Lahat ng Kabanata ng Beautiful Betrayal: Kabanata 201 - Kabanata 210

Valduz watched the twins disappear inside the ranch house. For the first time in years, he had caught himself thinking about how much it would hurt to lose what stood before him.“What are you thinking about?” Hope asked.“Everything,” he admitted. “We have a lot to figure out.”She nodded, already focused on what they could do next. “I need your notes. And your sister’s notebook.”Then she smiled. “I want to see these perfect notes you keep talking about, Alpha Valduz Ryker.”He looked at her. The teasing was gentle, but the title felt wrong coming from her.“Please don’t call me that.”Hope’s smile faded. “All right. I won’t.”She went into the house ahead of him, her pace slower than usual. As she climbed the stairs, he heard her speaking under her breath.“Not right now,” she murmured. “He needs to learn.”Valduz stopped. He could not tell whether she was speaking to her wolf, but he knew she was upset with him. He had asked her to trust him while refusing to explain what he and h

Hopeful.That was the dangerous part. Standing in front of the house with Valduz and the twins, Hope wanted to believe they could be safe here.Valduz had been watching her for the past few minutes. He had not pressed her for answers, but she knew he had noticed the moments when her attention drifted. Sometimes she was listening to a voice no one else could hear.Before he could ask about it, the front door opened.“Uncle Elliot!” Zoey shouted.He ran across the porch, and Elliot caught him under the arms and lifted him high.“My guy!” Elliot laughed.Zoey’s giggles eased some of the tightness in Hope’s chest. The twins needed room to play. She needed room to understand what was happening inside her.I have always been here, the voice said.Hope went still.“You keep saying that,” she replied silently. “Are we even the same person?”We share a body. We do not think alike.Hope tried to laugh it off, but she could not. “So you’re separate from me?”You still think like a human.“That d

“Doesn’t your family want something from us?” Hope asked. “Don’t they expect us to take their place one day?”Valduz looked out at the ocean. “Yes. They do.”Hope thought about the pack laws on her tablet and the question she had asked him about his family’s help. A house could be a gift and still carry expectations.Valduz gave a quiet laugh. “I used to think we were completely different.”“We are,” Hope said. “Except for one thing.”“What’s that?”“We both want our freedom.”He turned toward her, then looked back at the dark water. “I’ll see how much time I can buy us.”“Would we have to leave?”“No. This place is ours.” He pointed toward the land beyond the house. “Everything from here to there is in Zenep’s and Zoey’s names. I made sure of it, just in case.”Hope tightened her grip on the tablet.Just in case.She opened Perry’s research again. The files traced bloodlines, missing heirs, and laws Hope had barely begun to understand.“There are eight bloodlines,” she said. “Accordi

Valduz caught Hope’s wrist before she could walk away.“Don’t you dare.”She turned. Her eyes glowed bright red, and his wolf surged in answer.Hope pulled her arm free. He let her.“It’s one thing to leave me,” he said roughly. “It’s another to turn to someone else just to hurt me.”“From now on, everything I do will be to spite you.”The words struck harder than her punch had. Hope headed up the path toward the greenhouse.“Pay attention, Alpha Valduz Ryker.”The title was full of contempt. She had seen exactly what he feared becoming.If he let her leave believing he did not want her, she might never trust him again. Valduz had tried to protect her by hiding the worst of his past. He could see how much that secrecy had hurt her.“Six thousand two hundred eighty-four,” he said.Hope stopped.“That’s how many people I’ve killed. Those are only the confirmed ones.”She turned slowly. Valduz made himself continue.“I started when I was fifteen. Anyone who threatened my mother or me, I

Hope was still looking at Perry when she said, “I want to open the program again.”Violetta turned toward her. “What?”“We run it ourselves this time,” Perry said. “Properly.”“You’ve lost your mind.”Valduz set down the device he had been holding. He had spent the morning worrying about Hope’s approaching shift. Perry’s words gave him a new reason to worry.“Why would you want to reopen it?” he asked.“What happened to us was wrong,” Perry said. “But we changed things because of it. The Wolf Bait laws are gone.”“You helped end those laws,” Valduz said.“We all did. Whether we wanted to or not.”Perry looked around the kitchen. Hope was sitting beside Valduz, while Violetta stood across from them with her arms folded.“None of us is happy with where we ended up,” Perry continued. “Violetta, they made you a Luna so they could display you beside someone else’s power. And I was never going to be happy smiling politely while other people decided what mattered.”Violetta’s face hardened.