Todos los capítulos de THE LYCAN PRINCESS THEY BURIED : Capítulo 61 - Capítulo 70

Elira's POV The household staff found Mother collapsed in her sitting room shortly after breakfast, her condition serious enough that the estate's healer was summoned immediately, his expression carrying a gravity that spread through the household within minutes of his arrival. Word traveled fast through the corridors, servants abandoning their morning tasks mid-motion, the entire estate seeming to hold its breath in the space between the alarm being raised and any real information arriving to explain it. I reached her chambers within moments of hearing the commotion, finding Selene already there ahead of me, both of us drawn instinctively to the same doorway despite everything still unresolved between us. Neither of us spoke, standing together at the edge of the room while the healer worked, old rivalries and careful distance momentarily forgotten beneath the shared, immediate fear of losing someone we both, however differently, genuinely loved. "Her heart," the healer said finally

Elira's POV Mother's recovery continued steadily over the following week, her strength gradually returning enough that she could sit up unassisted, take short walks around her chambers, and eventually manage brief visits to the garden she'd missed so dearly during her confinement to bed. Color had returned to her face, and the particular fragility that had defined her since long before my return seemed, for now at least, to have loosened its grip somewhat. I continued visiting regularly, our shared vigil through the health crisis having settled into something gentler and more genuine than the careful, cautious politeness that had characterized most of our interactions since my return. We talked more easily now, about small, ordinary things — her garden, the household's daily business, occasionally even fragments of my childhood she seemed to be actively working to remember and acknowledge in ways she hadn't managed before. It was during one of these quiet afternoon visits, nearly tw

Elira's POV Mother and I sat together a while longer after everything that needed saying had finally been said, the evening settling gently around us in a way that felt, for the first time in longer than I could easily remember, entirely unforced. The garden had grown quiet around us, the last of the day's warmth fading into the particular stillness that always seemed to settle over the estate just before dusk. "I should let you rest," I said eventually, noting the faint traces of fatigue beginning to show beneath her composure despite her evident improvement. "You've had a difficult few weeks, and I don't want to overtire you with too much conversation at once." "You could never overtire me with conversation like this," she said, though she didn't argue when I rose to leave, understanding, I think, that some measure of rest genuinely was still necessary for her continued recovery. "Thank you, Elira. For staying long enough to have this conversation with me. I know it wasn't easy, r

Selene's POV Ronan found me in my chambers that evening, his expression carrying none of the careful, deliberate patience he'd shown during our previous conversations about my sabotage. I'd been expecting him, in some vague, dreaded way, ever since Cassian's unusually formal request to speak with Ronan privately that afternoon — a request I'd noticed, and understood, with sinking certainty, likely concerned me directly. "Cassian told me everything," he said, without preamble, closing the door behind him with a quiet, controlled firmness that somehow carried more weight than if he'd slammed it. "The missing evidence. What he overheard in the greenhouse. I understand now considerably more than you apparently intended for me to know." Something cold settled in my stomach, understanding immediately that whatever careful containment I'd managed to maintain around my own accountability had just been thoroughly, completely dismantled. "I can explain," I started, though the words arrived h

Elira's POV The silence stretched until it became its own answer. Bastian didn't fill it. That was the thing about him. He sat in the small sitting room with his hand open on the arm of the chair and let the clock tick, and he didn't lean on the question or rescue me from it. "I don't know," I said finally. It came out smaller than I'd meant it to. It was also the first completely honest sentence I'd said in that room. He nodded slowly. No hurt, no pride bruised, only the look of a man receiving a fact. "Then you've given me more than a yes would have." "I should be sure. You've done everything right." "Elira." He said it gently. "Being owed certainty isn't the same as having it. Go and sit with it. I'll be here." I went. I didn't run. I'd have hated myself for running. I sat with Bastian's question far longer than I expected to. I went up to my room, lit the lamp, and opened the bottom drawer of the dresser. The list was where I'd left it, folded in quarters, soft at the cre