Chapter 226
Elowen POV
I don’t know how long I was unconscious.
Time slips weird when you’re chained to a slab like meat, bleeding from a hundred cuts, and praying to not piss yourself in front of your enemies. My body felt like one massive fucking bruise, each breath scraping like broken glass in my throat. My arms were numb. My legs were dead weight. And my face throbbed where Lucien had thrown a goddamn flask at it earlier.
But I woke up… stronger. It wasn’t much. Not enough to snap the glowing chains burning into my skin. Not enough to hurl blood magic
back into Vaela’s smug, twisted face.
But enough to endure. Enough to breathe without sobbing. Enough to remember who the fuck I am.
“Lyssira…” I whispered, my voice raw and barely audible.
“I’m here, moonfire,” my wolf answered instantly, low and growling in my mind. “I never left. You were touched, El. The moon. The stars.
The earth. They fucking came to you.”
I blinked, tears burning the corners of my eyes. They came.
Selene was here. I could feel the moon’s kiss on my skin, cool and fierce and loving. My hair, which Vaela had chopped off in some
psychotic rage, now fell over my shoulders in shimmering waves. Silver, blue and green, kissed with violet streaks like starlight. It curled
down my chest like a banner of fuck you.
The chains still held. But I felt… watched. No, guarded. Selene. Verenya. Elanithra. Even Soltharion. I could feel them pressing at the veil
between realms like thunderclouds ready to break.
“I see you,” I whispered into the void. “Thank you.”
The door creaked open, and the temperature in the room plummeted. Vaela. Her heels clicked across the stone, sharp and unrelenting. I
didn’t look up at first. Let her come. Let her see.
Then she stopped short. Silence. And then…”What… the fuck is this?” she shrieked.
I lifted my head, just enough to let my glowing blue eyes lock on her stunned, unraveling face.
“My hair grew back,” I said flatly, my voice hoarse but laced with dark amusement. “You missed a spot, sweetheart.”
Vaela screeched like a fucking banshee. She grabbed a handful of my hair, yanked it so hard I saw stars, and flung it from her grip like it
burned.
Chapter 226
“You witch,” she spat, pacing now, wild eyed. “You bewitched the gods, didn’t you? You think this makes you strong?”
I grinned, bloody teeth and all. “No, Vaela. I was born strong. You’re just a rabid little dog trying to gnaw at thunder.”
She lost it. Kicked me, fucking hard, right in the ribs. I choked on air. Spit blood. She did it again. And again.
“You laugh now?” she screamed, kicking harder, her voice ragged with hate. “Let’s see how much you laugh when your wolf dies inside
you!”
My body jerked against the chains with each brutal blow, but I held on. I laughed. Not because it didn’t hurt, but because it did, and I was
still here.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I rasped, smiling through blood soaked lips.
She let out one final animal scream and slammed her boot against my temple.
Everything went black.
Selene The Moon Goddess POV
I watched again.
I watched as the mortal girl I claimed screamed through cracked lips and shattered ribs and still laughed at her tormentors. Her silver hair, restored by my will, was streaked with blood and beauty and defiance.
They couldn’t break her. But gods help me… I wanted to break someone else.
“She’s been touched too many times,” I growled, pacing the obsidian reflection pool in my sacred glade. The stars overhead twisted and churned, reacting to my fury. “Raelith toys with her like she’s a doll”
“She is no doll,” Verenya rumbled, the Earth Goddess towering beside me, her skin glowing with moss and gemstone veins. “She is a fucking blade. And we have whetted her long enough.”
“Then let’s sharpen her,” Soltharion boomed from the golden arch of the sun temple. Fire cracked across the horizon with every word. “Strike the bitch.”
Elaníthra gave a rare nod. “She is vulnerable now. Her pride made her bold, but she didn’t expect Elowen to survive this long, not intact.”
“She won’t be intact much longer,” I snapped. “Not if that bastard Ezekiel tries again.”
Lightning cracked across my altar. I turned to face them, my voice edged in moonlight and vengeance.
Chapter 226
“We strike. Now. Together. And we don’t hold back.”
Without another word, we joined hands, divine, radiant, and goddamn unstoppable.
