Aiden was seven when his world shattered.

  It was a cold night. He remembered the way the wind bit at his skin as he stood outside the gates of House Valtor, his tiny fingers trembling.

  He had cried, begged.

  But the doors never opened again.

  “Cursed,” they had called him.

  A freak. A mistake.

  His parents hadn’t even looked back.

  Aiden wandered the streets for days, hunger gnawing at his small frame. He learned quickly—no one cared. The nobles ignored him, and the commoners feared him. His body ached from sleeping on the cold stone streets, from the bruises of being chased away.

  Then, the men found him.

  They called themselves a "family," but Aiden quickly learned the truth.

  They weren’t a family. They were predators.

  They saw something in him, something useful.

  And so, he became theirs.

  The slums weren’t a pce for weakness.

  At first, Aiden resisted. He refused to steal, refused to hurt people. But hunger was merciless, and the men who took him in made sure he knew what would happen if he disobeyed.

  His body bore the proof—bruises, cuts, scars that never faded.

  They made him steal. Made him fight.

  And when he got older, they made him kill.

  The first time, he hesitated.

  They broke his ribs for that.

  After that, hesitation disappeared.

  Aiden learned how to survive. How to endure. But no matter how much he obeyed, it was never enough.

  Because they feared him, too.

  His power was different. Unnatural.

  They forced him to use it, to test its limits.

  Pain.

  That was his power.

  He could take it. He could give it. But back then, he had no control.

  They pushed him harder, made him suffer just to see how much he could endure.

  One day, he realized—this would never end.

  Unless he ended it himself.