Novel & Cerita The Quiet Daughter Couldn’t Wait

he called out softly, knocking rhythmically before the wooden door. Silence. Absolute silence.. Lancer forehead creases slightly, confusion evident on his face. “...Ana?” Still, no response came. He knocked again twice, before his hand slowly wrapped around the doorknob, pushing it open, having received no response. Creak— The door creaked open noisily, revealing his daughter's room that was dimly lit by the moonlight that shone through her opened window. And there, his daughter sat beside the window with lowered head, her little legs dangling gently, her whole presence shrouded in sorrow.

Something about her voice scrapes against the inside of my skull. I close the distance. Each step deliberate until I tower over her. However, I still catch nothing. There's indeed no scent. Not even the faint perfume most noble ladies drown themselves in. My spies failed to mention that the beta’s daughter is scentless. Does she at least have a wolf? The queen certainly can't be wolfless. Silas. That cunning man—to think he offered his daughter after everything said about me, just for his selfish gains. I issue the command. “Look at me.”

Late that night, she carried the urn into the storage closet where I had hidden after coming home. The closet was unheated, crowded with broken furniture, and barely wide enough for a child to lie down. For the first time, she understood what it had meant for her daughter to sleep there. Mother sat between the narrow stone walls and held the urn tightly against her chest. “Ivy,” she whispered, “I am the one who deserves your forgiveness least.”

"She wanted me to completely lose my mind!" My father did not answer right away. He looked at the daughter crying in his arms. He thought about Nova on the floor. He thought about how her practice sessions always seemed to line up with Iris's episodes. He had never considered it before. Now the pieces were fitting together into a shape he did not want to believe. He said nothing. He just held Iris and patted her back, the way he always had.

You're here for my father. I closed my eyes. I waited for her to deny it, or to lie. I waited for the sweet, practiced, syrupy voice they all used, the one that said Oh, sweetheart, no, I only want to help you. It didn't come. The room went quiet. Not the kind of quiet that comes before a storm. This was something else. It was the sound of a child with nothing left to throw, and a woman who had stopped talking because she was thinking, and it settled over the entire second floor like snow.

"Dad, Jason treats me well. Everyone in the Martinez family treats me well." Now, thinking back? I was a fool. I used my fingernail to pry open the protective cap. And pressed down gently. No sound. No light. But I knew the signal had been sent. My father said that once I pressed that button, someone would come within half an hour. But half an hour... Could my baby hold on that long?

The silver in my chest, my loyal, quiet, never-wrong silver, went cold as a struck bell. And from the sky, soft as a lullaby, sweeter than any voice I had ever heard, came a single word. Daughter.

At Serena Vale’s succession ceremony, her four adoptive fathers ask her to let Lillian wear her late mother’s moon crown for ten minutes. Eighteen years ago, Serena’s mother, the greatest warrior of Moonridge Pack, died protecting their people. Before her death, she entrusted Serena to Alpha Darius, Beta Julian, Gamma Marcus, and Delta Ronan. The four men swore a father-daughter bond before the Moon Goddess, raised Serena as their own, and named her the pack’s future Alpha. They once stayed beside her through every fever, learned to braid her hair, treasured every drawing she made, and guarded her door during storms. Then Lillian arrived. Whenever the two girls wanted the same thing, Serena

He hated to lose, and he hated to be corrected, and he threw himself at his lessons with a ferocity that made me laugh and wince in equal measure. My daughter was something else. She was quick and silent and watchful. She stood at the edge of the yard in her silver coat and she studied, her head tilted, her ears pricked. Then, when she was ready, she moved in a single, perfect line, and the whole thing was over before I knew it had begun. She did not rely on strength. She relied on timing, on the half-second when the world left a gap, and she found that gap every time.

“I took a trip down to Utqiagvik and dragged your ass down to New York. Do not act so impatient Jackie, that look does not suit you.” She looked down at her ring-clad finger. “I’m trying not to be impatient, but knowing that my daughter is very close to me yet far makes my heart bleed.” Sniffing, she dapped her eyelid with her index finger. “Have you at least spoken to her about me?”