THE WRONG MATE (One month of lies) のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 121 - チャプター 130

Celeste's POV The letter arrived on a Wednesday morning, carried by a young boy who said a woman at the eastern gate had paid him a hundred dollar to deliver it and disappeared before he could ask her name. I knew before I broke the seal. The handwriting was clean and the letter was short. No preamble, no introduction, no explanation of how she had found me or how long she had been searching. Just a location, a village name. A hand-drawn map of the roads leading northeast from the Arizona pack border. And a single line at the bottom that stopped my breath completely. “He is well. He is kind to everyone he meets. I am a witch. I followed the thread of his emotions across every mile between us, and every thread led back to the same place. To you. Come soon.” No signature. I read it four times standing in the middle of my quarters in the early morning light, the paper trembling slightly in my hands in a way I chose to attribute to the draft from the window rather than anything el

Celeste's POV For a moment I couldn't move. His voice saying my name, fractured and certain and rising from somewhere beneath months of silence landed in my chest like something I hadn't known I'd been holding my breath for until it finally arrived. My hands were still pressed against my stomach. My face was still wet. The village yard was still full of morning light and the distant sound of workers and the ordinary texture of a world that had no idea what had just happened in the middle of it. "Celeste." He said it again, Softer this time. Like he was testing the weight of it. Like he was turning it over in his mouth and feeling it settle into a shape that belonged there. I crossed the distance between us without deciding to. He was still on the ground, the witch doctor's hand steady on his shoulder, his face carrying the particular devastated openness of someone whose walls have just collapsed all at once without warning. His eyes found mine as I came close, and what was in

CELESTE "It wasn't about what you gave me." Her voice was quieter now, the effort of speaking becoming visible. "It was about what I couldn't have. And when I understood I could never have it — that she was always going to be the one — I chose to burn everything down rather than accept it." A pause. "That was my choice. Not yours. Not hers. Mine." He pressed his face briefly against her hair, shoulders shaking. "I'm sorry for your child," she said. "The first one. I am so sorry for that." The words seemed to cost her more than the physical wound. "And your mother. I turned her against Celeste deliberately and systematically and I knew exactly what I was doing every step of the way." A cough. Blood came with it. "I am sorry for every year I stole from you. For making you into someone you weren't. For taking something good and poisoning it from the inside." "Hazel—" His voice was barely functional. "This is how it was always going to end for me," she said softly. "After everything

Celeste's POV The hospital corridor was a blur of movement and voices and the particular controlled urgency of medical staff who had been given no warning and were adapting in real time. Doctor Pitt was already waiting when we arrived. I didn't ask how he had gotten there before us, Michael must have called ahead, or Lucian, or both — but the sight of his familiar face in the doorway of the examination room settled something in me that nothing else had managed since the moment my water broke at the dinner table. He was calm the way he always was, that particular unshakeable steadiness that had gotten me through more difficult moments than I could count, and he took one look at me and immediately took charge of the room. "Alright," he said, with the brisk warmth of someone who understood that efficiency and kindness were not mutually exclusive. "Let's see what we're working with." "She's four months," Adrien said from beside me. His hand was around mine, tight and steady, and h

Celeste's POVThe morning of my wedding arrived quietly.No fanfare. No elaborate ceremony of preparation. Just pale gold light coming through the curtains of my room, Elona making her morning sounds from the bassinet beside my bed, and the particular stillness of a day that understood its own significance and didn't need to announce it.I lay still for a moment before getting up, listening to the sounds of the pack house waking around me — distant voices, movement in the kitchen below, the particular energy of a place that had been transformed overnight into something ready to hold something important.Then Elona made a more insistent sound, and I got up, because she had never once waited for my contemplative moments to finish and I had come to love that about her."Good morning," I told her, lifting her against my chest. She grabbed a fistful of my hair immediately with the focused determination she brought to everything. "Yes. Hello. I see you."She made a sound that I had decided