บททั้งหมดของ The Guardian's Mate: บทที่ 111 - บทที่ 120

Sophia POVI was gathering my books after last period when Damian appeared in the classroom doorway, waiting until the last of the other students had filed out before stepping inside."Got a minute?" he asked, and something in his tone made me pause mid-motion, my bag half-zipped."Sure." I studied him, noting the careful stillness in his posture, the way his hands were pressed flat against his sides like he was holding himself in place by force. "Is everything okay?""I need to say something," he said. "And I need to actually say it this time. Not dance around it the way I did outside the library. I owe you the whole thing, plainly, even if it's not what you want to hear."My stomach tightened with a nervous flutter I couldn't quite name. "Okay."He crossed the room slowly, stopping a respectful distance away, close enough to talk but far enough that the space between us felt deliberate, the same careful boundary he'd been drawing since the rooftop. "Sophia, I know I've done things t

Ethan POVI didn't sleep that night. I lay awake in the dark, replaying the classroom over and over, Damian's voice steady and certain, Sophia's silence stretching too long, my own body moving before my mind had caught up with what I was about to do.By morning I'd decided I needed to say the rest of what I hadn't managed to say on that stone wall. The part underneath the anger, the part I hadn't fully admitted even to myself until I'd spent half the night staring at the ceiling turning it over.I found her in the library before classes started, the same quiet corner where we'd talked weeks ago about whether she was afraid of me. She looked up when I approached, something cautious in her expression, like she wasn't sure which version of me she was about to get."Can we talk?" I asked. "Really talk. Not the version from yesterday where I was still too raw to say the actual thing."She set her book down, nodding, and I sat across from her, forcing myself to hold her gaze instead of look

Emma POVI'd been doing so well all night. The festival had felt like exactly the kind of ordinary evening Sophia needed, and I'd let myself enjoy it too — the string lights, the terrible carnival food, dancing with Sophia and Lily like none of the last few months had happened at all.Then a boy near the ring toss booth sliced his palm open on a broken prize display, cursing loudly enough that half the nearby crowd turned to look, and everything in me went very, very still.The scent hit me before I could brace for it, sharper than the paper cut in study hall had been, richer, closer, carried on the cool night air with nothing to dilute it. My vision sharpened instantly, the whole festival narrowing down to a single point — the boy, the blood welling along his palm, the pulse I could suddenly hear thundering beneath his skin from fifteen feet away."Emma?" Lily's voice sounded distant, muffled, like it was reaching me through water.I didn't answer. I couldn't. My feet were already mo

Sophia POVWe gathered in the estate's study an hour after the festival, the four of us — Ethan, Damian, Nathan, and me — still smelling faintly of smoke, still shaken from watching that black fog herd an entire school like cattle while specifically keeping three trained fighters from reaching me. Emma had gone to check on Lily and the rest of the shaken students, but the tension in the room hadn't loosened at all in her absence."I've already talked to Raymond," Ethan said, pacing near the fireplace, his voice clipped with the aftermath of adrenaline. "He's got officers combing the courtyard for residue. Nathan, I want you cross-referencing tonight's pattern against the illusion in the auditorium and whatever hit her in the library. If there's a signature, we find it.""And Sophia stays here," he continued, not looking at me, already moving past the decision like it had been settled somewhere I hadn't been consulted. "Full estate lockdown until we understand what we're dealing with.

Damian POVI found the lead three days after the message Sophia showed us in the hallway, and the second I confirmed it was real, I had a decision to make.It started with a contact I still had from my time running with Adrian's circle — a witch named Priscilla who'd sold information to whoever paid best long before I'd ever stood on that field and challenged Ethan for a crown neither of us cared about anymore. She wasn't loyal to Adrian, wasn't loyal to anyone, which made her useful in exactly the way I needed right now."I heard you're not exactly on speaking terms with your old friends," she said when I found her at the same rundown apartment she'd used for the last two years, unbothered by the fact that I'd shown up without warning."Things change," I said. "I need information. I can pay.""You always could." She studied me for a long moment, something calculating behind her eyes. "What kind of information?""Dark conjuring," I said. "Powerful enough to build an illusion from some