Ch. 296..300: Breed Me, Daddy Alpha chapter 296-300

Breed Me. Daddy Alpha – Chapter 296

My muscles tightened, my skin burned, every nerve in my body screaming for the familiar rush of transformation—but it was as if I were pressing against a locked door. My claws didn’t break through. My bones didn’t yield.

I staggered, clutching at my chest as if sheer will could tear the block apart. “No,” I rasped, breath tearing from my throat.

Kael’s wolf stared at me, ears pinned back. “Hades?” For more chapters visit FιndＮovel.net

Cain’s wolf prowled closer, his golden eyes narrowing. His muzzle dipped to sniff, his breath cold against my skin. Then he growled low, the sound rumbling through the clearing.

“It’s not wolfsbane,” I whispered, horror clawing through me as my throat closed. The air felt heavier, like something pressing from inside and out. “Something’s—something’s blocking me.”

The silence that followed was brutal. Maera’s gaze sharpened, torchlight glinting off the scar that split her face. The fugitives behind us began to murmur again, a sea of whispers rising like a tide.

My lungs strained for air that wouldn’t come. The silence around me thickened until even the wind seemed to die.

Cain’s wolf let out a guttural sound, then his massive form began to bend, shrink, twist. Fur receded, bones cracked back into place. When he stood upright again, breath steaming in the night, his eyes hadn’t softened.

He snapped his fingers once. The sharp crack cut through the murmurs.

“That’s enough speculation,” he said, voice iron. “It’s not poison. It’s not weakness.” His gaze skewered me, unblinking, as if he were driving a spear straight through my chest. “It’s your wife.”

My throat closed. A hundred denials clawed at me but refused to make it past my lips.

Cain tilted his head slightly, a wolf’s gesture still lingering in his human posture. “The Fenrir’s chain,” he said, slow, deliberate, each word landing like a hammer on an anvil. “It doesn’t just bind your blood. It binds your beast. The longer you’re separated—by distance, by time—the more it starves you of what you are.”

The words were smoke and fire, filling my lungs until I thought they would burst.

I staggered back a step, shaking my head. “No… no, that’s—”

But even as I spoke, my claws still refused me. My wolf howled somewhere deep, locked behind a wall I could not breach.

Cain’s lips curved in grim certainty that made my stomach churn. “You’ve felt it, haven’t you? The slow drag, the way every shift has grown heavier. That’s not chance, Hades. That’s the chain tightening. You can’t outrun it. Not when she’s gone.”

The air around us rippled with unease. Maera’s grip on Sage tightened; Kael’s wolf growled low, confusion and fury bleeding into the sound. The fugitives whispered louder now, fear infecting the ranks.

My chest cracked open with the realization.

Eve.

That was why I was seeing her face on every surface while my body felt stranger. Something was missing—and it was Eve. It was not just about missing her, it was about needing her.

I looked through the back door, dread churning my gut. The journey had not even begun and already there was an obstacle at the starting line.

Kael shifted back. “This can’t be happening now,” frustration colored his voice.

But my mind was already spiraling with what this meant. As if the stakes weren’t already high, as if we weren’t already running out of time. As if every waking moment I was away from my family didn’t already weigh heavily on me.

I clutched my chest, dragging air into my lungs, my mind whirling uncontrollably with scenarios that could play out. In every single one, I saw Eve’s face distraught and disappointed because I had failed her, failed our family, our people, the innocent fugitives of Silverpine.

> “Hades, you are not without power,” Cerberus’ growl laced through my harrowing thoughts. “The emotions you experience now belong to Eve. Her anxiety and fear are feeding into you through the chain that binds you both. Push it aside, Hades, and focus. The answer has been inside you all along. Right now, you can feel her lowest moment through the link. You have to save her. You owe it to her after everything.”

> “I am trying, but I can only think of going by foot and secretly hitching rides through public transport until we are close enough to the border to attempt a sprint to our destination.” I was strategizing again, making compromises with my previous plan. The stakes would be impossibly higher, but I had to try. Without communication with Obsidian, we were utterly on our own.

> “No.” Cerberus’ voice was an echo that drowned every other thought in an instant. “You know you have another way. You are avoiding it.”

A thrill crawled up my spine and I quickly shoved away the idea that had haunted me longer than I would have liked to admit.

Kael’s voice pulled me back, a knowing twinkle in his darting eyes. “I know that look. You have a plan.”

Cain’s voice was sharpened with urgency. “Spill it.”

I shook my head, looking ahead at the path forward. “I will go on foot. The rest—”

The words weren’t even fully out of my mouth before they cut me off with deathly glares, Maera included, her mouth twisted with disapproval. They looked prepared to barricade the backdoor just to keep me from attempting it.

“There is no other way—”

Kael shook his head, his expression steely with conviction. “I have known you long enough to read you. You have another way but you don’t want to try it, for whatever reason. But you have to do this.”

I swallowed, the memory forever fresh in my mind. The red leathery mottled flesh that had burst from my skin, the long fleshy bat-like wings with digits of their own. The lack of control that seemed to come with every horrible transformation. The words came out choked as I whispered to them.

“I will have to shift into a full vampire.”

“What?”

Breed Me. Daddy Alpha – Chapter 297

They both stiffened as the word left my lips, colour draining instantly. For a moment, none of them spoke, and I was left to watch as the people still gathered grew anxious, murmurs swelling like a tide. Maera simply observed, her gaze unreadable, as though waiting for the inevitable.

Kael swallowed thickly, speaking first, a slight tremor lacing every syllable.

“It’s that thing you shifted into when Eve tried to escape, right? The creature that took the hit from Montegue’s weapon and healed immediately?” His eyes widened with every word, fear dripping into each question as if he was bracing for the answer. “The same one with wings strong enough to strangle a full-grown man.”

His green eyes were haunted. Like he was back in the lab, my fingers wrapped around his throat.

Guilt gnawed at me. I steadied him with a hand to his shoulder and gave him the same words I had said when I first learned what had happened after Vassir had taken full control, when I became a prisoner in my own body, shackled by my own mind and memories.

“I am so sorry,” I whispered.

He shook off the haze, his eyes sharpening, focusing on me.

“Can you do it?”

The ground tilted beneath me, and I wasn’t sure how the hell I stayed upright as I stared at him like he’d asked me to surrender myself to Darius.

“Kael…”

“You heard me.” His grip tightened on my shoulder, almost like he was fighting the urge to shake me. “You might not be able to shift into your wolf, but a shifted vampire in the night is a shadow—swift, silent, perfect. Almost too damn perfect.”

Cain quipped in, drowning me further. “In elementary school, they taught us the fuckers could fly too. He’s right—it’s almost too perfect.”

Kael nodded, his voice dropping to a fierce whisper. “It’ll be the perfect form to cut through patrols, carve our way through this place. They won’t see it coming, and even by the time they figure it out, it’ll be too late. We’ll be home in one piece.”

I could see all the advantages, but still—the thought of unleashing the residual Flux that had bound itself into the very marrow of me, that made me hybrid, was daunting.

The pressure mounted in my chest at the thought. Would it be like Vassir taking me over again? Would I be able to steer myself? Or would I lose control as I had before, drowning in the embodiment of vengeance and unfathomable evil?

“Hades, I know you fear that Vassir might not be as truly gone as we’d hoped,” Kael said softly.

“He made you what you are now—a dual creature, both Lycan and vampire. If one part is out of commission, you have the other,” Cain added. “If Eve says he’s gone, believe her. It’s Eve. She’d never jeopardize you like that.”

“I know,” I countered, a little too harshly. “But—”

“Eve is waiting at home,” Kael cut me off.

The knot in my stomach tightened, longing cutting through me like a sharpened blade.

“She’s probably not let Elliot out of her sight since this started. Probably has him perched on her hip while she waits for your return. For our return.”

That was exactly what Eve would do. I doubted she had even slept.

“And you know what makes it worse?” Read complete version only at find•novel.net

Dread tightened its skeletal grip on my heart.

“She can’t shift,” Cain reminded me. “So she’s all alone, worried sick, while she can’t even protect your son from whatever that bastard has planned. Not to mention all your emotions—most of them clearly negative right now—” he gestured at me, “are being fed straight to Eve through Fenrir’s chain. The last thing she needs is more stress, and I doubt the council is making it any easier on her. So unless you want her to collapse under the weight of your fear, you get it together.” His voice was raw, stripped of sarcasm. “She’s carrying enough already.”

Fear wasn’t usually an emotion that wreaked such havoc within me.

But this was visceral. This shift was tied to a time I had almost lost Eve. Almost lost Kael.

Almost lost myself.

But I had to leap.

I drew in a breath. Then another. Each ragged, burning, like swallowing fire.

Finally, I lifted my head, voice gravel and steel.

“Stand back.”

The first crack came like thunder inside my ribs.

I staggered, choking on the heat flooding my veins—fire and knives colliding as bone snapped and stretched, my spine bowing until I thought it would tear through my skin. My scream never left my throat. It broke into a guttural snarl, strangled by the blood flooding my mouth.

My hands clawed the earth, nails tearing as my arms elongated, sinew twisting, reshaping. My body peeled itself open, layer by layer, until I was nothing but raw flesh and exposed muscle. The stench of iron filled the air, thick and metallic.

My wings tore free first—wet, glistening things of sinew and vein, unfurling with the sound of tearing hide. They beat once, showering the dirt in droplets of blood.

Every rib cracked outward. My chest expanded. The beast clawed free.

And through the haze of agony, memory came with it.

Not mine. Vassir’s.

Faceless men bowing in shadowed halls. Screams. Chains rattling. A battlefield drenched in red. And among them—her. Eve. No—Elysia. She stood there, fire in her hair, gaze unflinching, as though she had always been the counterweight to the abyss inside me.

Her name broke me.

But another voice cut in.

“Brother.”

I froze mid-shift, the word echoing like a curse. Through the flashing visions, a figure emerged—pale, wide-eyed, draped in black. His presence burned, familiar in a way that clawed at the back of my mind. His gaze was adoring as his lips formed words too quick for me to grasp.

Breed Me. Daddy Alpha – Chapter 298

I knew the name before I realized I had spoken it aloud. It bled from my lips as my jaw snapped wider, fangs lengthening. Orion. I had seen him once before—in a dream that had felt like memory, a fragment of a conversation just before I woke in the Cauterium.

The more my body broke and rebuilt, the clearer his face became. He smiled like kin. Then his expression darkened, unraveling, until his skin turned deathly, his youth leached away, leaving a shell that breathed ruin.

As I took Vassir’s form, his memories poured into me, inseparable. For as long as his past washed through me, this figure—kin I would never meet in my present self—felt unbearably familiar.

My knees gave way, talons carving furrows in the dirt as the transformation completed. I rose from the carnage of myself, towering, wings dripping red.

The world came back into focus. Wide eyes stared up at me—some in awe, most in horror so thick it choked the air. Maera clutched Sage tighter. Kael and Cain’s eyes were wide as saucers.

“Fuck,” Cain muttered, almost afraid. Then he clapped his hands together, laughing in delight, his voice cutting through the tension and contrasting everyone else’s terror.

“Who needs shifting for transport? We got a ride right here. We’re going home, fellas.”

Even as Cain tried to break the tension with his enthusiasm, Kael was frozen stiff where he stood, his eyes pinned on me for a worrying amount of time. He didn’t blink—for a long while he looked trapped, as if frozen in time.

Cain noticed this, and we all stopped. With bated breath, we waited for his reaction.

Kael swallowed audibly, his lips finally moving as his gaze shuttered. “It’s uglier than I remember,” he whispered.

We didn’t speak as we let him land.

“And as big as a shifted Lycan…” His gaze was so focused, but he looked like he was far away, blown apart by what he was seeing. His eyes shifted, flickering with both fear and a strange curiosity. “The wings…” he muttered, swallowing again. “They’re bat-like?” He wrinkled his nose. “But fleshy. And bloody.”

He took a step, then another, reaching out his hand tentatively to touch me—whatever I had become.

He cringed as he made contact before his face slowly smoothed over. He tilted his head, fear slowly receding, giving way to open curiosity. “It’s not sticky,” he murmured, slowly raising his head to meet my eyes. I could see every pore on his face, every minute freckle, the faint stubble along his jaw. It was like looking through a microscope.

Kael did not pull away. His hand lingered. It trembled against the strange taut appendage I never thought I would have. I caught the way his pupils dilated, as though he was caught between awe and revulsion.

He traced his hand over the span, his hand small by comparison. He looked trapped in that liminal space where fear and fascination were one.

Then—before I could register it—Cain moved.

“Fuck it, no more tiptoeing,” he barked, and with one sudden, jarring shove he grabbed Kael by the collar and hauled him up, tossing him onto my back like a sack of flour.

The gasp that ripped through the gathered crowd was sharp enough to cut. Mothers clutched their children closer, fugitives staggered back in horror, and even Maera’s stony mask cracked into the faintest flicker of surprise.

A guttural growl tore from my chest, wings flaring wide as instinct screamed to throw Cain into the dirt for his insolence. My head snapped toward him, eyes burning with warning.

But before my fury could hit its mark, Kael’s voice cut through.

“It’s okay!” he shouted, gripping tightly to the rise of my shoulder blades. His laughter was breathless, half in shock, half in exhilaration. “It’s—” He looked around from his new height, hair whipping in the gust stirred by my wings. “It’s actually pretty damn cool up here.”

The crowd’s gasps softened into uneasy murmurs, disbelief flickering like torchlight among them.

Cain smirked, entirely unbothered by the growl still rumbling from deep within me. “See? Told you. Perfect transport.”

Kael leaned forward, his hand pressing firm against the base of my neck. His green eyes, still wide but no longer only with fear, met mine.

“You’ve got this,” he murmured, voice low enough for me alone. “Let’s show them.”

Cain slapped his palm against my wing with a laugh that grated against my instincts. “If Kael can do it, so can I. Move over, brother.”

Before I could snarl my refusal, a few of the fugitives stepped forward, their faces lit with a strange mix of fear and eagerness. One cupped his hands, offering Cain a boost. Another grabbed his arm and hauled as Cain braced himself, clearly enjoying the absurd spectacle.

“Up you go, High Lord of Bad Ideas,” someone muttered, pushing with their shoulder.

Kael chuckled, breathless, and leaned down to extend a hand. “Don’t break your neck before we even take off.”

Cain grabbed it with a grin. “Thanks, little fox.” With a grunt, he was shoved and pulled upward until he clambered across the ridges of my spine, settling heavily just behind Kael.

“See? Room for a whole cavalry,” Cain announced, clapping Kael’s shoulder as though this were all some grand joke.

Then—sharp, piercing—the sound of crying cut through the moment.

Every hand stilled. Every voice hushed.

We all turned.

Little Sage stood at the edge of the crowd, her small fists rubbing furiously at her eyes, her cheeks wet with tears. The sight of her trembling frame carved a silence heavier than any roar of mine ever could.

Her voice cracked, but it carried. “When will I see you again? Will you come back?” She sniffled, furiously rubbing her eyes.

The silence bent and fractured beneath Sage’s crying. It carved me open worse than claws could.

I turned, and so did Cain. His shoulders stiffened, his smirk faltering as though the weight of her voice pressed down on him harder than gravity.

Before I could say anything, I heard it. Barely more than breath, but it was there—”Sophie…” Cain whispered, the name breaking raw from somewhere deep. His eyes flinched shut a fraction of a second too long before he caught himself. “Sage,” he corrected quickly, almost too quickly, voice rough, covering it with a forced chuckle.

But I heard it. Who was Sophie? Another question I would investigate when we returned to Obsidian Pack—if we did.

The dilemma gnawed at him like fire and frost, tearing him between past and present, between ghosts and the little girl trembling before us. His jaw flexed, his eyes blazing with something unspoken, and for the first time in years, Cain looked… breakable. Vulnerable.

The Flux inside me stirred, recognizing weakness.

I shifted my wings closer around him, turning with my elongated neck, lowering my voice so only he could hear. “Stay.” The rightful source is Find[ɴ]ovel.net

Cain’s head snapped toward me, disbelief flashing in his face.

“You’re not coming with us,” I said, firm enough to still the air between us. “A Lycan is worth more here than on my back. The rebellion needs more teeth if it’s to survive the coming Bloodmoon. And if anything happens here…” My throat scraped over the words, my chest tightening. “…then you keep Ellen out of Darius’s bloody hands. Promise me.” We didn’t need Darius shortening our time even more.

The crowd was still silent, all eyes on us, but in that silence I felt Cain’s breath hitch. For once, his swagger failed him. He nodded—slow, heavy, reluctant.

With a fluid movement, he jumped down, boots slamming into the dirt.

Sage’s sobs cracked louder, and Maera put her down. Sage tore away, small legs pumping as she ran with all the clumsy desperation of a child straight into Cain’s arms.

He caught her instantly, knees bending to absorb the impact. She clung to his neck, tiny fists twisting into his shirt, sobbing her heart out.

She had witnessed Ellen reveal how little time we had left, and I guessed it was only now fully weighing on her scarred little mind. The end was coming, and holding on to what we loved was a reasonable response—even if it was a stranger who had held her through most of our brief stay.

Cain buried his face in her hair, his grin gone, his laughter gone, everything stripped away until only the raw truth remained.

I braced for my exit, my flight. Kael’s grip tightened, I felt him steel himself, shifting his hands to claws to hold on.

Cain carried Sage and turned to me, a wry smile on his face. “I know you heard her name,” he murmured. “When you see her, tell her I will be back home soon. Tell her daddy loves her.”

Breed Me. Daddy Alpha – Chapter 299

The ground fell away beneath me.

The first few beats of my wings were violent, each downstroke a thunderous clap that rattled loose stones, tugged at clothes. Air surged under me like a living thing, fighting and yielding in the same breath. My body strained against gravity, every muscle burning, but then—suddenly, impossibly—it gave.

We rose.

Unsteadily at first, my legs still reaching for the familiarity of the dirt.

I gritted my teeth, pushing back the instinct to stay close to the ground and letting the air beneath my wings carry me. My chest constricted momentarily, the cavity suddenly too tight from my hammering heart.

The village shrank below, a patchwork of pale faces and flickering light. Gasps followed, fading with the ground itself, until there was only the roar of the wind, the whip of my wings, and Kael’s grip tight against my shoulders.

He laughed. Gods, he actually laughed. It burst raw out of him, half-disbelieving, half-elated, the sound scattering into the night like a broken hymn. “Hades—do you feel this?” His voice carried in the rushing air, wide-eyed wonder cracking every word.

I did.

The wind screamed against my ears, sharp and cold as it carved across my skin. The pull of the earth slackened, replaced by the wild, trembling freedom of weightlessness. Each beat of my wings shook the night, and the stars seemed to bend closer, as if they, too, were startled to see me among them.

Kael leaned forward, hair thrashing in the gale. His hand pressed more firmly to the back of my neck as though he could anchor himself in the impossible. “You’re flying,” he breathed, reverent, his voice stolen half by the wind.

The horizon unfurled—an endless expanse of black forest broken only by the silver veins of rivers glimmering under moonlight. Every scent rushed sharper, every sound clearer, as if the air itself was showing me secrets it never trusted the earth with.

Beyond it were cities, lights from buildings illuminating the way. I knew to avoid flying directly overhead, since the last thing we needed was attention from civilians who might notice something strange in the skies.

I tilted, testing the pull, and Kael swore behind me, clutching tighter. His laughter pitched into a startled shout. “Warn me before you do that!” But his voice shook with exhilaration, not fear. He was clinging for his life, yet his eyes shone like a boy at a festival.

I banked again, slower this time, and the world rolled beneath us. Mountains rose dark and jagged on the horizon, their crowns kissed with mist. Wolves might run the forests, but this realm—this endless sweep of open air—was mine.

Kael’s breath was warm against my ear. “I thought it would be grotesque,” he admitted, softer now, words almost carried away. “Ugly. Wrong. But…” He looked out over the vast night, the moon catching in his wide green eyes. “…it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful like this. Maybe being a hybrid was always meant to be.”

The words cleaved through my nonexistent heart sharper than the cold wind.

And as the air cradled me, as the stars swam closer, as Kael held fast to me in awe—I realized this wasn’t only survival. This was power. Novelty. Liberation. Updates are released by f͟i͟n͟d͟n͟o͟v͟e͟l͟.net

I had become something more than monster.

I had become sky.

—

Eve

My sleep was troubled, filled with mostly twisting and turning. Every minute, my arm squeezed around Elliot’s back, spasming with instinct to make sure he was there. Even as I knew that Montegue was just outside the door, watching us with the force of our Gammas.

We were safe.

But for how long?

Was Hades safe? Kael? Cain? The Gammas would have accompanied them.

I rose slowly, a headache still rippling through my skull in painful pulses that made it hard to think and harder not to cry.

I stroked Elliot’s hair, the soft waves and curls grounding me against the torrent of my own amplifying dread.

Elliot stirred instantly, rising with me and reaching for my hand. “Mummy?” His voice was still groggy with sleep. “Where are we going?” he asked.

It pierced me, hearing him ask that the moment he woke up. There was no relaxation—the situation was fraught, and he knew it.

I cradled his soft cheeks as he tilted his head toward mine.

“I love you, you know?” I muttered in the darkness.

There was no reply from him for a minute that seemed to stretch endlessly.

“Do you want to leave because I am broken?” His voice was fragile.

I froze, his words slicing through the quiet like a blade. Broken? The horror in my chest made me clutch his face tighter, my thumbs trembling against his warm skin.

“Elliot,” I whispered, my voice shaking, “don’t you ever say that again. Don’t you ever think it.” I kissed his forehead, pressing my lips hard enough to anchor us both. “You are mine. My heart, my blood, my everything. Nothing you do—no shift, no secret, no shadow—could ever make me leave you. Not now, not ever. I would burn the whole world before I let it take you from me.”

His lashes fluttered, catching the moonlight. A tiny furrow pulled between his brows, too heavy for someone his age, but then he nodded slowly, as if sealing my words into his bones.

“We need to finish it, Mummy,” he whispered, voice small but steady. “Daddy. Uncle Kael. Then… then we can be complete. Then you won’t hurt anymore.”

My throat closed, but I forced the smile anyway, fierce and trembling. “Yes,” I breathed, leaning my forehead against his. “Yes, we’ll finish it. Together. We’ll make it right.”

Hand in hand, we pushed the door open.

Montegue stood in the hallway, pale as candle wax yet steadier than before. The sallow cast to his skin had faded to something healthier, and he wore a tired but genuine smile. His men carried trays into the room, dishes clattering softly as steam curled into the air.

Nausea hit me like a gut punch.

“You should eat,” Montegue said, his voice low but carrying, a thread of command woven through. His gaze lingered on Elliot with surprising gentleness. “Strength is needed for what comes next. And you, little one…” He bent slightly, letting his smile crease softer. “…you’ll need to be strong enough to find your father.”

Elliot pressed closer to my side, his small fingers tightening around mine—but his green eyes never looked away from Montegue’s. “Yes, grandpa.”

Breed Me. Daddy Alpha – Chapter 300

The manor loomed before me, its modern but vintage walls breathing with the kind of silence that devoured sound. Dread saturated every cell in my body, coiling tight as I adjusted Elliot on my hip. His weight was familiar, always a comfort, but it did little to steady the storm that beat inside my chest.

Montegue led us forward with that careful, deliberate stride of his, like he was not the same man I had watched crumple. Like his wife was not being dosed to keep her under control. As if his daughter had not escaped and brought so much misfortune.

I could see the wariness flicker in his eyes once in a while when he thought I wasn’t watching. The way his brow would crease from the stress that should have weighed him into an early grave. Yet, here he was, with a cane I had insisted he take with him as we investigated the odd report from the surveillance team.

The hall stretched long and suffocating, its shadows heavy with unseen eyes. I could feel the guards at my back—Obsidian Gammas that were always on my tail—their steps sharp and synchronized. Every move promised they would strike at the first sign of danger, and yet… my skin prickled with the sense that danger was already everywhere.

The air shifted as we neared Felicia’s rooms.

And then I saw them.

New cameras.

They glared down from every corner, red lights blinking like watchful eyes, all angled toward the entrance as though daring me to step through. The weight of their lenses tracked me, a reminder that every second, every breath, was being recorded. The hallway itself bristled with guards—Obsidian Tower and Montegue’s alike—layered like teeth around a wound that had never healed. Their hands hovered close, braced to shift the moment there was a disturbance.

Montegue paused at the door.

“This is where the trail began to blur,” he said softly, his voice echoing off his home that now felt haunted. His gaze swept over me, then dipped to Elliot. “Strange energies ripple from this room. They warped the surveillance, fried half the feeds I placed. But when my team investigated, there was no change.”

His hand brushed the doorframe with unsettling familiarity, and his smile sharpened. “Inside, we may find the truth.”

I tightened my grip on Elliot instinctively. He curled against me, his small fingers digging into the fabric of my sleeve, but his green eyes never wavered from Montegue’s.

Behind me, I felt the subtle shift of my guards—ready, taut, like bowstrings pulled to breaking.

I lifted my chin, swallowing the dread, and let my voice slice through the heavy silence.

“Then open it.”

They obeyed.

I stepped in, trepidation in every step, but I didn’t let it stop me as my eyes grazed every surface for the probable source of what the team had recorded.

My gaze swept the room, the glamour still holding—untouched, pristine. The false perfection gnawed at me, making the frustration over my powerlessness on every other front burn hotter. I was strong, barely registered pain, my healing speed could be called record breaking but was still blind to the methods of my father’s ploys.

“Mommy?”

I stopped, his small voice rippling sharper through me than any whisper of danger ever could.

Elliot tilted his head up from my shoulder, green eyes wide but unwavering. His voice came softer this time, steady in a way that felt older than he was. “Knox is telling me something.”

My breath caught. The name of his wolf was still so new, so fragile on his tongue, like a secret the world wasn’t ready to hear.

“Can I shift?”

Every muscle in me seized. My instinct screamed no. Not here. Not now. His body was still young, his wolf still finding its bones. The thought of him bearing pain or weakening himself made my heart lurch. I opened my mouth to refuse—

But then I felt Montegue’s gaze.

I turned. His expression wasn’t one of fear or dismissal. Instead, his eyes glinted with something I couldn’t place—curiosity sharpened with calculation. His lips curved into a small, approving smile.

“Let him,” Montegue said softly, almost warmly, though his voice carried the iron of command beneath it. His gaze flicked briefly to Elliot before settling on me. “If Knox speaks, you should listen. He is your son’s compass. But—” His brows knit in faint admonition as he lifted a hand. “Careful, boy. You just ate. Don’t push your body too hard. Indigestion will rob you of your strength, and we need all of it.”

Elliot nodded solemnly, as though the warning had been branded into him. Then he wriggled, asking silently to be put down.

My arms resisted. My heart rebelled. But slowly, with fingers that trembled despite myself, I lowered him to the floor.

The guards stirred, uneasy at the sight of a child about to shift, their stares flicking between me and Montegue. His slight tilt of the cane stilled them.

Elliot stood in the center of the room, small chest rising and falling with deep breaths, like he was drawing the very night into his lungs. His gaze met mine once more, and I forced my lips into a brave smile, nodding once.

And then he bent forward, his body shuddering, the shift rippling through his frame in waves of heat and snapping bone.

Where my son had stood moments ago, a wolf emerged—charcoal black across most of his body, white streaking his belly, muzzle, and paws. And down his back, bold as blood itself, blazed a brand of crimson, glowing faintly under the low lights like a scar etched by flame.

Gasps rippled through the guards. Montegue’s smile only widened.

Elliot—Knox—lifted his head and looked at me. Not with fear, not with hesitation. But with a steady, unblinking certainty that made my heart quake.

Then he opened his mouth to release a loud howl that startled the entire room.

He was shaky on his legs but his howl was stable and cohesive. The echo of it struck the walls and I could see the waves rolling through the room.

First the mirror stood whole, untouched in its place. Then, in an instant, it caved in—shattered pieces scattering across the ground.

My heart lurched as I watched on in horrified awe, the room collapsing into chaos.

The shelves dissolved into disorder, the neat lines of books and ornaments collapsing. Wood warped, metal bent, glass cracked like bones under strain. The pristine order—the illusion—crumbled in real time, as if Knox’s howl had peeled the paint off reality.

The glamour burned away, and what was left behind turned my stomach. Thɪs chapter is updated by ⓝovelFind.net

The walls were no longer clean white but streaked with black residue, as though fire had licked them again and again but refused to consume. Claw marks raked across every surface—deep gouges, frantic, layered so thickly the plaster had nearly dissolved into ruin. The shelves weren’t filled with books at all but scraps of paper, torn and shredded, symbols scrawled in blood and ash.

Elliot stopped and leapt back into my arms, shifting back to his usual form as I took in the carnage.