Chapter 698: THE END GAME

My breath left me in a sharp, broken sound.

“No,” I said immediately. “That’s not true.”

The word came out too fast. Too desperate. Like if I said it firmly enough, reality would bend around it.

Maelis didn’t flinch.

She didn’t look pleased.

She didn’t look victorious.

She looked tired.

“They were executed this very nights,” she said quietly. “There was no trial.”

The cave felt like it shrank.

My hand flew to my stomach as if I could physically hold my insides together. The baby shifted uneasily, reacting to the sudden spike of panic, and that alone nearly undid me.

“You’re lying,” I whispered. “You’re trying to turn me against him.”

“If that were my goal,” Maelis said calmly, “I wouldn’t have waited this long.”

My ears rang.

Lydia’s hands flashed through my mind, warm oil, careful pressure, the way she had sung under her breath as if afraid silence might swallow her whole.

Her eyes when she spoke of her son. The way she had hesitated, as if even saying his age was dangerous.

Fifteen.

I shook my head hard, as if that might scatter the images.

“He told me she was arrested,” I said weakly. “He said she’d stand trial.”

Maelis’s gaze softened, just a fraction.

“He told you what he needed to,” she said. “What would keep you calm. Compliant.”

The word cut deeper than any accusation.

Compliant.

“No,” I snapped, anger flaring up through the fear. “He wouldn’t do that. He worries about me. He worries about my baby.”

“Yes,” Maelis said gently. “Because you matter to him.”

She paused, choosing her next words carefully.

“Lydia did not matter to him.” She told me. “No one matters to him eventually. You won’t when he has finally gotten what he wants.”

My knees went weak.

I leaned back against the stone wall, the chill of it seeping through my clothes, grounding me just enough to stay upright.

“She was afraid,” I whispered. “Not dangerous. She just wanted to protect her son.”

“That is how it always begins,” Maelis said. “With fear. With love. With desperation.”

Tears burned behind my eyes.

I still didn’t want to believe what she had to say.

“How many?” I asked. “How many people have disappeared like this?”

Maelis didn’t answer immediately.

She walked past me and rested her palm against one of the painted walls, her fingers brushing the image of a wolf mid-shift, frozen forever in pigment and stone.

“Enough,” she said at last. “Enough that we stopped counting names and started counting nights.”

Something inside me cracked.

I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold ground, my breath coming in uneven gasps. I wrapped my arms around my belly instinctively, protective, frantic.

“This wasn’t supposed to be like this,” I whispered. “He said this place was peaceful.”

“It was,” Maelis replied. “Before he came.”

Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating.

I thought of the dining table. The candles. The wine. The way his voice had been so steady when he spoke of rebels, of necessary sacrifices.

I thought of how easily he had said punished.

I pressed my forehead against my knees.

“Do you know anything about my mother?” I asked my chest heaving.

Maelis’s breath stilled.

“I don’t know your mother.” She told me. “But if you are having second thoughts about everything you know then you need to look in and question your father.”

My heart twisted violently.

“You’re lying to me.” I said sick and tired of being betrayed.

“Aiden needs you isolated,” Maelis said. “Confused. Dependent.”

I pushed myself to my feet, my whole body trembling now not from weakness, but from fury.

“I was told that you came from the other side. We felt it here. The last time anyone ever did was your father and that was years ago.” She said. “I have watched you and we had believed that you were just like him. But it’s obvious that you have questions about him.”

“Being an unshifted.” She told me as she walked around me.

“How do you know that?” I asked haughtily

“I know a lot of things. You wolf being locked. Don’t you wonder why? Why your wolf would be locked.”

“You have no idea of the terrible people I’ve met in my life.” I hissed.

Memories of Cherry and how dreadful she had been to me.

How I suspected she was the one who had locked my wolf.

“Once your wolf is unleashed,” she said, “you will be able to open every seal. Every gate. Including the one guarding the red stone.”

Cold dread pooled in my stomach.

“What do you think he wants to do?” I whispered.

“He wants to finish what Alpha Daniel started,” Maelis replied. “And this time, he believes he will succeed.”

My hands shook violently.

I had had enough of all the things she was telling me.

“My father isn’t who you think he is.” I snapped at her in rage.

I had no mother.

No brother.

No mate.

I had absolutely no one.

I was not about to lose the one person that had treated me so well from the first instance he met me.

Moreover there wasn’t any proof that he had done these terrible things

I didn’t know these people and that was more than enough to prove to me this was wrong.

“I’m getting out of here.” I said as I backed off. “I should have never come here in the first place.”

I could feel someone breathing behind my back and saw a wolf standing aggressively behind me.

“No one who wasn’t a rebel has come here and left alive.” Maelis said and my heart began to race. “But I’ll let you go. To prove to you that we are not your enemy.”

She nodded at the wolves and I could feel his presence back away.

“They would take you out.” She told me. “You won’t remember your way here either. Think about all I’ve said Jasmine.”