GODDESS BABY

MAYA

The cold silence in the room stretched between us, thick enough to suffocate a person. Edward stared at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of confusion and sudden revulsion as he pulled the bedsheets up to his chest.

My breath hitched in my throat, my hands trembling violently against the silk of my nightgown. My mind was spinning out of control, racing through a hundred terrifying possibilities. The only thing I could read from this is that Philomena was here and she slept with Edward!

If someone had been here in this palace, sleeping in my bed, satisfying my mate, touching him morning and night while I was trudging through red dirt miles away, then who was it? Whose body was she in? Was it a demon? A shapeshifter? Or a phantom summoned by the dark magic of the pack lands?

Goddess above, I cried out in my heart, clutching my trembling head. This rebirth journey is not even easy on me that rebirthed to deal with Maria.

Every step forward felt like falling into a deeper pit. I had died in blood, laid in a cold grave for five agonizing days, and dragged my soul back into the realm of the living just to bring justice to the woman who murdered me. Yet here I was, accused of turning ugly and wrinkled overnight by the man who was supposed to be my soulmate.

But then, if she was here, where then is she at the moment? Did the entity dissolve back into the shadows the second I stepped back into the room? And if she was here, so whose spirit dwells in me? What am I? Am I truly Princess Philomena returned in Maya's skin, or am I just a hollow vessel being manipulated by forces I don't understand?

My head began to spin as I think about all of this. The walls of the bedroom seemed to close in on me, tilting back and forth as heavy nausea rolled through my stomach.

Edward’s harsh tone suddenly softened, replaced by a wave of genuine worry as he saw me swaying on the bed, clutching my temples and gasping for air. He moved closer, reaching out to wrap his arms around my shoulders, though I could feel the slight hesitation in his touch.

"Maya? Maya, look at me," Edward kept asking if I was okay. "What is happening to you? Are you sick? Do I need to see a doctor and all of that? Should I call the pack healer right now?"

"No!" I choked out, pushing his hands away gently as fresh tears spilled over my cheeks. "No doctor! No healers!"

A doctor couldn't fix a soul that was bleeding from ancestral magic. A healer couldn't examine a spirit caught between the graveyard and the throne. All I need to see is the Goddess of the Moon. Only the divine mother who wove the threads of fate could explain why my life was falling apart in slow motion. Not even a seer or the Mr. Orlando can help me at this point. Mr. Orlando was just a man of the dirt, and the seers were blind to the true power of the royal bloodline.

Or maybe the book.

My eyes slowly drifted toward the dark wooden chest resting in the corner of the room. The ancient leather journal was locked inside. I remembered how reading it made Maria scream, how it summoned ghastly visions of Princess Philomena to tear her mind apart. Reading it makes Maria sick, but what do I care?

Maria had stolen my life, and my crown. If reading my ancestors' sacred text burned her soul to ashes, then so be it. She deserved every single drop of agony.

I scrambled off the bed, ignoring Edward’s bewildered calls as he shouted my name. I ran to the chest, unlocked it with shaking fingers, and pulled out the heavy, leather-bound journal. I threw myself down on the floor right beside the moonlight, ignoring the cold stone biting into my knees.

I brought out the book and flipped to the center page, not knowing what it contained.

My tears dripped onto the dry parchment. Instantly, as if responding to my desperation, the blank center page began to hum with a soft, ethereal golden light. The silver moonlight from the window hit the paper, and dark, glowing runes flared to life, arranging themselves into lines of ancient text that burned directly into my mind.

I Leaned closer, my heart hammering against my ribs as I read the divine words written by the ancient queens:

“Thirty-six days to stay away from a man is necessary after visiting the grave side of your past life.”

My breath hitched in my throat as my eyes rushed across the next line:

“The mortal body cannot handle the immediate merge of ancient spiritual energy and raw physical lust. Only a few married ones gets to have a soul represent them while they heal. Going to the grave and connecting with the soil of your grave and past spirit makes the reincarnated soul wrinkle, but with time it clears.”

I gasped, covering my mouth as a flood of pure relief and profound understanding washed over my soul.

After reading it, I realized that somehow the Goddess sent a spirit to satisfy Edward! The divine mother had protected my sacred healing period. She had shielded my frail, rebirth-worn body from being touched while my skin absorbed the harsh ancestral power of the grave.

The wrinkled, dark skin Edward saw right now was not a curse, it was simply the physical toll of the grave soil wearing off my body, a temporary veil that would clear with time as my true royal beauty restored itself!

My chest heaved with quiet sobs as the heavy burden of fear lifted off my shoulders. I was not possessed. I was not replaced by a demon. I was being protected by the very Goddess I had doubted.

Then I continued reading, turning to the bottom of the page where the glowing gold runes grew even brighter, revealing the final, beautiful truth:

And saw where it says, “Most times, the Goddess does not send any spirit; she just confuses the spouses of the favorite rebirth to think that the wife is there, but truth, she is old and wrinkled and almost unnoticed.”

I let out a breathless, tearful laugh in the quiet dark room.

There was no stranger in my bed! There was no other woman! The Goddess of the Moon had simply cast a divine glamour over Edward's mind while I was away walking those seven long days. In his mind, he believed he was holding me, loving me, and waking up beside me every morning. His eyes had been blinded by a holy illusion so he wouldn't notice my absence, and now that I had returned, the illusion was lifting, exposing the temporary, wrinkled state of my spiritual transition under the full moon!

From across the hallway, a high-pitched, curdling shriek suddenly shattered the quiet night.

"SHE IS IN THE MIRROR!" Maria’s hysterical voice echoed through the stone walls, followed by the heavy crash of breaking glass. "PHILOMENA IS STANDING IN MY ROOM! REMOVE HER FROM ME!"

The book's power was already rippling through the palace, tearing through Maria's guilty mind just like it always did whenever I opened its pages.

Edward turned his head toward the door, his face pale with alarm as Maria's screams continued to echo down the corridor. He looked back down at me, sitting on the floor with the glowing book in my lap, his eyes wide with absolute bewilderment.

"Maya..." Edward whispered, his voice trembling as he looked at my face, then toward the hall, completely lost in the web of divine magic surrounding his house. "What is going on in this home?"

I closed the journal slowly, feeling the warm, steady pulse of my ancestors humming beneath my palms. I looked up at Edward, wiping the tears from my cheeks, feeling the cold insecurity drain completely out of my heart.

My skin was dark and wrinkled tonight, but it was the mark of a queen rising from her own ashes. Time was on my side, the Goddess was guarding my path, and Maria's days in this palace were officially numbered.

"Nothing is wrong, Edward," I said softly, standing up from the floor with the heavy book clutched tightly against my chest, a cold, serene smile touching my lips. "The Goddess is simply fixing what was broken."