Lahat ng Kabanata ng Bullied by my stepsister; Claimed by the Alpha : Kabanata 51 - Kabanata 60

~RIYA The woods felt different tonight—colder, sharper, even though no wind stirred the leaves. I stood on the balcony of our chambers, one hand on my swollen belly, the other gripping the railing. The stars above blinked like curious eyes, watching… waiting. Something was coming. I could feel it deep in my bones. Nathaniel had gone to meet with Thane and the outer patrol team. Rumors of shadowy creatures lurking near the northern borders were becoming too frequent to ignore. And though I knew he was strong, knew he would return… my heart twisted with a nameless dread. Lily stepped out behind me with a thick shawl. “You’ll catch cold, Luna,” she said, gently draping it around my shoulders. “I’m not cold,” I whispered, eyes still locked on the forest. “But something is wrong.” She paused. “Is it the baby?” “No,” I shook my head. “It’s something… older. Deeper. Something beyond the forest.” Lily hesitated, glancing at the treeline. “I heard the guards talking,” she finally

~RIYAThe moon hung low in the sky, like it was watching me.There was a pressure in my chest that hadn’t left since the night of the ritual. Not pain. Not exactly. More like a calling. A pull. Like I was being tethered to something deeper, older, and more sacred than I could yet understand.Nathaniel hovered like a stormcloud behind me as I stood on the balcony outside our chamber, my hands resting over my stomach protectively. My unborn child—the tiny heartbeat we’d heard in the hospital days ago—was still the biggest shock of my life. But now it wasn’t just about the pregnancy. I could feel something else. Power.“Riya,” Nathaniel’s voice came, low and hesitant behind me. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”I didn’t turn. “I’m not alone.”He stepped up beside me, his warmth brushing against my skin. “You haven’t said much since the elders bowed to you.”“I don’t know what to say,” I murmured, finally facing him. “Everything’s changing too fast. I feel like I’m carrying the moon insi

~RIYAThe moonlight clung to me like silk—heavy, strange, alive.Every breath I took felt like inhaling stardust. Every heartbeat echoed with the hum of something ancient. I sat in the center of the ritual circle, surrounded by the charred remnants of the herbs Lily and the others had burned. My skin still tingled from the mist that had risen during the ritual, and the scent of lavender and something more primal—something old—hung in the air like a whisper.I felt… reborn.But not in the gentle, symbolic way I had expected. This rebirth burned, surged, and tugged at parts of me that had long been dormant. The presence that had once felt so faint inside me—my wolf, my power, my ancestry—now pulsed with strength. It was as if the ritual had unlocked an ancestral vault inside me.The moon seemed brighter than ever before, casting silvery light across the stone floor of the council chamber that had been hastily cleared for this ancient rite. My breath came shallow, as if I stood at the ed

~RIYAThe full moon gleamed silver above the canopy of trees, casting dappled light across my room like scattered coins from the heavens. I stood by the window, my palm pressed to the glass as if I could absorb its glow through my skin. My pregnancy was beginning to show—a soft roundness in my belly—but what stirred more deeply than the child was the power. It was no longer sleeping. It whispered to me, coaxed me. It had begun to remember.Lily had helped me into a pale blue gown, simple but flowing like mist, the way the priestesses of the Moon Temple were said to dress in the old legends. I hadn’t asked her to do it, but somehow, she just knew. She always seemed to know."You're glowing tonight, Luna," she said softly, standing just behind me. "The moon is paying attention."I turned to her, unsettled by her choice of words. "What do you mean by that?"She hesitated, then gave me a steady look. "I think... I think it's watching. Or remembering."The same word again—remembering.I sw

~RIYAThe fire in the hearth had long since died down, but I sat in the council chamber alone, staring into the cold ashes. The silence was louder than any scream I’d ever heard. Outside, the night howled against the windows. It wasn’t the wind. It was something more primal—wolves mourning, or perhaps warning.I hadn’t told Nathaniel yet. About the voice I heard during the moonlight ritual. About the shadows that moved around me when I closed my eyes. Or the heat that flared in my palms when I touched the ancient stone buried behind the temple ruins.I was changing. Again.And this time, it wasn’t just the wolf inside me.It was the witchblood.It was Inadu.There was something about that name. Every time I said it in my mind, a flicker of memory—or was it a vision?—gripped my chest. A woman with skin like obsidian and eyes glowing with galaxies. A crown of twisted antlers. Magic that bent the stars.That woman wasn’t me. But somehow, she lived inside me.“You shouldn't be here alone.