บททั้งหมดของ Too Late To Claim Me: บทที่ 71 - บทที่ 80

AriaAs I drove silently, the road stretched ahead of me like a it has no end.I wind through the familiar landscape that I'd left behind five years ago. Every mile marker felt like a countdown, and each one pulls me closer to the life I believed I'd escaped and also to the man who'd shattered my heart.‎I gripped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turned white. I'd been driving for almost three hours now, and I can feel the exhaustion starting to creep in, it's seeping through the cracks in my carefully constructed composure.The events of the past few days had each taken their toll on me, leaving me hollow and broken.‎My thoughts drifted to Caelum, I thought about the way he'd looked at me when I'd said goodbye. His gray eyes had been so trusting, and so full of pure innocence and love.I know he didn't understand why his mom had to leave. Nor does he understand the danger that was lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right time to consume us both.‎"Stay safe, b

Aria   I'd been driving for hours now and the road stretch ahead of me, and the familiar landscape was slowly giving way to the territory I'd sworn I would never come back to again. The trees grew denser, the houses more scattered, and the air carried with it a scent I'd tried so hard to forget, pine and earth and the wild, untamed familiar essence of wolf territory. My hands were unconsciously gripping the steering wheel so tightly. I loosen my grip, and tried to breath in and out slowly.I forced myself to remember that I was no longer the frightened girl who'd fled this place five years ago. 

Aria The air in the foyer had grown so thick that's it's enough to choke on. Selene stood before me, her smile was a mask of porcelain perfection that didn't reach her cold, calculating eyes.She was dressed in an expensive silk, her golden hair swept up in an elaborate style that screamed status and wealth. She looked every inch of the Luna that she'd always wanted to be. But I could see the cracks beneath the surface. The way her fingers twitched at her sides. The slight tension in her jaw. And the way her eyes kept flickering to my face, searching for weakness, maybe. Or even that fear she used to see before. 

Aria I stood at the window of the room my stepmother had given me watching as the moon rise over the pack territory, and I felt the weight of the past five years pressing down on me. The familiar landscape stretched out before me, the houses, trees, and the winding paths that I'd walked a thousand times as a child. Everything looked the same, and yet still felt different. I was different.

The first light of dawn crept through the thin curtains, and paints pale stripes across the worn floorboards of the tiny room. I'd been awake for hours, I haven't still relax in this house.I can't, my body was always tense and alert, the whole nights I have spent here, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of a house that had never truly been my home.Caelum was sleeping peacefully beside me, his small hand curled around my thumb, his breathing slow and even.Every morning brought its own kind of dread.I heard movement in the hallway, the muffled sounds of servants beginning their daily routines, and the distant clatter of dishes from the kitchen.Life was continuing in this house, the same way it had continued for eighteen years I had spent here before leaving, while I'd been invisible within these very walls.I rose quietly, careful not to wake Caelum, and dressed in a simple clothes I'd packed. It's something practical, that woul5d draw attention. I needed to blend in, be invisible