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Rightly mine

Author: Author Calypso
last update Last Updated: 2025-07-06 22:28:17

ALTHEA

Moonlight spills across the forest floor, silver and bright, bright enough that we don’t even need torches. It filters through the leaves, casting shifting patterns on the dirt path. I watch my muddied boots crunch over twigs and fallen leaves, trying not to let my mind drift too far ahead to what’s waiting for us.

Theo walks at the front, shoulders squared, steps steady. He suddenly lifts a hand, and we all stop behind him. I breathe out, finally feeling the ache in my legs.

“We’ll camp here for the night,” he says. His voice is tired, but certain. That’s enough to keep the rest of us from arguing.

People start moving almost at once. Bags drop to the ground. Jarek and two others clear a wide circle of rocks and debris, stomping down the grass to flatten it. I help Liza pull free the thick canvas from her pack. We shake it out, stretch it, drive stakes into the hard ground. It takes effort, my arms burn from pounding the wood into place, but soon, little tents dot the clearing.
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  • The Mate Games   He’s a killer

    ALTHEAThat day, all those years ago, they told me it was an accident.That my mother’s death was a terrible, tragic accident.I held onto that lie like a lifeline, because the truth, whatever it really was, had always been too dark, too painful, too dangerous to face. But now, standing here, breathing in the sharp morning air, the truth wraps itself around my ribs like a vice.And it’s choking me.My chest is tight, too tight. I close my eyes and try to inhale slowly, evenly, but it feels like I’ve forgotten how to breathe altogether. My fingers are trembling, my knees feel weak, and the world has gone oddly quiet, like it’s holding its breath right along with me.Because now… everything makes sense.Why we had to move so suddenly. Why I’ve always felt drawn to him in a way I couldn’t explain. The strange connection. The dreams that haunted my sleep and left me gasping in the dark. My body, my mind, they remembered him before I ever consciously did.I recognized him.Some part of me

  • The Mate Games   A choice

    ASHERI don’t say anything for a while after she leaves. The door clicks shut, and I’m left staring at the empty space where Elise had just stood. My thoughts are a mess. The silence in the room is loud, pressing in from every corner, but it’s still not enough to drown out what she said.Caroline.She lied.She faked a pregnancy.With my child.I drag a hand down my face, exhaling slowly, trying to keep the fury locked inside. It claws at my chest, hot and wild, and it takes everything in me not to let it tear its way out. I’d been grieving something that was never real. Mourning a life that never existed. I’d allowed guilt to dig its roots into my spine because I thought I had failed someone.And all this time, it was just a ploy.A trap.A desperate attempt to manipulate my name, my title, me, into submission.I want to scream. Throw something. Shatter the mirror in the corner, or maybe the walls themselves. Instead, I just breathe. In. Out. Slow. Controlled. Barely.It’s not just t

  • The Mate Games   The full dream

    ALTHEAI don’t realize I’ve started dreaming until it’s already too late.But this one isn’t like the usual ones. It’s vivid. Clear as glass. So sharp it feels like I’m living it all over again.I’m small. Maybe nine or ten. My hands are pudgy and grass-stained, my bare feet soft against the earth. I’m playing in the front of our old house,before we moved, before the war, before the fear. The sun is warm on my skin, the sky above me the kind of blue that only exists in childhood. I laugh as I run, chasing nothing in particular, spinning until I fall back into the grass.Then I see it. A butterfly.It flutters just beyond reach, soft, pale wings flashing with hints of gold and blue. I giggle and scramble up, forgetting whatever game I’d been playing. My fingers stretch toward it, always a second too slow. It dips and rises, then floats away from the house. Toward the trees.I follow.It’s only when the sunlight starts to vanish behind thick branches that I slow down. The forest isn’t

  • The Mate Games   Varya’s diary entry 13

    Many decades ago…I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending.Every day, I wake up hoping something will feel different, better. That maybe whatever is clawing inside my chest will stop. That the air won’t feel so thick, so hard to breathe. But it never changes. If anything, it’s worse now. He doesn’t see it, or maybe he just doesn’t want to. He looks at me like I’m glowing, like I’m everything he’s ever wanted. I wish I felt the same.The physician came this morning. I’d been sick for weeks, nausea, headaches, weakness that made it hard to even stand some days. I thought it was just the aftershock of the bond, or the mark still refusing to heal. But then he looked at me, wide-eyed, and said it.Pregnant.I’m pregnant.I should be happy. I should be overjoyed. My husband certainly is. He picked me up and spun me around like we were living in some fairy tale, not whatever this is. He said it was a blessing. A miracle. That this child will be the true heir of the white wolf and

  • The Mate Games   D-day

    ANONYMOUS POVI didn’t mean to hurt the king. Not at first.I didn’t want to silence him forever, not really. But he found out. He figured it out, who I really am. That I’ve been working with the revolutionaries from the inside all along. That it was me. Me behind most of the attacks. Me feeding them secrets. Me hiding in plain sight, smiling, bowing, laughing when I needed to, all while plotting the collapse of this crown from within.When I realized he knew, panic took over. I didn’t think, just reacted. One second he was pointing a trembling finger at me, and the next… the dagger in my hand was red.I meant for him to bleed out. I prayed he wouldn’t survive. But he did.And by some miracle, or curse, it was all blamed on the attackers. No one suspected I was the one who had driven the blade into the king’s side.But luck has a short shelf life.He didn’t die. He lived. Barely.They said he was in a coma. Said he wouldn’t wake up. But I’ve never been one to take chances. So, I made

  • The Mate Games   Varya’s diary entry 12

    Many decades ago…I warned him.I told him over and over again that it wasn’t worth it. That pushing too far, too fast, would only bring disaster. But he didn’t listen. He never does when it comes to power. To his wolf. To proving that he was right, that he didn’t choose wrong.And now I’m the one paying the price for it.The day of the ritual came like a storm. Heavy. Loud. Unstoppable. I woke that morning with my chest tight and a weight in my stomach I couldn’t shake. I begged him one last time to reconsider, to wait. But his eyes were already far away, locked on a future I couldn’t see.“This is the only way,” he said.He told me that without full access to the white wolf, without proving complete control, there could be no coronation. No throne. No kingdom. No peace.And so, despite every part of me screaming to run, I stayed. I stood beside him in that cold stone circle, surrounded by old blood and older magic. I let them take my hand. I watched the blade slice my skin open, wat

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