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CHAPTER 39: The Envoy In Silk And Smoke
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2025-08-29 22:55:52
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The Billionaire’s Marked Mate CHAPTER 39: The Envoy In Silk And Smoke
The morning after the feast did not feel like reprieve.It felt like a spotlight.Zaria woke in sheets so soft they seemed poured rather than woven, her body aching not from chains but from the weight of too much silk, too much gold, too much watching. The banquet had crowned her with admiration and suspicion alike. The nobility of the House of Wolfe had clinked crystal and kissed her cheeks, but their smiles were all teeth.Now, sunlight sliced through the penthouse suite, glittering off the skyline. The Wolfe estate, for all its whispers of ancient lineage, was in truth a fortress of glass and steel—an empire Lucien had built as ruthlessly as his ancestors built their courts.And outside, helicopters still circled like vultures. The press hadn’t stopped since dawn.Lucien stood at the window, shirt unbuttoned at the throat, coffee in hand. He hadn’t spoken yet, but Zaria felt the silence was not peace—it was calculation.“They know,” he finally said, his voice low. “Not of Caelus—no
The Billionaire’s Marked Mate CHAPTER 38: The Feast Of Masks
The tribunal chamber emptied not with resolution but with exhaustion—guards dragging Selene away in shackles, the nobility murmuring in fractured flocks, and the smoke of Caelus’s vanishing lingering like a bitter incense. Zaria had never felt stone walls hold so much tension, as though even the marble remembered what had transpired. By the time dawn broke fully, the estate moved with a strange rhythm—servants scrubbing blood from the floor tiles, stewards rushing to rehang banners, and heralds carrying new decrees to every quarter of the domain. The decree was simple: Order will be restored. And so, by command of the High Council, a feast was declared. A feast to bury whispers, to gild over cracks with gold leaf, to remind every house that the estate of shadows had not broken under its own secrets. It was to be a display of power. It was to be a masquerade of victory. And Zaria was to be its centerpiece. ⸻ By dusk, Zaria was no longer dressed in tribunal clothes but in the fu
The Billionaire’s Marked Mate CHAPTER 37: Binding Or Breaking
The dawn light spilled over, gilding the tribunal chamber in a cruel parody of serenity.Every noble line of the estate had gathered. Jewels winked on collars, rings heavy with blood-oaths glinted on trembling hands. Silks rustled as bodies shifted restlessly in the gallery, and the scent of amber oil clung to the air, as though wealth itself could shield them from what was to come.And in the center, stood Caelus.The shadow wore no mortal guise now. He was stretched tall and lean, skin like ash, eyes hollow furnaces of smoldering smoke. The man who had once been a guardian, a brother to Lucien’s bloodline, now looked every inch the revenant he had become—an echo given flesh by betrayal, power, and rage.“Bind me,” he rasped, his voice carrying without effort. “Or break. No chains can hold me otherwise. No walls, no seals. Only choice.”The tribunal hushed.Zaria could hear her heartbeat against her ribs. She felt Lucien beside her, the quiet storm of his presence a weight she leaned
The Billionaire’s Marked Mate CHAPTER 36: The Dawn Tribunal
The decree of Lord Valerius had spread like wildfire: a dawn tribunal, with Caelus as witness and weapon. It meant no side could retreat. No mask could be held in reserve. By sunrise, someone would fall. ⸻ Zaria had been escorted to her chambers under heavy guard. Not a prison cell, but it may as well have been—locks clicked into place, the corridors bristled with sentries, and even the drapes shivered with the unease of being watched. She sat on the edge of the bed, still in the dark gown from the banquet-turned-battlefield. Her fingers trembled against the velvet coverlet. The shadow’s face—Caelus’s face—burned behind her eyes. His voice lingered, a phantom thread: “We were bound long before you were born.” Bound to her. Bound to Lucien. Bound to the house itself. And at dawn, that bond would be paraded before every hungry pair of eyes in the estate. The door creaked, and Lucien slipped inside. Not through the guards, but despite them. His cloak trailed smoke where he had b
The Billionaire’s Marked Mate CHAPTER 35: The Noose Tightens
Selene stood at the center of that silence. Her wrists were bound in iron that shimmered faintly with wards, designed to bind not just flesh but magic. The sharp arch of her cheekbones, once a weapon in courtly smiles, now only framed eyes too wide, too frantic. She tried for composure — chin lifted, lips pressed thin — but her breathing betrayed her. Lucien did not look at her. He stood beside Zaria, hand grazing hers just enough that she could feel his pulse: steady, deliberate, as though commanding her to anchor herself to his rhythm. The Lord Valerius voice broke the stillness. “Selene of the House Ashcroft. You stand accused of consorting with the shadow that stalks this estate, of conspiring to bring ruin upon these halls, and of—” “Lies!” Selene’s voice rang sharp, brittle as cracked glass. “You twist what you do not understand. This entire charade is nothing but—” But then the torches flickered. The chamber darkened — not in the way of flame waning but as though the ver
The Billionaire’s Marked Mate CHAPTER 34: The Crimson Snare
The corridors of the Vane estate never slept. Even in the hush before dawn, whispers slid through the walls like smoke, carrying rumors, suspicions, and lies. And tonight, those whispers had a new edge: evidence. Fabricated, but damning enough to ignite a storm.Zaria stood by the long balcony window in Lucien’s chamber, her hand curled tightly around the decoy they had prepared—a tattered scrap of crimson fabric, torn and stained, its edges smeared with that faint, unnatural shadow essence. The planted object looked exactly like the one found in her room earlier, except this one was real enough to turn the game in their favor.She glanced back at Lucien, who leaned against the carved obsidian table, arms folded, his expression unreadable.“They wanted to frame me,” Zaria whispered, her voice laced with both fury and determination. “Now we’ll make them choke on their own lies.”Lucien’s eyes softened at her words, though his tone remained precise, strategic. “This is more than surviva
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