His Journey: Velic and Mute by Carissa Skinner
Velic is an anomaly in itself, bound for an unknown future, and struggling to be as human as possible. As he enters another Illuminati facility, with his friend Finn Kioskey, he is still overwhelmed by the loss of his first love. The new facility is nothing more than one lab after another and is inhabited mainly by scientists. His heartache is amplified when an Artificial Intelligence named Winx Merietta is there because she was built by his first love's own hands and the two years away did nothing to ease his guilt or his heart. He is charged to shadow and protect a rather destructive scientist Mute, whose barefoot way of science is close to being categorized as suicidal. Though he finds the blonde scientist quite attractive, he refuses to be vulnerable to love again. While keeping Mute from outrageous experiments, Velic is forced to do unthinkable acts by one who owns him; Councilman Armstrey, the Head of the Illuminati. Between Armstrey, Armstrey's son, and Armstrey's daughter, those closest to Velic are threatened. Velic has no choice and no true freedom. As he tries to do what's right, he's burying himself deeper into the clutches of the Illuminati.
