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CHAPTER 24

ผู้เขียน: ANNA COLLINS
last update ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-06-18 21:58:21

I thought claiming my blood was the turning point.

But the moment I stood in the city square, my palm bleeding into Duskfall’s fountain and my magic pulsing white through the sky, something else cracked open.

Not just in me.

In the world.

The wind shifted. The air thickened. And somewhere in the forest, the Shadow King screamed.

Not in defeat.

In recognition.

By nightfall, the storms began.

They rolled in from the west black, unnatural, growling with lightning that didn’t flash, but crawled across the sky like veins.

The towers of Duskfall trembled. Wolves refused to shift. Even the strongest warriors curled beneath blankets, teeth chattering, eyes wild.

Whatever I had done that morning… it had stirred something awake.

Something ancient.

Something watching.

And worst of all I could feel it watching through me.

Rafael returned to the throne hall just after sunset.

He wasn’t in full armor. Just black linen, his tunic half-buttoned, the edges stained where the healers couldn’t scrub the
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  • Rejected by the lycan king   CHAPTER 30

    The Hollow Crown no longer sat in silence.When I returned to the tower at dawn, it was pulsing. Each bone spire glowing with a dull white fire, humming with power. My sigils responded before I even crossed the threshold, flaring down my arms like they had been waiting, like the crown and I had agreed long ago to meet here, at the edge of transformation.Rafael stood in the doorway behind me. He said nothing.He didn’t need to.He knew this was the moment we had been walking toward all along.I stepped toward the pedestal, toward the crown that had haunted my dreams and blood. The voices were louder now past queens, forgotten daughters, the Mother of Hollow herself. They didn’t shout. They sang. A melody of sorrow and power and promise.“It is time,” they whispered.So I picked up the Hollow Crown.And placed it on my head.The magic didn’t explode.It didn’t burn.It invited.My breath caught as warmth flooded every nerve, as the weight of bone and shadow settled over my temples. My

  • Rejected by the lycan king   CHAPTER 29

    The Hollow Crown rested in a velvet-lined box beside my bed, its bone carved from the remains of something ancient a creature or a woman or a god, no one knew for certain. Each curve of the twisted crown seemed to move when I wasn’t looking. It whispered. It pulsed. And I hadn't touched it since the moment I carried it into the tower.But it was touching me.Every day since, the air had grown thinner. The light dimmer. Duskfall’s wolves began to dream in tongues. Infants born in the outer villages were said to come into the world silent, with eyes clouded in silver. My people had once feared me for what I carried. Now they feared what I had become.And still, I hadn’t worn it.I sat in silence on the high tower ledge, staring down at the courtyard far below. A patrol of guards passed through, flanked by a caravan carrying wounded from the forest border. Shadow creatures had returned to the outer woods, more aggressive this time. Smarter. They didn’t kill. They whispered. And those who

  • Rejected by the lycan king   CHAPTER 28

    The next morning, the scout who returned from the temple was gone.Not dead.Just… vanished.Her cell was shattered from the inside. No magic registered on the warded door. No scent. No trace. Only one thing remained:A spiral carved into the stone floor in her own blood.The mark of the First Curse.I didn’t sleep.Didn’t eat.Just walked the halls of Duskfall with fire in my veins and questions clawing at my chest.What had I unleashed?And worseWhat had survived it?The Widow’s Wing gave me my answer.Buried beneath Lysandra’s doctrine beneath the folded notes and faded maps was a scroll bound in obsidian wax. The seal wasn’t royal. It wasn’t even Lycan.It was Celestial.The language inside shimmered under my touch. The words resisted translation until I whispered the sigils burned across my skin.Then, they obeyed.In the beginning, the Moon birthed two daughters.One of light, who walked in prophecy.And one of silence, who bore the First Curse.The light was crowned.The silen

  • Rejected by the lycan king   CHAPTER 27

    They bowed when I returned to Duskfall.Not because they loved me.Not because they feared me.Because they no longer knew what I was.The Hollow-Blooded had no mask anymore. I walked through the gates of the inner keep with light pulsing through my skin, my sigils silver and black and gold all at once, shifting with each breath like living flame.The magic I took from the temple hadn’t faded.It had simply… settled.Inside me.Around me.Through me.And I didn’t need to speak to be heard now.Even the stone listened.Rafael stood on the steps of the throne room, arms crossed, brow shadowed beneath his crown. He didn’t move as I approached. He didn’t smile.He just watched me.As if uncertain whether the woman before him was the same one he’d once pulled from a shallow grave of rejection and ruin.“Are you going to say something?” I asked softly.He looked at me for a long moment.Then: “Are you still her?”I blinked. “Her who?”“My mate.”The words cut deeper than I expected.“I don’

  • Rejected by the lycan king   CHAPTER 26

    The temple was older than memory.Built before packs. Before kingdoms. Before even the Moon was worshipped by name.It stood at the heart of the jagged ridge, surrounded by a circle of dead trees and cracked stone. Its archways glowed faintly with sigils not even the Doctrine could translate. Its spires pierced the sky like broken teeth, and inside something waited.Not alive.Not dead.Just ancient.We arrived at dusk. Dahlia trailed behind me, silent, uncertain. She hadn’t spoken since we crossed the warded threshold. Her dreams, her loyalties, her doubts they hung in the air like smoke.“I can feel it watching,” she whispered.“So can I.”Inside, the walls pulsed with soft white light.Not magic exactly something older, more divine.My sigils responded instantly. They moved across my skin like they recognized the stone. Like they were home.In the center of the temple stood a pedestal carved from moonstone, glowing faintly. A single phrase hovered above it, burned into the air by m

  • Rejected by the lycan king   CHAPTER 25

    The forest was too quiet.I’d grown used to the sounds of Duskfall boots on stone, the distant clang of steel, the whisper of wolves moving through trees. But here, in the heart of the old lands, the silence was not peaceful.It was absolute.Like the world had been told to hold its breath until I passed.I moved through it slowly, my senses sharp. My wolf stayed half-shifted beneath my skin, claws itching at the surface. The sigils on my arms glowed faintly in the moonlight a map of who I had been, and who I was becoming.I reached the edge of the clearing at dawn.The Shadow King’s stronghold wasn’t a fortress.It was a ruin.Half-buried stone columns, split and blackened by age. An altar at the center, scorched and cracked. And hanging above itMy stepmother, Lucretia.She dangled from black cords, unconscious but breathing.At the far end, Alpha Kieran lay chained to a broken throne, blood dried along his jawline. His eyes opened slowly when I stepped forward.“…Ophelia?” he ras

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