coffee Wenlang had just drank. "Don't look at them. Don't say a goddamn word. If you open your mouth, they'll rip your fucking tongue out."

The lobby was even worse. Every goddamn screen in the massive, black-marble entrance was flickering with the same shitty, grainy images from the Singapore files. The employees—the people who had looked up to Wenlang as a goddamn king for years—were huddled in groups, their faces pale and their eyes darting toward him with a mix of horror and pure, unadulterated disgust.

The air in the building felt like it was made of fucking poison

"They know," Wenlang whispered, his gold eyes wide and frantic, scanning the room like a trapped animal looking for a goddamn exit that didn't exist. "Hua Yong, every single person in this building is looking at us like we're fucking plague rats."

"Let them look," Hua Yong snapped, his boots clicking on the marble with a rhythmic, aggressive sound that felt like a goddamn countdown to an execution. "We aren't here for their fucking approval. We're here for their souls."

They reached the private elevator, and the doors slid shut on the screaming mob, leaving them in a silence that felt like a goddamn tomb. Wenlang leaned his head against the cold metal wall, his chest heaving under his charcoal suit. His head was fucking throbbing like a shitty sledgehammer was being slammed into his temple by a goddamn psychopath.

"She did it," Wenlang rasped, his eyes filling with a dark, sweary rage. "She actually fucking burned me to the ground. My own sister turned me into a goddamn pariah on a Tuesday morning."

Hua Yong stepped closer, his presence a heavy, suffocating weight in the small space. He didn't offer a shitty apology or a pat on the back. He just grabbed Wenlang's chin and forced him to look up, his violet eyes burning with a light that was so goddamn intense it felt like it was peeling back Wenlang's skin.

"She didn't burn you, Wenlang," Hua Yong whispered, his voice a gravelly, intimate promise. "She just cleared the fucking forest so you could see the fire. Now, you have a choice. You can walk into that boardroom and act like a victim, or you can walk in there and show those old bastards why you're the only Alpha in this city who's strong enough to survive me."

Wenlang looked at the man holding him. He saw the butcher's son, the monster, the man who had watched him sleep and brought him shitty toast. And for the first time, the hate in his gut wasn't directed at Hua Yong—it was directed at the world that thought they could break them.

"I'm going to kill her for this," Wenlang muttered, his voice regaining its jagged, S-Tier edge.

"Get in line," Hua Yong replied, a real, terrifying grin touching his lips.

The elevator dinged. The top floor was waiting. And the bloodbath was just getting started.