Chapter 43

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• The Alpha’s Mistake: Lila’s Rise from Rejection   Chapter 60

  LILAThe next morning, sunlight crept reluctantly across the wooden floorboards, slipping between the gaps in the heavy curtains. I hadn’t slept. I just lay there, listening to the slow, steady rhythm of Gavin’s breath beside me and the louder, unrelenting noise of my own thoughts.He stirred before I did, slipping out from the blanket and padding barefoot toward the door, rubbing his eyes. “I’m getting pancakes,” he mumbled sleepily, like it was the most important mission in the world. He paused at the door and glanced back at me. “Don’t go anywhere, Mama.”I offered a nod and a smile. “I promise.”Once he was gone, the room felt too big. I stared into the embers of the fireplace, the words from Aethera echoing through my mind, colliding with the scraps of memory that had started clawing their way to the surface.I stood shakily, pressing a hand to my bandaged ribs as I expected pain that bloomed with each breath, but it didn’t come.The door creaked open, I braced myself. Either it

• The Alpha’s Mistake: Lila’s Rise from Rejection   Chapter 60

  LILAGavin sat cross-legged on the bed, his knees barely reaching the edge of the tray the nurse had brought in earlier. He dipped his spoon into the bowl of soup with rapt concentration. I watched him in silence, the steam curling between us. Every so often, he glanced at me to make sure I was still watching. I offered a tired smile every time."Eat, too, Mama," he said between spoonfuls. "Soup makes bones better."I took a sip, more for his sake than my appetite. It was bland but warm. He seemed pleased.“Do you… know why they let you come stay with me?” I asked gently, trying to sound casual. I didn’t want to spook him. He was a careful child; his eyes watched everything, picked up the smallest shifts in tone.He shrugged, poking at a floating carrot. “I asked. I told Papa I feel sick again, like when I was in the hospital. He said maybe staying with you will help.”“You were in the

• The Alpha’s Mistake: Lila’s Rise from Rejection   Chapter 59

  LILAWhen I woke up, the first thing I felt was cold.It was not the sharp bite of winter wind or the chill of stone floors but a cold that came from the inside. A hollowness that wrapped around my ribs like frostbite, slow and aching. I was back in my room. My body throbbed in time with my heartbeat, a dull percussion of agony radiating from my ribs, shoulders, and back.I tried to move and that was a mistake.A sharp cry slipped past my lips as pain ripped down my side, like something inside had torn loose. The bed dipped, and someone pressed a cool hand to my forehead."Don’t move, Luna," a voice said softly.A healer. Her tone was gentle, but there was pity in it too. That stung more than the broken bones."You fractured three ribs, dislocated your shoulder, and reopened the stitches on your side from the cliff fall. You need to rest. Please."I blinked, trying to force the room into focus. Shadows moved

• The Alpha’s Mistake: Lila’s Rise from Rejection   Chapter 58

  LILAThe dream had refused to let me go. Even after I opened my eyes and watched the pale morning light creep across the walls, it clung to my skin like cold mist. Lyric's voice echoing, her cowries gleaming like teeth on the forest floor. "Come and find me, twin." The words had burrowed into my chest like thorns, each one twisting as if to stir something deeper than memory. Gavin slept beside me, curled in a protective knot, one small hand gripping the hem of my tunic. I didn’t move for a long time. I simply stared at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the Pack house, and counted the breaths it took for my courage to come back.Then I rose, dressed, and walked straight to the war room.Tyler was already there. He didn’t look up when I entered, didn’t acknowledge me beyond a faint lift of his shoulders. The fire in the hearth crackled quietly, casting dancing shadows across the walls. I stood in the doorway for a moment.“I got a letter,” I said, finally. My voice sounded too loud i

• The Alpha’s Mistake: Lila’s Rise from Rejection   Chapter 57

  LILAThere was no name signed at the bottom of the letter but it didn’t need one.My fingers clenched the parchment until it crinkled like dry leaves. My mouth was dry, my heart thudding against the bars of my ribs like a prisoner begging to be heard.Lyric.Her name hovered on the edge of my mind, and even without memory, I knew she was mine. My sister, my mirror, my betrayer and somehow… still my blood.All I could think was: One of you pushed me. One of you left me to die. One of you has a child out there with my sister and if I don’t figure this out soon, Gavin, like that child, will be hunted.The scroll trembled in my hands, the parchment softer than it looked, stained faintly with dirt at the edges like it had travelled through more than air to reach me. The handwriting looked like it was from someone I was supposed to know. Someone whose voice should’ve lived inside my bones, whose memory should

• The Alpha’s Mistake: Lila’s Rise from Rejection   Chapter 56

  LILAI didn’t sleep that night.I lay beneath the heavy quilt in the room I was told was once ours, staring up at the ceiling beams, counting shadows. My bones still ached from the fall. My memory was a field littered with broken stone but the pain in my chest wasn’t from anything physical.I kept hearing Tyler’s voice over and over: “She doesn’t even remember what she did.”And Dominic’s: “She doesn’t remember her sin. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”I didn’t know what I’d done. But it was bad enough to change the way Tyler looked at me, bad enough to make him treat me like a stranger, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to ask.When I found him in the training yard the next morning, he was already shirtless, sweat slicking across his chest as he delivered a brutal series of punches to the reinforced bag hanging from the sparring post. Warriors milled around, watching or training, but they gave him space. The Alpha was not to be disturbed unless you were me, apparently.“Tyler,” I said, v