I Cheated Back On My Mate: Now I'm In Serious Trouble!의 모든 챕터: 챕터 11 - 챕터 19

The Council chamber had barely settled after the dart when the summons came—Mother wasn’t in her room anymore. She’d been moved, taken into “protective isolation.” The words reeked of lies. Protective meant hidden. Isolation meant leverage.I couldn’t stop pacing the polished stone floor of the guest wing Damian had corralled me into. Every echo of my boots hit like thunder in my skull.She was here. Somewhere in this fortress, my mother sat alone, maybe shackled, maybe terrified, while I stood useless under gilded ceilings.I stopped at the tall window, palms pressed against the cold glass. Beyond, the Council House courtyard was a web of torchlight and armored shadows. Too many guards, too many eyes. It felt like being locked in a glass cage with predators circling outside.A sound behind me made my pulse jerk. Damian leaned in the doorway, jacket unbuttoned, shirt sleeves rolled back, looking like sin dressed in silk. He didn’t speak at first, just watched me—like I was the only th

The silence was worse than the screams.For a second, my brain refused to believe it. The world had gone suddenly, brutally quiet—too quiet. The kind of silence that eats sound, that feels heavy, wrong. My lungs forgot how to breathe. My body forgot how to move.“Mom?” The word scraped out of me like gravel.No answer.Then Damian’s voice cut through the haze, low and sharp. “Stay here.”“No.” My head snapped toward him. “She was calling for me—she—”“Aria.” His tone was a warning. A leash.And I broke it.I ran.The corridor was a blur—black walls, gold light, the echo of my own boots pounding marble. I didn’t even realize I was crying until the air caught in my throat and burned. Every corner I turned felt wrong. I could feel her, the way a bond hums right before it snaps.Don’t let it snap. Please, don’t let it snap.When I burst into the holding wing, the scent hit me first—metallic, hot. Blood.“Goddess,” I whispered.The guards were already dead. Two of them lay crumpled near th

The forest burned silver.Not fire—energy. It rippled through the mist like waves under glass, humming low and deep, a sound that crawled beneath my skin.Damian stood in front of me, every muscle coiled tight, blade glinting in his hand. The masked enforcer didn’t move, but power radiated from him like heat off stone.“Last warning,” the enforcer said. “Surrender the girl.”Girl. Like I was a thing. A prize.Something inside me snapped.Damian shifted, ready to strike, but I could already feel it rising—the strange pulse that had saved us before. It started in my chest this time, a burning throb that spread to my fingertips.The enforcer raised his hand, and the air bent around it. Bolts of condensed light formed—three of them—aimed straight at us.“Aria!” Damian’s voice came sharp. “Don’t—”Too late. The world slowed again.The bolts floated toward us in impossible silence, silver threads tracing their paths. I saw them, understood them—their rhythm, their structure, the way energy

The city had fallen away into darkness.Wind tore at my hair as the hoverbike sliced through the night, leaving streaks of blue vapor in its wake. Below us, the lights of the lower sectors flickered — a dying pulse of civilization. By the time Damian eased the throttle down and guided us beneath a collapsing bridge, my entire body was trembling — not just from cold, but from the adrenaline that hadn’t burned out yet.The bike landed with a low hum on a circular platform. A hatch opened in the concrete, and we sank into shadow.It wasn’t until the metal doors sealed shut above us that I realized I’d been clutching Damian’s jacket so tightly that my knuckles hurt.“Let go,” he murmured, not unkindly.I did — reluctantly.The space we entered wasn’t like anything I’d expected from a man like him. No gilded furniture, no sterile corporate walls. The hideout pulsed faintly with light — invisible glyphs running across smooth black surfaces, computers whispering quietly to themselves. It sme

The blast threw Aria to the ground. Dust and fire filled the air, burning her lungs as she coughed and tried to crawl towards Damian’s voice.“Aria—stay low!”Gunfire cracked through the smoke. Blue energy bolts lit the darkness, slicing through metal and stone. Council soldiers poured in — armored, silent, their visors pulsing with red light.Damian grabbed her arm, hauling her behind an overturned table. “They tracked the signature. Someone must’ve leaked your DNA trace.”“My what?” She rasped.Before he could answer, a plasma shot grazed his shoulder. He hissed in pain, firing back with brutal precision.Adrenaline burned through her veins, but underneath it — something else pulsed. A low, humming vibration, deep in her bones. The sound wasn’t from outside. It was inside her.Her heartbeat quickened. The air around her seemed to thrum, bending with invisible static.Damian noticed first. “Aria… what’s happening to you?”“I— I don’t know,” she gasped.A soldier fired — the beam aime