All Chapters of The Lycan's daughter: His to ruin: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Vanessa's POV The bell rang, steady and clear, and I surfaced from sleep slower than I meant to, blinking against the light slanting through the curtains.Lunch.I lay there a moment, testing the strange, unfamiliar feeling sitting in my chest. Peace. I hadn't felt it in weeks and some small part of me almost distrusted it.He's still hurting, my wolf said. Our mate. And you slept like nothing was wrong.'I slept like a woman done carrying things that were never mine to carry.'She didn't answer that.I dressed and went downstairs, and found Mandy already at the table. Her eyes lifted to mine and her brow furrowed instantly, some calculation running behind her face before I'd even pulled out my chair.I sat. I ate.The scent of rosemary pulled something loose in me, my grandmother's kitchen, years before Ronan, before any of this. I let myself have it a moment, then let it go.The sound of my cutlery filled the room after that, clean and deliberate, and I let it stretch."Whatever it

Ronan's POVThe ClubMandy's breathing evened out beside me, slow and steady, and I lay there in the dark listening to it, my own mind refusing the same mercy.I'm losing her.The thought arrived plain and unwelcome, no drama attached to it, just fact, the way you'd notice a crack running up a wall you'd assumed was solid. Not losing her love. I'd stopped needing that months ago, if I was honest with myself, which I rarely bothered being anymore. Losing her compliance. Losing the version of Vanessa who used to fold herself around whatever I needed and call it partnership.I reached for my phone.Marcus picked up on the fourth ring, his voice thick with sleep. "It's past midnight, Ronan.""I need to talk.""Is this about the conference?" A pause, some rustling on his end. "About what happened with the strategy."I rolled my eyes at the dark ceiling. "Meet me at the club.""Ronan, it's—""The club, Marcus."I hung up before he could argue further.I dressed in black, unhurried, buttonin

Ronan's POV The last thing I saw before the floor rushed up to meet me was her face.It wasn't fear on it. It wasn't the flicker of panic I'd been counting on, standing there in the drive with my shirt torn open and blood running warm down my ribs. It was indifference, flat and complete, watching from the mezzanine like I was a stranger bleeding out in someone else's foyer.I woke to white.The ceiling first, tiled and fluorescent, too bright, and then the steady beep of a monitor somewhere to my left, and the thin, sterile smell of antiseptic that always made my stomach turn no matter how many times I'd woken up in rooms like this one. An IV line ran into the back of my hand. A curtain hung half drawn around the bed, pale blue, and beyond it I could hear low voices, hospital staff moving through their rounds like nothing in this building was urgent enough to hurry for.Vanessa sat in the chair beside the bed.She wasn't looking at me when my eyes opened, her attention fixed somewher

Ink and Shadows..Vanessa's POV The days folded into each other, one bleeding into the next until I stopped counting them properly, and through every single one of them I sat in that hospital chair with Mandy hovering somewhere close enough to remind me she existed.I watched him sleep more than I watched anything else, the rise and fall of his chest under the thin hospital blanket, watched the machine beside the bed chart his heartbeat in small green peaks, and somewhere in all that watching I stopped being able to tell whether I was hoping he'd wake up faster or hoping the stillness would just stretch on a little longer, sparing me the version of him that talked.My wolf didn't like the waiting. She paced through all of it, restless, torn between two loyalties that refused to reconcile, and I'd stopped arguing with her days ago. I simply let her pace.The door creaked open on the fourth morning.The doctor stepped through, an older man with tired eyes and the careful, measured way

Cards on the tableVanessa's POV The door opened before he'd finished the second knock.I stood there already composed, one hand resting on the frame, my expression arranged into something mild and faintly curious, though underneath it every instinct I owned had gone sharp and still."My family," I said. "What about it?""Can I come in?""You're already halfway in the doorway, Ronan. I don't think my permission's ever mattered much to you before."Something flickered across his face, there and gone, and he stepped past me into the room anyway, hands tucked into his pockets, unhurried, glancing around like he was cataloging something."I've been thinking," he said, "about how little I actually know about where you came from.""After three years of marriage, that's what's occupying your mind this morning.""Humor me."I crossed my arms, leaning back against the closed door. "You know everything there is to know. Parents killed in a rogue attack when I was young. No pack affiliation wor