33. The Witch's Path.

LUCY’S POV

I didn’t remember the walk home.

One moment, I was in the corridor of Adrian’s mansion with my heart ripping in my chest. The next, I was pushing through the night like a storm, wind whipping at my robe, bare feet striking the ground, the forest swallowing me whole.

I just needed to leave.

Leave that palace.

Leave those walls.

Leave him.

I wasn’t running....I refused to call it running... But I was jumping....with my super strength.

My feet didn’t stop moving until I reached the iron gates of my father’s estate.

The guards recognized me immediately. They bowed their heads and opened the gate without question. I didn’t wait for them to speak. I didn’t look at the horses tied near the stables and the cars in the garage. I didn’t breathe in the familiar oak-and-smoke scent of home.

I stormed inside.

The doors swung open as if sensing the fury inside me.

The house was quiet....too quiet. My father hated silence. He said silence meant a threat was creeping somewhere. But tonight, the halls were dead. Cold. Unmoving. I walked down them like a ghost seeking vengeance.

He was in his study.

Of course he was.

He sat with a glass of dark liquor in his hand, his broad shoulders tense, his back straight....not relaxed, but disciplined. His hair had streaks of silver now, though he’d never admit it. His wolf was old, powerful, enduring.

He lifted his head when I walked in....but his expression didn’t match the warmth a father should show when his daughter returns home unexpectedly.

No.

My father never looked soft.

He looked like a commander sizing up a battlefield.

"Lucy."

One word. Steady. Heavy. Weighted with the expectation that I would be equally composed.

But I wasn’t.

I didn’t bow. I didn’t speak respectfully. I didn’t pretend to be calm.

"You knew," I snapped.

His eyebrows rose, slowly, patiently.

"Knew what?"

I laughed. It sounded ugly. Bitter. Sharp enough to cut.

"That I was never going to be his mate. That this bond is a sham. That I am just...." My voice broke, and I swallowed it before it became weakness. **"....a political leash."

His expression didn’t change.

That made it worse.

"Sit," he said.

"No."

The glass in his hand made a soft clink as he set it down.

"Lucy."

"Don’t say my name like that," I snapped. "Like you're the only one who has the right to shape it. To shape me."

A muscle in his jaw ticked.

I stepped closer, teeth bared like an animal cornered.

"I begged him."

There. The truth. The shame. The wound.

I saw the impact in the flicker of his eyelid. The tightening of his shoulders.

But he didn’t speak.

So I pushed the knife deeper.

"I begged him to love me."

The air in the room snapped like a wire under strain.

My father stood.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Standing, he towered over me....not just in size, but in presence. His aura was a storm cloud, heavy and full of thunder.

"You begged?" he repeated, voice dangerously low.

I lifted my chin. "Yes."

Silence stretched tight between us.

Then....

The explosion hit.

"You do not beg."

The words were a growl, rumbling through the floorboards.

"You are my daughter. My blood. My heir. You do not kneel. You do not plead. And you never bend your neck to be loved like a starving animal."

Finally.

Emotion.

Finally, he looked like someone who cared.

My voice cracked. "What choice did I have? I was sent to him. I was given to him. You sent me to him.

You told me to beg him!"

"Not like that!."

"And what is it then?" I shouted.

He stepped closer, so close I could feel the heat of his anger.

"Duty is sacrifice."

"Then why am I the only one bleeding for it?"

His breath stopped.

That was the first time he looked uncertain.

Good.

Let him feel it.

Let someone else feel this weight.

He lowered his voice. "Because you are the only one strong enough to carry it."

I stared at him.

And then....

I laughed.

The sound cracked.

"Strength?" I whispered. "You call this strength? This....humiliation? This pain? This emptiness?"

His eyes hardened. "If it forges you into something unbreakable.....yes."

My hands trembled.

Not with fear.

With rage.

"I don’t want to be unbreakable," I said quietly. "I want to be loved."

The words hung in the air like ash.

My father didn’t speak for a long moment.

Then:

"If you cannot earn his love," he said finally, "then you will take it another way."

I froze.

"What?"

He turned away from me and retrieved his cloak.

"We are going to see the Lunar Witch."

The room tilted.

The air left my lungs.

"No."

He didn’t look at me. Didn’t slow. Didn’t ask.

"You are losing yourself. The witch will fix that."

"Father....no. The Lunar Witch plays with memory, with bonds, with fate. That magic is forbidden....."

He grabbed my wrist.

Not gently.

Not painfully.

But with absolute control.

"You are my daughter," he said. "And I will not watch you break yourself into dust over a man who refuses to see your worth."

"Let go."

"No."

My eyes burned. My voice trembled.

"I don’t want her magic."

"You want relief."

"I want my life to be mine."

His grip tightened.

"Then we reclaim it."

I tried to pull away.

He didn’t budge.

"Father...."

"Lucy." His voice was iron. "We are going."

And just like that....

He dragged me toward the door.

Not because I was weak.

But because I was tired.

Too tired to fight.

Too tired to keep standing.

Too tired to keep bleeding for something that kept cutting.

So I let him pull me into the night.

And I didn’t look back.

---

ROWAN’S POV

My daughter’s footsteps are softer than they used to be.

She used to walk like the earth owed her space. Like the air was just something she moved through. Like the world rearranged itself to suit her.

But now?

She walks like someone carrying stones inside her ribs.

I see it.

I saw it the moment she stepped into my study.

Her shoulders slumped with defeat.

Not pain.

Defeat.

And defeat is the one thing I will never allow to live in my bloodline.

Lucy is flame. I raised her to burn, not flicker.

But Adrian....Alpha King, chosen by prophecy, beloved by the Lunar Council....has allowed her fire to shrink to embers.

I cannot forgive him for that.

Even if this was fate.

Even if this was politics.

Even if this was destiny.

I will not let my daughter become a ghost in her own skin.

So I take her wrist.

She does not resist strongly.

That tells me everything.

She has reached the edge of herself.

And when a wolf reaches the edge....there are only two paths.

Break.

Or transcend.

The Lunar Witch does not heal wounds.

She rebuilds them.

Painfully.

Brutally.

But Lucy was born to endure.

She was born to reign.

And she will not break today.