My Ex-mate’s father is my fate

The silence that followed the roar was louder than the noise itself. It pressed against my eardrums, heavy and suffocating. My breath came in ragged, shallow hitches. I could still feel the heat of the shadow power humming under my skin, but it was retreating, pulling back into the dark corners of my soul where Nyx lived.I looked at my hands. They were trembling. The shadows that had wrapped around me like a protective cloak were gone, leaving me standing there in my ruined, dirt-stained white dress. I felt naked. I felt exposed under the cold, purple light of the dying moon."What was that?" someone whispered from the back of the crowd. The question broke the spell. The fear that had kept everyone frozen began to melt, but it didn't turn back into the respect I had known my whole life. It curdled into something sharp and ugly.I looked at Kael. He was standing on the cracked stage, his chest heaving. He wasn't looking at me with love. He wasn't even looking at me with the guilt I h

The city didn’t smell like the forest. It smelled like exhaust, old garbage, and too many people. The neon lights of New York burned my eyes, a far cry from the bruising purple moon I had left behind in the forbidden woods.My feet were bare. The pavement was cold and gritty, biting into the cuts I had gotten while running through the briars. I had been moving for days, fueled by nothing but spite and the dark, humming hunger of Nyx. I pulled my torn dress tighter around my shoulders. It was a rag now, the white silk stained grey and brown. I looked like a ghost haunting the back alleys, a discarded thing that didn't belong in this world of steel and glass.My wrist throbbed. The broken mark felt like a brand of ice against my skin. I kept my arm pulled close to my chest, hiding the rotting grey symbol from the world. I turned into a narrow alley, hoping for a shortcut or a place to hide for an hour. The shadows here felt different. They didn't feel like Nyx. They felt oily. Dangero

The tires of the black sedan crunched over the gravel of the Silver Moon driveway. This was the same path I had crawled down six months ago, bleeding and broken. The packhouse was ablaze with light. Music spilled out of the open windows, a upbeat rhythm that felt like a slap in the face. They were celebrating. They were happy I was gone.Darius sat beside me, his presence a wall of freezing stone. He didn't look at the house. He looked at me. "Ready?" he asked. I looked at my reflection in the darkened window. My hair was sleek, falling in dark waves that caught the light. My dress was a gown of midnight silk that seemed to move even when I was still. It didn't just cling to my body, it felt like it was made of the very shadows I now controlled. The leather cuff on my wrist hid the grey, rotting mark of the rejection. I wasn't that girl anymore. "I've been ready since the moment I left," I said. The valet opened the door. I stepped out, the cool night air hitting my skin. I didn

The sound of shattering glass was the only music I wanted to hear. It was the sound of Kael’s perfect life cracking right down the middle. Kael stared at me, his mouth hanging open like a fish out of water. He looked at the leather cuff on my wrist, then back at my face. He was searching for the girl who had begged for his mercy in the den. He was looking for the sister who had been cast out like a stray dog.He wouldn't find her. That girl was buried under six months of ash and shadow."Lyra," he whispered again. The name sounded like a curse on his tongue. "You... you look...""Better?" I finished for him. I let my gaze sweep over him, lingering on the way his expensive suit didn't quite hide the way his hands were shaking. "Stronger? Like someone you should have thought twice about throwing away?""You're a rogue," Seraphina shrieked, stepping over the mess of her broken glass. She was shaking with a rage that turned her face a blotchy, ugly red. "You were exiled! Guards! Why is s

The restricted wing was a tomb of velvet and shadow. The air here was different from the rest of the mansion. It didn't smell like the expensive floor wax or the heavy perfumes of the gala. It smelled like ancient dust and cold stone. It smelled like secrets. Darius walked beside me, his long strides forced into a slow, deliberate pace. He was a pillar of darkness, his presence a shield that kept the prying eyes of the pack far away. Even he couldn't hide the tension radiating off his body. My arm still throbbed where Kael had bruised it earlier in the hall. The memory of him on his knees made a spark of dark satisfaction flare in my chest. He was a king of nothing, a man who couldn't even stand against his father’s shadow. We passed rows of heavy oak doors, all of them locked, all of them silent. This was the part of the mansion that felt more like a fortress. "Why are we here, Darius?" I asked. My voice felt too loud in the stillness. It bounced off the dark walls and died in