Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Dumb Cursed Heiress and Her Mates: Reborn For Revenge : Kabanata 131 - Kabanata 140

Nadia’s povI forgave Maya for trying to kill me. For hurting my family. For being a monster. She was made that way. She did not choose it.I forgave the Council for creating her. For using her. For throwing her away. They were afraid. That did not excuse them, but I understood.I forgave myself. For being afraid. For doubting. For almost giving up.The darkness choked.It did not know what to do with forgiveness. It could not consume it. It could not digest it. Forgiveness was not food. It was not fuel. It was a balm. A healing. A light that did not burn but soothed.The dark core began to crack.Outside, I heard Maya's voice. Distant. Screaming. "No! What are you doing? Stop! You are breaking it!"I kept going.I poured forgiveness into the darkness like water into a cracked pot. It leaked. It spilled. But some of it stayed. Some of it sank in.The dark core began to glow. Not with my silver light. With its own. A soft, grey light. The light of something old and tired finally being

Nadia's POVThree months had passed since Maya's end. Three months of quiet. Three months of healing. Three months of thinking the worst was behind us.I was wrong.It started with a smell.Breakfast in the great hall. Eggs. Bacon. Fresh bread with honey. My favorite meal. I sat between Noah and Neal, listening to them argue about patrol routes, when the smell of the eggs hit my nose.Not a good smell. A wrong smell. A smell that made my stomach turn inside out.I pushed back from the table and ran.I made it to the garden before my body gave up. I fell to my knees behind a rose bush and lost everything I had eaten the night before. My stomach heaved and heaved until there was nothing left.Then it heaved again."Nadia?" Neal's voice was behind me. His hand was on my back, warm and worried. "What happened? Are you sick?"I spat onto the grass and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "I don't know. The eggs. They smelled... wrong."Noah appeared on my other side, his face pale. "Th

Nadia's pov Lyra thought. "Thorne is old. Older than any of us. He was part of the original team that created Maya. He always believed she was a success, not a failure. He argued against containing her. He wanted to study her further, to use her power.""So he might want to free her," I said. "To continue his work.""Or he might want to use the Anchor for himself," Lyra said. "It is a powerful artifact. It can transfer souls. Trap them. Move them. A being like Thorne, who is tired of his vampire body, might want to find a new one."Noah's jaw tightened. "A younger body. A stronger body.""Perhaps," Lyra said. "Or perhaps he simply wants to finish what he started. To see Maya's potential realized."Neal ran his hands through his hair. "So we have a missing vampire, a missing artifact, and a fragment of a dead witch's mind. Great. Fantastic.""We need to decide," I said. "Are we doing this or not?"Noah looked at me. "You are pregnant. Our child is growing inside you. Every time we go

Nadia's pov I turned the page."She knows things. Things the Council would kill to learn. Things about the crucible. About the soul-forge. About the child who will come. I promised her information in exchange for her silence. But the information is dangerous. If the Council finds out I have been speaking with her, they will destroy me. If Nadia finds out, she will never forgive me."My hands were shaking. "He was keeping secrets. Before I was even born into this body. Before any of this started."Neal read over my shoulder. "The Archivist. I have heard that name before. In old stories. A woman who collects forbidden knowledge. She was supposed to be dead.""Maybe she is not," Noah said. "Maybe Elias was working with her. Feeding her information. And now he owes her a debt."I turned more pages. The entries were cryptic. Fragments of thoughts. Pieces of a puzzle I did not understand."The Archivist wants the Soul-Anchor. She believes it can unlock the Council's vault. She believes it c

Nadia's POVWe did not wait.The documents from the safe house were still warm in my hands when we stepped through the portal back to the Council's chamber. No summons this time. No polite request. We burst into their hall like a storm.Elder Grendel looked up from his seat, his bear-like face shifting from surprise to annoyance. Lyra the witch was there too, her silver-flame hair flickering with alarm. The Fae man narrowed his eyes. Other Council members I did not know stared at us with cold, ancient eyes."You cannot simply barge in here," Grendel said, his voice a low rumble. "There are protocols. Procedures.""Burn your protocols," Noah said, slamming the stack of documents onto the central table. "We found these in a Dawnfire safe house. They belong to you. They detail experiments. Projects. Lies."Grendel's face went still. Too still. "Where did you get those?""From my father's hidden room," I said, stepping forward. My belly was round now, impossible to hide. I did not try. "T