Chapter 427: Athena’s curse
PAULINE
I sat on the cold stone floor, my body curled tight around itself, the dampness seeping through my dress and into my bones.
Ti felt aningless down here. There was no light except the thin shaft filtering through the barred window high above, no sound except my own ragged breathing and the occasional drip of water sowhere in the darkness.
I was the third daughter of a nothing pack.
The thought ca unbidden, sharp and bitter. My father had ruled a territory so small you could walk its borders in an afternoon. Three daughters, no sons, and a dwindling influence that hemorrhaged away with each passing year.
My eldest sister had been beautiful in that delicate, porcelain way n claid to prefer. Soft-spoken. Gentle. Everything a Luna was supposed to be.
She never stood a chance at the ball, where eligible wolves gathered like vultures circling fresh at.
My second sister had been clever, sharp-tongued, and quick-witted, ard with enough political savvy to make our father proud.
Marcus had barely looked at her.
But ?
I had been a freak in the sheets and a master strategist in every other room. I studied him the way generals studied battlefields, learned every weakness, every desire, every vulnerability he tried to hide beneath that carefully constructed facade of control.
I made myself indispensable.
The night I seduced him, I wore red. Not the soft blush of innocence but the deep crimson of blood and power. I whispered things in his ear that made him forget himself, made him crave
in ways that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with obsession.
When he chose
over both my sisters, I thought I had won.
I thought I had proved my worth in every way that mattered. That my cunning and my willingness to do whatever it took had secured my future in a way beauty and breeding never could.
I had been so far from the fucking truth.
The laugh that bubbled up from my chest was hollow and bitter.
All those years of fighting. Of scheming. Of breaking myself into the perfect shape to fit the hole he needed filled. And for what?
How you get them is how you lose them.
My mother had whispered that once, back when I was still young enough to think love mattered more than strategy. I had ignored her, dismissed it as the bitter ramblings of a woman whose own marriage had crumbled under the weight of disappointed expectations.
But she had been right.
If I could seduce Marcus away from better options through sheer force of will and sexual prowess, what made
think another woman could not do the sa to ?
Athena had not even tried.
That was the worst part. She had simply existed, all wide eyes and genuine smiles and that nauseating purity that made grown n stupid.
And Marcus had looked at her the way he never looked at .
I had resisted it. Fought against the inevitable with everything I had. Bent the rules until they snapped. Destroyed her before she could destroy .
But maybe it had always been going to happen regardless.
Maybe this ending had been written the mont I clawed my way into a position I had no right to hold, secured through manipulation instead of genuine connection.
I wondered if today was the day it all finally caught up with .
The sound of footsteps on the stairs jerked
from my spiraling thoughts.
Heavy boots. Multiple sets.
The sentinels.
My heart hamred against my ribs. I scrambled backward until my spine hit the wall, my hands scrabbling uselessly against the damp stone.
The cell door swung open.
"No." The word ca out small and pathetic. "No, I am not going."
"Alpha’s orders," one of them said, his voice flat and professional. "Co quietly or we drag you."
I shook my head, pressing harder against the wall as though I could sohow ld with the stone and disappear.
They moved forward.
I kicked out, my foot connecting with sothing solid. That grunt of pain was quickly followed by hands closing around my arms with brutal efficiency.
"Let
go!"
I thrashed against their grip, nails raking across fabric, teeth bared like a feral thing.
"Alpha Dimitri said to do what it takes if she resists," one of them muttered.
The slap ca fast and hard, snapping my head to the side.
Pain exploded across my already bruised cheek. The fight drained out of
in an instant, leaving only hollow exhaustion in its wake.
They dragged
from the cell.
My feet scraped uselessly against the stone steps as they hauled
upward, back toward the world I had tried so desperately to control. The corridor stretched endlessly before us, familiar and terrible in equal asure.
When we reached the study, they pushed the door open without ceremony.
Marcus stood behind his desk, his expression carved from ice. But it was the woman beside him who made my blood run cold.
She was young. Beautiful. Fashion-forward in a way that spoke of no true wealth and influence, and her dress was cut in elegant lines that hugged her fra. But it was the gloves that caught my attention. Red. Vibrant, arterial red that seed to glow against her pale skin.
A delicate.
"This is wrong," I said, my voice cracking. "Marcus, this is wrong. You cannot do this."
He did not look at
when he spoke.
"I cannot trust your words." His jaw worked. "But this. This, I can trust."
He turned to the delicate.
"Get to work."
The girl looked toward the hulking man standing just behind her. Broad-shouldered. Dark-skinned. Silent as death.
Her handler.
The man gave a single, sharp nod.
The delicate stepped forward, her fingers moving to the fastenings of her gloves with practiced precision.
"No." I pulled against the sentinels holding . "No, Marcus, please. You do not understand what you are asking."
The gloves ca off slowly, revealing hands that looked too delicate to contain the power they held.
"Dimitri!" His na tore from my throat, desperate and raw. "Dimitri, no!"
The delicate moved closer.
"Resistance will be dangerous for your mind," she said softly, her voice carrying the weight of soone who had seen what happened when people fought this process.
Her hand reached for .
I thrashed harder, my whole body bucking against the iron grip of the sentinels. But they held firm, pressing
down until I could barely move.
Her fingers made contact with my temple.
Ice.
That was the only word for it. Her touch spread across my skin like frost creeping over glass, seeping into my pores and burrowing deeper with each passing second.
I started to shake.
Violent tremors that rattled my bones and made my teeth clack together painfully. Sowhere in the distance, I registered that the delicate was shaking too, worse than , her eyes rolling back until only the whites showed.
I looked at Marcus.
He stared back with nothing but cold indifference.
The invasion began.
I felt her presence in my mind like oil spreading across water, slick and wrong and impossible to stop. She moved through my mories with surgical precision, peeling back layers I had spent years building, dismantling the careful architecture of my lies.
The tears ca harder now, mixing with the spit gathering at the corners of my mouth.
"Please." The word was barely a whisper. "Please, no. Please no. I am begging you."
I tried to hold her back. Tried to force my mind closed against the intrusion.
But what found
was pain.
White-hot and jarring, it tore through my skull like lightning splitting a tree. I coughed, tasting copper, feeling warm blood spatter across my lips and chin.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
The delicate pulled her hand back, her own body trembling, sweat beading on her forehead despite the cold that still clung to my skin.
"I have what I need, Alpha Dimitri."
The sentinels released
then.
I collapsed forward, my knees hitting the floor with bruising force. I crawled toward Marcus on my hands and knees, my pride shattered beyond recognition.
"Please." I reached for his boots, my fingers curling around the leather. "Please forgive . Please. I know I was wrong. I know—"
He stepped back, removing himself from my grasp.
His attention was fixed on the delicate.
"That must an her secrets are big."
The girl straightened, pulling her composure back together with visible effort. She t his gaze directly.
"The woman called Athena is truly dead."
Relief tried to bloom in my chest.
"But she had a child."
The relief died, strangled before it could take root.
"She had your child. And that child had a child. And that child who was had is currently Luna of Skollrend."
The delicate paused, letting the words settle like stones dropped into still water.
"Your granddaughter."
My stomach heaved.
Bile rushed up my throat, hot and acidic. I turned my head just in ti, vomiting onto the polished floor of the study, my whole body convulsing with the force of it.
The delicate continued speaking, but I could not hear her over the roaring in my ears.
Granddaughter....
The word echoed through my mind, bouncing off the walls of my skull until it was all I could hear.
I retched again, bringing up nothing but stomach acid that burned my throat raw.
Everything I had done... Every choice I had made... Every life I had destroyed...
And for what?
To delay the inevitable by a single generation.
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