All Chapters of Ruined by my Bully Stepbrother: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

Theodora's POVThe letter sat on the kitchen table like a coiled snake, waiting to strike. I had read it three times already, and each time the words felt heavier. Marcus needed us back. After three years of hiding in a sanctuary, the outside world was demanding our return."You're thinking too loud." Nate's voice came from behind me, warm and teasing. His arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me against his chest. "I can practically hear the gears turning in that beautiful head."I leaned into him and let his warmth chase away some of the cold dread settling in my bones. "The Council wants us to testify before the human governments. New laws are being proposed. Registration. Tracking. They want to treat supernatural beings like criminals."Nate's body went rigid behind me. "We're not going.""If we don't, those laws will pass." I turned in his arms and met his golden eyes. "Our children will grow up in a world that sees them as threats instead of people. I lived that way, Nate. I

Theodora's POVCold. That was the first thing I registered when consciousness returned. Cold seeping into my bones from the concrete floor beneath me. My head throbbed and my mouth tasted like copper and dirt.I forced my eyes open and immediately wished I had not. The cell was small and windowless, lit by a single flickering bulb that cast sickly yellow light over gray walls. The air smelled damp and rotten, like something had died down here and never been removed.I tried to move and gasped at the sharp pain that shot through my wrists. Metal restraints bit into my skin, and I felt something fundamentally wrong with them. My power, usually a steady hum beneath my skin, was completely silent. Suppressed.Panic clawed at my throat. I had never felt so vulnerable, so human. Without my abilities, I was just a woman chained in a basement with god knows what waiting outside that rusted metal door.The mate bond. I reached for it desperately, needing to feel Nate, needing to know he was ok

Theodora's POVTime slowed to a crawl. I saw the black lightning streaking toward my baby girl, crackling with malevolent energy that promised nothing but death. Aurora stood frozen, her silver eyes wide with terror that no six year old should ever have to feel.Every instinct in my body screamed one word: protect.I moved without thinking, my weakened body suddenly finding strength I did not know I possessed. I threw myself between the attack and my daughter, spreading my arms wide to shield her completely. The dark magic hit me square in the chest and agony exploded through every nerve ending in my body.It felt like being torn apart from the inside. Like acid in my veins. Like drowning in fire. The darkness burrowed into my cells, trying to corrupt everything it touched, trying to devour me whole.I screamed. I could not help it. The pain was beyond anything I had ever experienced, beyond torture or childbirth or any physical wound. This was soul-deep agony that threatened to unmak

Theodora's POVAurora became my teacher, and the irony was not lost on me. My six year old daughter, wise beyond her years, was the only one who truly understood how to manage the darkness living inside my soul."Close your eyes, Mama," she said softly. We sat cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom, facing each other in the afternoon sunlight. "Feel the shadow but do not touch it. Just observe."I did as she instructed, reaching inward with my awareness. The shadow pulsed in my chest like a second heartbeat, cold and patient. Waiting."It wants you to be afraid," Aurora continued. Her small voice was steady and calm. "Fear feeds it. But so does anger, grief, and even too much joy. You have to learn to feel without drowning.""How?" My voice cracked with frustration. "How am I supposed to feel anything without feeding this thing?""By accepting that emotions are just weather passing through you. They come and they go. You are not your anger. You are not your fear. You are the sky that

Theodora's POVSelene arrived three weeks after my mindscape battle, and the moment I saw her expression, I knew she had found something. Hope and dread warred in my chest as she settled into our living room with Emily, Nate, and me."There is a way to remove the shadow permanently," she said without preamble. "An ancient Moon Daughter ritual that can extract foreign darkness from a Silver Wolf's soul."Relief flooded through me so intensely that it made me dizzy. "Tell me what we need to do.""It is not simple, Theodora." Selene's expression was grave. "The ritual requires three extremely rare components, and obtaining them will be dangerous.""I do not care about danger." I leaned forward, hands clasped tightly together. "What do we need?""First, water from the Moon Mother's sacred spring. It is hidden deep in the Tibetan mountains, nearly impossible to reach. Second, blood from the one who originally inflicted the darkness upon you." She paused significantly. "Thorne's blood."My