Chapter 148

Chapter 148
Ellie POV
The apartment was quiet except for the soft hum of the kettle and the sleepy coos coming from the playpen near the window. The apartment was warm, clean, and quiet.
The twins were both awake, batting at the hanging charms above them, their tiny hands moving with clumsy fascination as they reached for the brightly colored shapes.
1 should have felt peaceful.
We were home, really home this time. Back in Moonstone. Back among people who smiled when they saw tis instead of whispering. I was working again at the Royal Hospital, my days filled with something solid and useful.
On weekends, Claire still came over for dinner, bringing too many groceries and pretending it was an accident. Everything around me looked exactly how I’d prayed for it to be.
And yet I couldn’t shake the heaviness sitting just under my ribs.
Nolan hadn’t reached out to me at all since I had taken the boys and walked away from him. That was what I wanted, wasn’t it? So why did it get under my skin? It was obvious from the way he’d reacted to them that he wanted to be with them
But he’d let me leave. He hadn’t come after me this time.
The twins gurgled at each other, oblivious. I smiled despite myself, leaning down to adjust lan’s blanket. He’d managed to kick it halfway across the playpen again. August was already drifting back to sleep, his little fist tangled in his brother’s sleeve.
They didn’t know anything about what I’d done. They didn’t know I’d taken them and left their father behind.
It had only been a week, but the guilt was constant, like the dull ache after a deep bruise.
I told myself it was for their safety. That staying in Silver Fang away from them had been slowly breaking all of
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Still, when I thought about Nolan alone in that cold house, knowing that his children were alive and growing up without him, I felt something twist inside me. The memory of the one and only time he’d held the boys came back too easily: stiff posture, disbelief in his eyes, a look of uncertainty that shouldn’t have hurt but did.
I shook the thought away before it could sink its claws in and went back to making tea. The smell of chamomile filled the small kitchen, soothing at first, until the faint echo of last night’s dream crept back in.
The goddess again.
Every time I closed my eyes lately, she was there-just out of reach. Sometimes I saw her as light, sometimes as a shadow shaped like a woman. Her voice would come to me in pieces: find it, my child… remember what was lost…
The words never made sense when I woke, but they left my heart racing, my skin damp with cold sweat.
It was easier to keep moving, to pretend I wasn’t falling apart. So when the morning came, I packed the twins
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into their stroller and walked to the packhouse. Cassian had invited me for himch, and I didn’t have the energy to come up with an excuse.
The Moonstone packhouse was very different from the one I was used to in Silver Fang. It was warm, breezy. The doors were always open and the kitchen always smelled like fresh baked bread. It was a friendly place where members of the pack came and went freely, at least on the lower floor.
The upper level was the family space. Cassian and Alaric had their offices and bedrooms there. There were also private meeting rooms and guest rooms.
There was something grounding about its presence, something that made me breathe a little deeper each time I saw it. It felt familiar, almost nostalgic.
Cassian was waiting near the steps, his easy grin breaking across his face when he spotted the stroller. “There they are! My favorite nephews.”
August blinked at him, unimpressed, while lan squealed and waved a chubby hand in greeting
Cassian laughed, unbothered, and bent to tickle his foot until both of them were giggling
“Still no love for your uncle, huh?” he said, mock-offended.
“Give it another six months,” I teased softly. “They’ll be running from you for real by then.”
He grinned, but I caught the flicker of concern behind his smile as he studied me more closely. “You look tired, sis.”
I paused every time he called me that. It still didn’t feel right, but I didn’t correct him. Cassian slipped sometimes and used it, only when he was relaxed like this.
“I’ve just been working a lot,” I said quickly. “The hospital’s short-staffed again.”
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