redequinox
The red spider lily blooms where no life should-among ashes and forgotten soil. For most, it is a flower of death. To the Order, it means rebirth. From its petals they raise their disciples: children severed from the world, stripped of history and name, molded into perfect instruments of destruction.
Lilian Westwood is one such bloom. Forged in discipline and shadows, she is precise, lethal, and unanchored from anything human. She doesn't remember what it means to belong. The world beyond her missions is foreign, almost irrelevant.
Harry Styles is a rising star within the CIA, he thrives in clarity-lines drawn, rules written, loyalty earned through trust and integrity. He believes in order, in people, in the structures that keep chaos at bay. To him, life is something to protect. To her, it is something to erase.
Their paths cross at the Academy, where he becomes a mentor without knowing the truth of who she is. What begins as duty turns into a dangerous collision: her emptiness brushing against his humanity, her secrets pressing against his need for truth.
And as their worlds intertwine, they are forced to confront what lies beneath the surfaces they've built...
Can a weapon ever learn to be human? Can a man built on rules survive breaking them?