Semua Bab The Lycan's Contract Bride : Bab 21 - Bab 30

Aria's POV The Sanctum's entrance responded to my blood, but instead of opening, it pulled me into its memory.One moment I stood pregnant and pain-wracked before ancient doors. The next, I was watching my mother twenty-five years younger, standing in the same spot, while my father held a silver blade to her throat."David Rivera," she said calmly despite the weapon. "The Blackthorne family's finest hunter. They sent you to kill the last Primordial heir.""They sent me to kill a monster." My father's younger face was hard, professional. "Seraphina Erebis. Daughter of chaos. Keeper of the old ways.""Is that what Marcus's father told you?" She laughed, and goddess fire danced in her eyes. "Richard Blackthorne has been planning this for decades. Kill me, and my power transfers to the nearest blood relative. My cousin. His wife."My father hesitated. In that heartbeat of doubt, my mother moved. Not to attack, but to show him something. She pressed her palm to the Sanctum door, and it bl

Aria's POV The moon goddess materialized in our courtyard like silver fog given form, and she looked ancient.Selene's usual radiance was dimmed to a flicker. Her silver hair was white with exhaustion, her eternal youth cracked with lines of strain. When she walked, she limped."Hello, daughter," she said, and even her voice was weakened."You're dying," I breathed."Worse. I'm failing." She touched my belly with one trembling hand. "The Devourer wakes. I've been holding it back since before your birth, but the seals you've been breaking weren't just keeping realms apart. They were keeping it asleep.""The Devourer?""The thing that exists between existence. Neither void nor form, neither light nor dark. It consumes concepts themselves. Love. Hope. Memory." She stumbled, and Dimitri caught her. "It's been eating at the edges of reality for millennia, and I've been the only barrier.""Why didn't you tell me?""Because knowing would have changed your choices. You needed to break the se

Aria's POV The corruption had spread to my fingertips by the time Lyra arrived with her "reformed" Chain Keepers."You look like shit," she said, studying my blackened veins through the ruined wall. Dimitri growled from his cage, but the moonlight chains held firm."Get to the point." My voice carried that wrong harmonic now, like grinding metal. "You said you had people who oppose releasing the Void King.""I do. But they won't meet with you looking like that." She gestured to my corrupted arms. "You're becoming what they escaped from. They need guarantees.""What kind of guarantees?""Binding oath. You won't use Chain Keeper powers against them, won't force them back into service." She produced an ancient-looking blade. "Blood oath, specifically."Sarah materialized beside me, her Bridge abilities finally finding a gap in my chains. "Don't trust her. This screams trap.""Everything screams trap lately." I stood, one hand on my swollen belly. The baby had been quiet since the corrup

Aria's POV The Void King circled me like a predator with all the time in existence."You want to know what I really am?" he asked, his perfect face shifting between expressions that shouldn't exist. "What I was before the void?""I want my mate freed." I struggled against the floor's grip, but the throne room held me like I was part of its architecture."Answer for answer, then." He gestured, and Dimitri's collar loosened slightly. My mate gasped, finally able to breathe properly. "I was the first mate. The original Moon Goddess's chosen."The words rearranged my understanding of everything. "That's impossible. The histories say—""The histories lie." His form flickered, and for a moment I saw him as he'd been – magnificent, silver-touched, the prototype for all Alpha wolves. "She chose me, loved me, bore my children. The first pack. Then she discovered what I could do.""Steal power.""Transform it." He touched the air, and reality rippled. "I could take divine light and make it int

Aria's POV The Shadow Hunters arrived at dawn, when the pack's defenses were weakest and my father's phoenix form finally slept.I sensed them before they appeared – twenty elite warriors sliding through darkness itself, each one a survivor from a collapsed realm. They moved like living void, and at their head walked someone who shouldn't exist."Hello, little moon," Kieran Blackthorne said, Marcus's voice in a different throat. "My brother sends his regards."He was Marcus's mirror – same midnight hair, same cruel beauty, but where Marcus held shadows, Kieran blazed with dark light. A Shadow Hunter who'd learned to weaponize illumination itself."You're supposed to be dead," Dimitri snarled, stepping protectively in front of me. "Marcus killed you centuries ago.""Marcus tried." Kieran's smile was sharp as broken glass. "Failed. I've been in the collapsed realms, gathering survivors, building an army for this moment."The moment he spoke, something impossible happened. The mate bond