Chapter 201
Chapter 201:
But as he turned back to the stove, a cold seed of doubt took root in my chest. He hadn’t asked what the man looked like, or why a powerful Senator had been speaking to me. He had simply wanted to shut the conversation down. I pressed my fingers against my chest, right over my heart. It was aching — a deep, physical pull that had nothing to do with Quentin, and everything to do with the broken Lycan in the hotel lobby.
Kira POV
Miles away, the air inside the Silvermoon Pack’s Elder Sanctum was suffocating. The room reeked of dry herbs, sterile antiseptic, and the pathetic fragility of old age.
I stood near the door, forcing my cloying jasmine scent to remain neutral as my stepmother, Carolyn, fussed over the oxygen machine. On the bed, Elder Maeve Wolfe glared at me through her cloudy, cataract-veiled eyes. She held a magnifying glass over a hardcover book, but her hostility was directed entirely at me.
Suddenly, Carolyn’s cell phone buzzed in her designer purse. She glanced at the screen and sighed. “It’s the lawyers. I have to take this. I’ll be right back in the hall p>
The heavy door clicked shut behind her.
𝗢𝘳𝘨𝖺𝗇𝘪𝘻𝖾 𝘆о𝗎𝗋 𝘭𝗶𝖻𝗋a𝗿у 𝗈ո.с𝗈𝘮
The moment the latch caught, I dropped the repentant daughter act. A slow, wicked smile stretched across my face as I stepped closer to the bed. The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor seemed to echo my rising excitement.
“You think she won, don’t you?” I whispered, leaning over the metal bedrail.
Maeve’s frail hand tightened around her magnifying glass, her breathing growing shallow.
“Adelina is a wolfless Omega,” I hissed, letting the pure malice bleed into my voice. “She’s a defective toy. She can’t even complete the Marking. Her womb is just as dormant and useless as her pathetic wolf p>
The heart monitor’s tempo began to accelerate.
I leaned in closer, making sure she heard every single word before her fragile heart gave out. “The great White Wolf bloodline, the Blackstone legacy… it all ends in a barren womb. Kain will discard his broken toy, and Adelina will be left to rot, just like you p>
Maeve gasped. Her cloudy eyes widened in absolute horror and devastating grief. She clutched her chest, the book slipping from her lap and hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
The monitor spiked violently, the green line jumping in erratic, frantic peaks before dropping entirely into a long, continuous, unbroken tone.
Deep within my chest, my Inner Wolf let out a dark, satisfied roar. I watched the life leave the old matriarch’s eyes, a cruel, victorious smile blooming on my lips.
I took a step back and quickly pinched my own arm hard enough to force tears into my eyes. I let my shoulders tremble, perfectly arranging my features into a mask of absolute, hysterical terror before I turned to face the door.
Adelina POV
The long, continuous tone of the flatline pierced the quiet halls of the Elder Sanctum like a physical blade.
I dropped the cup of water I was holding. It shattered against the floorboards, but I was already sprinting down the heavy, carpeted corridor. The emergency light above my grandmother’s door flashed a blinding, frantic red. The air was thick with the sterile scent of antiseptic, dry herbs, and the cloying, sickeningly sweet jasmine perfume of Kira Parrish.
I burst through the gathering crowd of nurses just as the Pack Doctor rushed into the room with a crash cart.