All Chapters of My Ex Sold Me To The Devil: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

My legs moved faster than my brain could process. The snow crunched violently under my boots, thick pine branches whipping across my face and tearing at my skin. I didn't feel the sting. I couldn't feel anything except the absolute, paralyzing terror gripping my chest.Mael. Nothing must happen to Mael. He was my only hope. He was the only reason I was still breathing, the only thing that gave this miserable, broken life a purpose. I slipped on a patch of black ice, falling hard onto my knees, but I scrambled back up in a fraction of a second, ignoring the sharp pain shooting up my shins.I burst through the thick line of frosted bushes into the small clearing where I had left him.What I saw made my blood stop flowing entirely.Three strange, grotesque creatures were circling my baby. They were hunched over, their spines severely curved, their bodies covered in patchy, diseased grey fur and worn out clothes. Long, hairless pink tails whipped back and forth against the snow.Wererats

SNAP!The sound echoed through the woods like a gunshot. It didn't come from the trees. It came from my own jaw.The Wererat leader suddenly dropped me. He stumbled backward, his yellow eyes wide with shock, holding his hand like I had just burned him. I hit the snow hard, but I didn't stay down. I couldn't. Something massive and wild was clawing its way out of my chest.My spine snapped. It bent backward at an impossible angle, but there was no pain. Just a blinding, white-hot heat. My clothes tore to shreds as my bones lengthened, thickened, and reshaped themselves in a matter of seconds. I opened my mouth to scream, but the sound that tore from my throat was a deep, earth-shaking roar.I fell forward, landing heavily on four paws.I blinked. The world had completely changed. The colors of the forest were suddenly painfully sharp. I could see the individual flakes of snow falling. I could smell the rotting blood in the wererats' veins, the sap in the pine trees, the exact spot where

I tried to lift my arm, to reach out and take his offered hand, but the pain searing through my muscles was excruciating. My bones felt like they were made of liquid lead. My arm dropped back down into the bloody snow, entirely useless.I was completely naked, shivering so violently my teeth were clicking together.Stiles noticed. He didn’t hesitate. He immediately dropped his outstretched hand, shifting Mael securely into the crook of his left arm. He stepped carefully over the gruesome, decapitated remains of the wererat and crouched down right beside me in the snow.His large, warm hand brushed the wet, snow-crusted hair away from my face. His fingers rested gently against my cold forehead, perhaps to feel my temperature."You're burning up on the inside, but your skin is like ice," he murmured, his brow furrowing in concern. "And you're in a lot of pain. I can... feel it. Are you lost out here?"His words were soft, dripping like warm honey. I just stared at him, my mind spinning.

I braced myself as Stiles carried me deeper into the valley of WhiteWaters. My entire life had conditioned me to expect the worst. Pack settlements were built on rigid, suffocating hierarchy. I fully expected Vanguard-style guards to step out of the shadows with halberds. I expected omegas to drop to their knees in the snow, pressing their foreheads to the dirt until the Alpha passed. I expected the heavy, toxic cloud of fear that always clung to Frostbane and Valrok.But as we crossed into the heart of the village, none of that happened.The settlement was alive. It was loud, chaotic, and incredibly warm. Log cabins with thick, smoking chimneys lined a winding, frozen river. People were bustling about their morning chores. Men were chopping firewood, their breath pluming in the freezing air, while women carried woven baskets of winter roots between the houses."Hey, Stiles!" a voice called out.I flinched instinctively, waiting for a reprimand. But then a snowball sailed through the

LioraThe question hung in the air between us, sharper than the cold.I could lie. I had gotten good at lying — to Kaelen, to the pack surgeon, to myself most of all. But Stiles' hands were still locked around my arms, holding me up off the floorboards, and his eyes hadn't moved from my face, and underneath the fever clawing through my blood I understood, with a strange, distant clarity, that a lie wasn't going to survive this room."I don't know what you mean," I said anyway.Something flickered behind his eyes.. not anger. Disappointment, maybe. Worse."I fought in the Valrok trials when I was nineteen," he said, his voice low and calm. "Stood in a receiving line with four hundred other wolves between me and him, and I could still smell him from thirty feet. I know what he smells like, Liora. I know what he smells like on someone."The fire popped in the hearth. Mael, somewhere behind us on the rug, made a small, unhappy sound in his sleep.I opened my mouth to lie again, and my knee