Semua Bab Cherish Me, Daddy: Bab 161 - Bab 170

LUCEN'S POVThe trial room remained silent... too silent for a place that dictated fate. The words that were supposed to die still echoed inside my head like a jagged, rusted curse.I stared at Elder Mara, at the woman who had stood beside my father, guiding his hand for decades. She was the architect of my childhood, the one who had whispered pack laws into my ears as if they were holy scripture. To think she had looked me in the eyes for years while carrying this rot beneath her skin… the realization coiled in my gut. I felt an undeniable, suffocating disgust.Slowly, I rose from my seat.The movement felt like an awkward shift... the room instantly straightened, tension snapping into place like a bowstring.Even the council, usually so quick to question the Alpha’s restraint, lowered their heads. My eyes moved from Mara... that mask of fake dignity finally cracking and to Caden, and then finally toward Eli and Elion.Moon Goddess, have mercy. Eli looked hollowed out, drained by the

ELI'S POVFor a moment... I forgot how to breathe, everything became quiet. The shattered glass on the floor continued rolling slowly across the wooden floorboards.Tick.Tick.Tick.I stared.. just stared, my eyes locked onto Lucen and Elion and then distance between them that had disappeared. I couldn't hear my own heartbeat, I couldn't hear the wind outside, and I couldn't hear anything because my mind had suddenly gone blank... completely blank.Lucen's eyes widened. "Eli—"I took a step back... not because I wanted to or I planned to. My body simply moved on its own like instinct and survival."Eli, wait..." Lucen pleaded.No... No no no no... My head suddenly started hurting, not physically. It was worse... much worse because all those tiny thoughts I buried during the past days suddenly came back at once.Elion was his first mate. He was his first love and the way Lucen keeps looking at him. What if... stop. I clenched my fists."Eli." Lucen stood up immediately. I saw him rea

ELI'S POVThe moment I answered… silence swallowed the room again. I sat at the edge of the bed while my fingers twisted tightly against the blanket.My chest still felt sore from crying the entire night, though at some point exhaustion had numbed everything into this strange, hollow ache. Outside the door, I heard Lucen inhale sharply.Moon Goddess… even his breathing affected me. Why? Why after everything… after all the pain… did my heart still react to him like this? Is this love supposed to be? It makes me fool and weak.The doorknob turned slowly, a soft grind that seemed louder than any battle horn. Lucen stepped inside carefully, almost cautiously, like he was entering sacred ground he no longer had permission to touch. For a second… neither of us spoke.Morning light spilled across the room, illuminating him fully and Moon Goddess… he looked terrible. His clothes were wrinkled... dark circles sat beneath his eyes, his jaw was bruised and there was dried blood near the corner o

LUCEN'S POVI watched the jeep disappear beyond the estate gates. The afternoon sunlight reflected briefly against the windows before the vehicle vanished completely down the forest trail, swallowed by towering pines and distance.Silence settled around me afterward. It was heavy and oppressive. My hands stayed buried inside my pockets while I stood on the stone steps of the estate, staring at the empty road long after they were already gone.Eli never looked back before leaving. Moon Goddess... that hurt more than it should have. Behind me, servants moved quietly through the courtyard while warriors continued their patrols, but everything felt strangely distant... muffled beneath the noise inside my own head.Elion. Eli. The two names kept colliding painfully against each other. I closed my eyes briefly. If Elion had never disappeared eight years ago... would I have become Eli’s brother-in-law instead? The thought twisted violently inside my chest because no matter how much guilt cla

ELI'S POVPainUnbearable, crushing pain exploded through my entire body as the black tendrils constricted tighter around my ribs. They were cold, like snakes made of solidified shadow, winding around my torso with a singular, malicious intent to snap me in two.CRACK.The sound of my own skeleton giving way was sickeningly loud, echoed by the jagged stone of the cliffside.I screamed again, the sound tearing violently out of my throat, raw and ragged. The world blurred beneath me... the dizzying drop, the churning gray ocean, the faces of my family. I couldn’t breathe properly anymore. Every desperate inhale felt like knives carving through my lungs, a serrated edge dragging against raw nerve endings.“Elion, STOP!” Lucen roared. His voice was a lifeline, but it was frayed, strained with a terror I had never heard in him before.Behind him, the twins... my beautiful, innocent boys, sobbed hysterically, their small bodies shaking in Lucen’s arms.“PAPA!”“DON’T HURT PAPA!”But Elion o