All Chapters of THE VEILED BRIDE : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

"The greatest lies are not the ones told to us once. They are the ones we repeat to ourselves until they become our truth."KIVAI had never seen the Northern Gates like this.The estate had become a battlefield. Not against another Alpha, not against a rival territory. Against one man. Against my husband. Guards rushed through the courtyards with weapons that caught the pale morning light. Orders echoed from every direction. Search parties moved into the forests surrounding the estate in tight formations. Horses thundered past the gates. No one stopped moving. Every few minutes another guard returned, and every time the answer was the same. A shake of the head. Nothing.Each report pulled the knot in my chest a little tighter."He'll be alright." Knox opened the carriage door for me. I looked at him properly. He was trying to sound certain, trying visibly, but the dark circles beneath his eyes told a different story. "You don't believe that."His expression faltered. Just a moment. "

"Obsession doesn't sound like love. It sounds like possession wearing love's face."KIVAPain was the first thing I felt.A sharp, relentless ache pulsed through my skull with every heartbeat, each one arriving like something striking bone from the inside. I groaned. Everything around me was blurry and dark and cold. The air smelled of damp concrete and rust, the smell of a place that had never been meant to be comfortable.I tried to move.Metal clinked. My wrists screamed.My eyes opened fully. Both hands were shackled above my head, the chains fixed high enough that I had to stand on the balls of my feet to bear the weight. The iron cuffs had already rubbed the skin raw. Every small shift sent a new wave of pain shooting up through my arms.I drew a shaky breath and let the memories come back in order. The crash. The sound of metal giving way. Knox returning fire and then the shot that had sent him over the barrier. Bryan's face coming into focus through blurred vision."Knox." My

"Some people walk into a room and demand attention. Others walk into a room, and the world remembers why fear exists."KIVAFor a long moment, nobody moved.Bryan knelt on the ground clutching the arrow through his hand, blood dripping steadily onto the cracked concrete. He didn't seem to notice it. His eyes were fixed on the doorway. Mine were too.She stepped inside as though she owned the world.Long white hair spilled down her back like something belonging to a different era. Her dark leather clothes were mud-stained from the forest. A bow rested in one hand with the relaxed grip of someone who had been carrying one since they could walk. Three empty spaces in the quiver across her back explained the three arrows now buried in Bryan's body. She couldn't have been much older than me. But she looked like she had lived ten different lifetimes inside the same number of years.She was me. The same face. The same lips and nose and height. But everything else was different. Where people

“CAUSING HAVOC IS MY JOB.”KIVAWe had barely reached the damaged SUV before Knox straightened despite the obvious pain written across his face. "We need to return to the Northern Gates immediately." His eyes found me. "Luna, Alpha Damien—""I know." The words came out before he could finish. Every second that passed, Damien was out there somewhere. Alone. Lost to whatever darkness had swallowed him in that bedroom. The thought sat in my chest like a stone.Tamara opened the driver's side door, glanced at the wrecked interior, then at the mangled front of the vehicle. "Well. That's not going anywhere." She kicked one of the flattened tires. "What a shame."I almost smiled. She talked about a completely destroyed vehicle the way someone talked about a mildly inconvenient weather forecast.Knox reached for the communication device on his belt. Before he could press it, Tamara spoke. "You."He looked up. "You're going back."He frowned. "Excuse me?""The estate." She pointed back toward

"Some blood carries a legacy. Some blood remembers it."KIVAI couldn't take my eyes off the orb.It rested on the table between Tamara and me, no bigger than a melon, its surface a deep, glassy black that seemed to swallow the candlelight rather than reflect it. There was something about it that felt old in a way I couldn't explain, like it had been sitting there since before the cottage existed, watching kingdoms rise and crumble around it.The Priestess set the ceremonial blade down beside it, the metal catching what little light the candles gave off."You may be wondering why blood is required," she said.Neither of us answered. We just watched her, waiting.She smiled, like she already knew what we were thinking."Because power recognizes truth.""It cannot be deceived.""It cannot be inherited through lies.""It answers only to blood."Tamara didn't wait for more. She reached for the blade almost immediately."So... we just cut ourselves?"The Priestess's hand shot out and slapp