My Dad Is An SSS Lycan!

Chapter 5: Test Subject No. 17.

The monitor beside Lyra’s bed suddenly turned red, the numbers that had only just stabilized beginning to fluctuate wildly again. Her heart rate dropped, her blood pressure fell rapidly, and her breathing weakened, prompting the medical team to move in at once and check every IV line. The little girl lay almost swallowed up by the equipment surrounding her, her eyelids fluttering a few times before she slipped back into a hazy state, her already pale face looking even more lifeless beneath the white lights.

Zeyan stepped to the bedside and brushed aside a damp strand of hair stuck to his daughter’s sweat-slicked forehead. The blood he had transfused earlier had helped Lyra survive the critical state she had been in at the laboratory, but her body had been drained of blood and injected with too many different drugs over a prolonged period. Even her ability to heal on its own could not immediately make up for that kind of damage. He looked at the still-unstable readings and ordered, “Prepare another transfusion.”

Damian, standing nearby, immediately spoke up: “Boss, you’ve already given the young lady more than two liters of blood. If you continue again within such a short period, your own body will be affected as well.”

Zeyan rolled up his sleeve, exposing the wrist that still bore traces from the previous transfusion: “Ordinary blood isn’t compatible with her. Continue.”

Lira looked at Lyra’s condition and suggested, “We can find someone with a compatible blood type. At least use some of theirs to reduce how much needs to be taken from you.”

“No.” Zeyan checked the IV line, then held out his arm toward the medical staff. “Lyra’s bloodline reacts to ordinary blood. Use mine.”

The person in charge immediately prepared the equipment. The needle was inserted back into the vein in Zeyan’s arm, and dark red blood quickly flowed through the tube before entering the small body beside him. The room gradually fell quiet, leaving only the steady sounds of the machines, while his complexion also grew slightly paler as more blood left his body.

After some time, the red warning on the monitor gradually faded to orange. Lyra’s heart rate slowly became steadier, and her chest began rising and falling more evenly. The tiny fingers resting on the bedsheet twitched, then her hand unconsciously reached toward the person sitting beside her.

“Daddy...”

The faint call made Zeyan immediately lean down. Lyra was not truly awake, her eyes only opening to a narrow slit before closing again. Her weak hand touched his chest before losing strength and falling. Zeyan caught it, placed it gently back beside her, then held it within his own palm.

Just as Lyra’s condition began to stabilize, there was movement from the bed beside her as well. Elena frowned, her lashes trembling beneath the light before she slowly opened her eyes. The smell of antiseptic and the sound of the monitors left her disoriented for several seconds before she realized she was no longer at the research facility. Her gaze immediately searched for the bed not far from her own.

Lyra was still there.

Elena’s breath left her more slowly, the tension in her face easing slightly before she noticed the man sitting beside her daughter. The face that had appeared in her memories for years was now right in front of her, close enough that even those familiar features somehow seemed strange.

Elena’s lips moved faintly: “Zeyan...”

He turned, immediately rose from the chair, and came to her bedside. He gently took her thin, cold hand, and when he spoke, his voice had grown hoarse after nearly going without rest for hours: “It’s me. Elena, I came too late.”

She looked at him in silence. Five years ago, Zeyan had vanished from her life with only a few cold messages, ending everything they once had without even giving her the chance to ask a single question. Now, after her life had been driven to its absolute lowest point, that same man had appeared just before she truly lost Lyra as well.

Tears spilled from the corners of Elena’s eyes. She turned her face toward her daughter and pulled her hand free from his: “Just protect her.”

Zeyan looked at the empty space that had appeared between their hands, then pulled the blanket higher over her: “I’ll protect both of you. I’ll explain what happened before later.”

Elena closed her eyes, her body still far too weak to continue the conversation. She only kept her gaze on Lyra for a little longer, and only after seeing that her daughter’s breathing had become more even did she finally relax back into the pillow.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor not long afterward. The hospital room door opened, and a middle-aged man in a white lab coat entered first. His graying hair was neatly combed, and thick glasses nearly concealed the eyes studying everyone in the room. Zeyan recognized Marven Dulse from the files that had just been sent over, the person in charge of Alpha-G Laboratory and one of the people with direct authority over the research project that had purchased Lyra.

Diana Ashbourne and Reginald Ashbourne followed behind him.

The moment Elena saw the two of them, her hand tightened around the bedsheet. Diana remained as immaculately dressed as she had been at the laboratory, while Reginald entered with such composure that one might have thought the battered woman lying in the bed was not his own daughter.

Marven stopped at the foot of the bed, his gaze going directly to Lyra: “I received notice that test subject Number 17 was removed from the monitored area without laboratory authorization. Under the current contract, this constitutes a serious breach. I’m here to take the subject back.”

Elena immediately braced her hands to sit up, though her injuries made the movement noticeably slower: “She’s not going back there.”

Marven looked at her, his gaze traveling from her bruised face down over her bandaged body before he replied, “The decision is no longer yours to make.”

His gaze lingered on Elena a little longer, making the corner of Diana’s mouth curl upward. She placed her bag on the nearby steel table and spoke: “If Mr. Marven believes she still has value, Ashbourne can negotiate that as well. After all, there’s no benefit in keeping something the family no longer has any use for.”

Reginald stood beside the bed with both hands resting on the cane he held: “The payment for subject Number 17 has already been made in full. If you want the mother as well, that price will have to be calculated separately. Ashbourne has never done business for free.”

Elena turned her head and looked at her father. What she had just heard was no different from him standing before a stranger and placing a price on his own biological daughter, yet Reginald’s expression remained indifferent. He was even weighing the terms of the transaction as though this were merely another business contract belonging to the family.

Marven looked at her once more: “An Omega who has produced a bloodline specimen like Number 17 still has a certain degree of research value.”

Diana immediately seized the opportunity: “I agree. Elena was once on the family’s breeding-Omega selection list before she was removed. Her reproductive capability is completely normal.”

Elena’s breath caught in her throat. The hand resting on the bedsheet clenched until her knuckles turned white, but her body had only just awakened and still did not have enough strength for her to stand and face the people speaking about her as though she were merchandise.

Zeyan sat in the chair beside her, the arm resting on the armrest slowly tightening. The veins stood out clearly beneath the back of his hand as he listened to every word exchanged between Marven and the two members of Ashbourne.

The files Damian and Lira had just brought him had already told him how Elena had been expelled from the family, forced to transfer her shares, and stripped of the right to protect her own daughter. It was only now, seeing Reginald and Diana standing before her hospital bed and negotiating her price in person, that Zeyan truly understood what Ashbourne had regarded Elena as all these years.

In their eyes, she was nothing more than an asset to be used while she still had value, then sold off one more time if someone was still willing to pay.

A pack of greedy people so depraved that they could put even their own flesh and blood on the scales.