All Chapters of The Lycan's daughter: His to ruin: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The AnomalyVanessa's POV My eyes fluttered open to gray morning light, and a sigh escaped me before I'd even fully surfaced from sleep, the exhaustion of the last three weeks settling into my bones before I'd done a single thing to earn it.I turned my head toward the door out of pure habit now.Shadows moved beneath the frame, two of them, shifting their weight from foot to foot the way bored men do when they've been standing somewhere too long. Guards. Ronan had stationed them there three weeks ago, silent, unexplained, and I'd never once asked him why, because asking would have meant admitting I wanted to know, and wanting to know would have meant giving him something to withhold.I'd been walking on eggshells in my own house for three weeks. Ronan circling, watching, testing the edges of what he knew against what he suspected. Mandy trailing after him like a shadow with opinions, offering commentary nobody asked for at every meal, every hallway, every quiet moment I tried to ste

The RingVanessa's POV I adjusted the strap of my dress as I stepped through the front doors, my gaze already sharpening, some old instinct reading the room before my mind had caught up with what it was reading.The front room had been transformed since I'd left. Strings of warm light looped low across the ceiling, gold and soft, throwing long shadows across furniture that had been rearranged to make space for the crowd gathered beneath them. A table near the far wall sagged under bottles I recognized, the good vintage kept for occasions Ronan considered worth the expense, and glasses caught the light every time someone lifted one to their mouth. Someone had set flowers everywhere, white and heavy scented, clustered in vases that hadn't been there this morning. The whole room smelled like celebration, thick and cloying, and something in my stomach turned before I'd even worked out why.The soft voices mingled with laughter and the loud clink of glasses. It was a full party. I couldn

House arrest Vanessa's POV "Take me to the dungeon," I said.Joshua's jaw tightened. "My Luna, I don't think—""I didn't ask what you think." I held his gaze, steady, my eyes not blinking. "I asked you to take me there."He hesitated a moment longer, then exhaled through his nose and turned toward the heavy iron door set into the side of the building, keys already in hand.The dungeon was not a place I'd ever had reason to visit. Wild Bloomers reserved it for the worst of what the pack produced, traitors, deserters, men who'd sold secrets to rival territories or turned their teeth on their own during moments that mattered. The air changed the moment the door groaned open, thick and close, carrying the smell of old stone and something rotten underneath it, mildew and unwashed bodies and something else I didn't want to name.We descended narrow steps cut straight into rock, torches guttering low along the walls, and the farther down we went the louder the sounds became. Chains draggin

Vanessa's POV I had felt sick about it the moment my palm connected with his cheek.I haven't felt triumphant, the way I'd expected to feel after months of swallowing every provocation whole. Sick. My hand had stung faintly for an hour afterward, a strange, distant ache that had nothing to do with the physical force of the slap and everything to do with something quieter underneath it, something my wolf refused to let me ignore.You shouldn't have done that, she said, pacing low and unsettled behind my ribs.'He accused me of sleeping with Marcus,' I told her, sharp, defensive even in the privacy of my own skull. 'He deserved worse than a slap.'He flinched, she said anyway, quiet, stubborn. You saw it. Before the anger. Before he covered it. You saw the hurt.I had seen it. That was the problem.I tried to distract myself in the hour after it happened, pacing my room, telling myself it was worth it, that a man who accused his wife of infidelity while parading his own in front of the

Vanessa's POV The first wave hit before I'd even opened my eyes properly.It rolled through my stomach slow and merciless, and I lay perfectly still for a moment, breathing through my nose, willing it to pass before it demanded anything more from me than stillness. It didn't pass. It built, and I was moving before I'd fully decided to, throwing back the covers and half stumbling toward the bathroom, my knees hitting the tile hard enough to bruise.I was quiet about it. I'd learned quiet a long time ago, in rooms far less private than this one.You're pushing too hard, my wolf said, low, worried, pacing somewhere behind my ribs while I pressed my forehead against the cool porcelain and waited for my stomach to finish emptying whatever it had decided it no longer wanted.'I don't have the luxury of not pushing,' I told her, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, my whole body trembling faintly in the aftermath.She's right, though. I felt it in the shake of my fingers as I gripped t