Library

Maghanap

Home / Werewolf / The Phoenix Wolf's Awakening / Kabanata 51 - Kabanata 60

Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Phoenix Wolf's Awakening : Kabanata 51 - Kabanata 60

85 Kabanata

Chapter Fifty One

Mona's POV Amaya's golden eyes stared through me like I wasn't there."Amaya?" I whispered, reaching toward her, but she jerked back with inhuman speed. Her body moved wrong—too fluid, too precise, like something wearing human skin but forgetting how humans were supposed to move."That's not Amaya," Nova said, silver flames rising instinctively around her hands. "Not anymore."The thing wearing Amaya's face tilted its head at an impossible angle, studying us like specimens. When it spoke, the voice was hers but layered with something else, something ancient and patient and terribly amused."Phoenix children," it said, golden fire trickling from its eyes like tears. "You've played your parts beautifully."Then, between one heartbeat and the next, Amaya's body collapsed. The golden fire vanished. Her eyes rolled back, showing only white, and she was still again. Truly dead this time. Whatever had borrowed her form for those few seconds was gone, leaving only questions and a cold that h

Chapter Fifty Two

Mona's POV The scream reached us three miles from Nightshade territory.Derek's entire body went rigid beside me in the car. His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, and the speedometer climbed past ninety. That scream carried a message meant for him—pain shaped into sound, suffering designed to summon."That's Jamie," he said, his voice hollow. "My cousin's daughter. She's twelve."We'd been heading to Silver Moon territory to help with their rebuilding when the call came through the pack bonds. Vera had struck Nightshade while Derek was away. Classic predator tactics—wait for the Alpha to leave, then attack the vulnerable. Except Derek's pack wasn't vulnerable. They were trained, armed, ready. Which meant Vera had found another way to hurt them.The main gate of Nightshade stood open, unguarded. Wrong. Everything about this was wrong. Derek slammed the brakes, and we were running before the car fully stopped. The compound was too quiet. No patrols. No movement. Just that te

Chapter Fifty-three

Mona's POV The mug shattered against the kitchen wall, coffee dripping like dark blood down the white paint."That's the third one this week," Derek said, not looking up from the pack reports scattered across our kitchen table. His voice was flat, controlled, but I felt the exhaustion beneath it through our bond—or what was left of our bond."Maybe if you actually came to bed instead of sitting here all night, you wouldn't knock things over," I snapped, immediately hating myself for the tone. We'd been doing this for weeks now—small cuts disguised as conversation, blame dressed up as concern."Someone has to handle the reconstruction. The patrol schedules. The—""The guilt?" The words escaped before I could stop them. "Because that's what this is really about, isn't it? You sitting here every night, staring at Mark's name on the casualty list."Derek's jaw clenched. His knuckles went white against the dark wood of the table. "Don't.""Don't what? Don't mention that you've barely spok

Chapter Fifty four

Mona's POV Nova stood at the edge of the cliff where we'd once scattered our mother's ashes, her silver hair whipping in the dawn wind like a war banner with no war left to fight."I don't know who I am anymore," she said without turning around. Her voice carried that hollow echo I'd been hearing for weeks—the sound of someone who'd survived when they'd expected to die. "The witch mothers trained me to be a weapon. Marcus trained me to be a phoenix. The war trained me to kill. But now?" She laughed, brittle as ice. "Now everyone looks at me like I should have answers, and all I have are questions I'm too afraid to ask."I stepped beside her, close enough that our shoulders touched. Below us, the valley stretched green and peaceful, no sign of the battles that had scorched it months ago. "What questions?""Why did I survive when they didn't? What's the point of all this power if I couldn't save the people who made me? Who am I when I'm not fighting for my life or someone else's?" She

Chapter Fifty five

Mona's POV The scream that ripped through Silver Moon's main hall made everyone freeze. Then the sound of shattering wood, followed by Leon's voice, deadly calm: "Get out. Now."I found him standing over the splintered remains of what had been Marcus Blackstone's throne—a massive oak chair that had dominated the pack hall for three generations. His knuckles were bleeding, splinters embedded in his skin, but his eyes burned with something I'd never seen in my little brother before. Purpose mixed with rage."That's where he sat," Leon said without looking at me. "Where he decided which omegas to sell. Which children to trade. Which lives were worth less than politics." He kicked a broken piece across the floor. "Every law, every cruelty, every degradation started in that chair. And everyone just accepted it because that's how things were."Around us, Silver Moon pack members watched in silence. Some looked relieved. Others terrified. A few—the ones who'd profited from Marcus's system—l

Chapter Fifty six

Mona's POV The dress shouldn't have existed. Marcus Blackstone had burned everything of my mother's—or so I'd thought. But hidden in a sanctuary trunk, wrapped in tissue paper that crumbled at my touch, lay her ceremonial dress. White silk that caught light like water, embroidered with silver phoenixes that seemed to move when I breathed. The note tucked inside, written in Marcus's harsh script, simply said: "She would have wanted you to have this."I stood before the mirror in Silver Moon's preparation room, wearing my dead mother's wedding dress, and felt time collapse. Past and present merged as Nova's fingers worked through my hair, braiding in small silver bells that chimed with each movement."You came back," I whispered, afraid if I spoke too loud she'd vanish like a dream."I promised, didn't I?" Nova's eyes met mine in the mirror. She looked different—calmer, more centered, like she'd found whatever she'd been searching for on those empty roads. "Besides, someone had to mak

Chapter Fifty seven

Mona's POV The girl couldn't have been more than twelve, but her eyes held the weight of someone who'd lived through hell and remembered every second."You're lying," she said, pressing herself deeper into the corner of the abandoned barn where I'd found her. Orange flames flickered along her arms—uncontrolled, defensive, ready to burn anything that came too close. "Phoenix leaders kill. That's what they do. Your grandfather proved that."I stayed where I was, crouched in the doorway, making myself small. Non-threatening. The barn smelled of rot and fear-sweat. She'd been hiding here for weeks, maybe months, living on stolen food and rainwater. Another phoenix descendant who'd survived Elias's purge by becoming a ghost."My grandfather was a monster," I said simply. "But I'm not him.""That's what he probably said too." The girl—Ember, according to the rumors that had led me here—laughed bitterly. "Right before he ripped the phoenix fire out of my mother's chest. I watched from the h

Chapter Fifty Eight

Mona's POV The bathroom floor felt cold against my knees as I threw up for the third morning in a row, trying to muffle the sounds so Derek wouldn't hear.But of course he heard. Derek always heard everything—wolf senses combined with the mate bond made privacy basically impossible. His hand settled warm on my back, pulling my hair away from my face as another wave of nausea hit."Food poisoning?" he asked, though something in his voice suggested he already suspected the truth."Maybe." The lie tasted bitter. I'd been suspecting for weeks now, but saying it out loud would make it real, and real things could be lost. After everything we'd survived, the thought of hoping for something this precious terrified me more than any war."Mona." He helped me stand, studying my face with those brown eyes that saw too much. "How long?""I don't know what you're—""You've been tired. Nauseous. You cried yesterday because Leon ate the last piece of bread." His thumb brushed my cheek. "And your sce

Chapter Fifty nine

Mona's POV The soup smelled wrong—just barely, like roses hiding beneath chicken broth, sweet where it should have been savory.I lifted the spoon halfway to my mouth when Sophie's protection ward flared violent purple against my wrist, burning hot enough to make me drop everything. The bowl shattered against the floor, soup spreading like blood across white marble."Don't move." Sophie appeared in the doorway, her magic already scanning the spilled liquid. Her face went pale. "Nightshade root. Concentrated. It wouldn't have killed you—your phoenix blood would neutralize it. But the babies..." She couldn't finish the sentence.The babies. Someone had tried to murder my unborn children.Derek burst through the door seconds later, Leon and three guards behind him. He took one look at my face, at Sophie's shaking hands, at the poisoned soup seeping into the floorboards, and his eyes went pure gold. Lightning crackled along his arms, wild and dangerous."Who?" The word came out more grow

Chapter Sixty

Mona's POV Samuel stood in our courtyard at dawn, seventeen years old with phoenix fire dancing in his palms, screaming that I'd ruined his life."I was normal before you!" His voice cracked, tears streaming down his face while guards surrounded him, waiting for Derek's signal. "I had a future! A family! Then you 'saved' me and now I'm this—this thing that burns!"The accusation hit harder than any physical blow. I watched from my window, seven months pregnant and banned from direct confrontation, as the boy I'd pulled from flames threw those same flames at our walls. His phoenix fire was wild, uncontrolled, more rage than power.Derek caught him easily—one lightning strike to stun, another to bind. But Samuel's words echoed long after they dragged him away: "You're not a savior, you're a curse! Everything you touch burns!""He's wrong," Derek said that night, hands gentle on my swollen belly."Is he?" I stared at the list Nova had brought—fifty-three names, all connected to assassin

PREV

...

NEXT

I-scan ang code para mabasa sa App

DMCA.com Protection Status