onyekafrancis20の小説

~ELARA’S POV~The sun felt strange on my skin. It had been so long since I stood out in the open, away from the damp stone of the clinic or the suffocating silence of the East Wing.As Kael and I walked toward the training grounds, I braced myself. I expected the whispers, the sneers and the way people usually pulled their skirts away when the "Shadow freak" passed by. But as we stepped onto the packed dirt of the field, the air changed.The clashing of wooden swords stopped. The heavy grunts of warriors mid-swing died down. One by one, the soldiers turned.They didn't look at me with disgust. They looked at me with something that felt like fear. They had seen what I did during the fight with Alpha Soren. They knew the shadows lived inside me now.“Luna,” one of the younger warriors said, bowing his head quickly.The others followed, a wave of respectful nods rippling through the crowd. It felt fake, but it was better than being spat on. I just nodded back, my jaw tight. I wasn't the

~GENEVIEVE’S POV~The door to my mother’s chambers had barely clicked shut before I felt like I was going to throw up. The air in the room felt too thick to breathe. I paced the floor, my heels clicking against the stone like a ticking clock.“Did you hear her?” I turned to my mother, Vesper, my voice shaking. “Did you hear what Elder Mara said? A paternity test. Tomorrow. She sat there smiling and drinking tea while she basically handed me a death sentence.”I gripped the back of a chair until my knuckles turned white. My head was spinning. I had played every card perfectly. I had fated the trial, I had fated the pregnancy, and I had managed to lock that Shadow bitch away in the East Wing. Everything was supposed to be mine.“Calm down, Genevieve,” my mother said. She was sitting on the sofa, looking as calm as if we were discussing the weather. “You are acting like a child. Mara is just doing what she has to do to quiet the Council. She’s playing her part.”“Playing her part?” I s

~ELARA’S POV~I sat on a small wooden chair next to the bed, my hands tucked under my thighs to keep them from shaking. I couldn't stop looking at Kael’s wrists. They were wrapped with a thick white bandage, but I could still see the dark stains soaking through. He had told me not to come back.In the Rogue lands, the air was cold and the food was scarce, but we were free. Kael had looked me in the eye and warned me that the Eclipse Pack would only bring more pain. He knew Kairos better than I did. He knew the palace was full of snakes.And I hadn't listened. I had been so desperate to find the truth, so desperate to see the man I thought was my mate, that I had dragged Kael back into his own nightmare. Now he was lying there, looking like a skeleton.I leaned forward, resting my forehead against the edge of the mattress. The smell of medicinal herbs and old blood was heavy in the air.The heir.The words Genevieve had said at me in the hallway kept playing in my head. A royal heir.

~GENEVIEVE’S POV~“Oh, my darling, I’m so glad you’re finally with child.”The voice was like warm honey, but I knew it was covered with venom. I looked up into the face of Elder Mara, the Queen Mother, and saw the cold calculation in her eyes. She reached out, her sharp fingers adorned with heavy gold and patted my hand.I forced my lips into a shy, glowing smile. I played the part of the perfect daughter-in-law. I was the one she had hand-picked to replace the Shadow trash currently rotting in the East Wing.“Thank you, Mother Mara,” I whispered. My voice sounded small and fragile. “The Moon Goddess has truly blessed us.”Inside, my stomach twisted, but not from the pregnancy, but from the secret growing there. Blessed? No. I was a walking time bomb. If Mara knew whose blood was actually in my womb, she would have my head on a spike before the sun went down. But as long as I kept my chin down and my eyes wet with fake tears, I was the future of the Eclipse Pack.Mara leaned back i

~KAIROS’S POV~The doors to the Council Room hadn't even fully closed before I spun around. My blood was boiling. The air in the room felt thick and heavy, smelling like a predator backed into a corner.“What did you just say?”The words came out as a growl. My wolf, was clawing at my chest. He wanted to tear the stone floor apart.Genevieve didn't look like the woman who had just been attacked in the hallway. She smoothed her silk nightgown, her face shifting from the sobbing to a cold, triumphant mask. She didn't flinch as I stepped into her space, my shadow looming over her.“I said,” she whispered, her voice like a slow-acting poison, “that I am carrying the heir to the Eclipse Pack. Your child, Kairos. The one the elders have been praying for.”I didn't think. I didn't breathe.My hand shot out. My fingers wrapped around her throat. I didn't want to crush her, no, I just wanted to choke the lie out of her. I felt her pulse jumping under my palm. It was fast, but her eyes stayed l

~ELARA’S POV~“What did you just say?”The words felt heavy in my mouth. I gripped the edge of the door so hard the wood bit into my palm, but I wouldn't let my hands shake. Not in front of her.Genevieve didn't flinch. She just smiled—that sharp, polished smile of a woman who knew she had already won. She moved her hand, resting it almost tenderly over her flat stomach.“You heard me perfectly, Elara,” she whispered, her voice like silk over a blade. “I’m carrying the royal heir. The next King of the Eclipse Pack is growing right here. So, you can either accept that you’re just a guest in my palace, or you can get ready to cohabitate with the woman who is giving Kairos the one thing you never could, a future.”For a second, the room tilted. The fourteen-day countdown until their wedding had felt like a distant nightmare, but this? This was a death sentence for the tiny, stupid hope I’d been nursing since I returned.But I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing me bleed.I for