Chapter 510

[ 1,029 words ]

[Draven].

And I had told her no, that they were annihilated, wiped from existence alongside other ancient races.

She had nodded, accepted it. Or pretended to.

The realization burned now—slow and deep. Meredith had known. She had known all along about the Faes. And yet she had asked me those questions as though she were learning for the first time.

I released a deep breath through my nose, jaw tightening. The sense of betrayal didn’t explode—it crept. It crawled under my skin and lodged itself there, heavy and stubborn.

I didn’t know what to do with this woman.

Then I saw her hands move. She tugged her dress down, exposing her shoulder.

The motion startled me—not because of the skin, but because my thoughts had been elsewhere, replaying moments I now saw through a different lens.

“The red half-moon mark is completely gone,” she said quietly. “Because I can finally wolf out.”

My gaze snapped to her shoulder. It was bare, unmarked. The symbol that had haunted her for years—vanished.

I looked up at her, disbelief slipping through before I could stop it. “The curse is broken.”

She pulled her dress back into place and met my gaze steadily. “Yes.” And then she kept going because she knew if she stopped now, she might never finish.

“Last night,” she said, “I learned the truth. About everything I thought I knew.”

My chest tightened.

“What we believed was the Lunar Curse,” she continued, voice trembling but resolute, “was never a curse. It was a seal.”

She paused for a moment, then said, “Protection.”

The word echoed.

She told me about her grandmother. About the other faes. About the decision they made together, to bind her power away. To hide it. To bury it so deeply that even she would believe herself broken.

“They were protecting me,” she said. “From people who would kill me for what I am.”

I didn’t interrupt. I couldn’t, because she was right.

I knew the history. I knew how the first Wolf Queen died—not in battle, but by betrayal. By leaders who feared her strength. By men who could not stand a woman ruling longer, stronger, wiser than they ever could.

Meredith swallowed, then went on. “If they had known I was her reincarnation,” she said, “they would have killed me too.”

My hands clenched at my sides.

“The seal was lifted last night,” she said. “And with it… everything else.” Her eyes shimmered with awe. “My fae abilities. My wolf. Everything that was locked away.”

She inhaled sharply. “I’m not restricted anymore.”

The weight of it crashed into me then.

Not just the truth of what she was, but the enormity of what had been done to her. What she had lived with. What she had believed about herself for years.

Cursed.

Broken.

Wolfless.

They were all lies. And yet, beneath the shock, beneath the hurt, beneath the betrayal still coiling in my chest, there was something else rising.

Something dangerous. Something reverent.

Because as I looked at my mate sitting there with tear-streaked cheeks and unshakable resolve, I knew one thing with terrifying clarity:

The world was not ready for her. And neither was I.

But I would have to be.

A long silence followed, not the fragile kind, but the heavy, deliberate kind that pressed against my chest and forced me to breathe through it.

Meredith had stopped speaking. She sat there, shoulders squared despite the tears she had wiped away, as if she had already given me everything she had to offer.

For a moment, I thought that was it, that there was nothing more she intended to tell me. But something didn’t sit right.

If the seal had only been lifted last night, then—

I broke the silence quietly. “Then how,” I asked, keeping my voice steady, “were you able to get Valmora in the first place if the seal was only lifted last night?”

Her gaze lifted to mine. “It’s because we are mated,” she said simply.

I didn’t interrupt her.

“On our wedding day,” she continued, her voice trembling just slightly, “the moment our vows were completed—the moment we said I do —the heavens thundered. That was an omen.”

My breath caught because I remembered that moment vividly.

“And that same day,” she went on, “during the wedding banquet, I heard her voice for the first time.”

My mind snapped back to that night immediately. The tension. The way I had felt something coil inside her. The moment she had looked like she might actually flip the table.

“She told me to do it,” Meredith said softly. “She felt insulted watching me get insulted by those people.”

I closed my eyes briefly. ’So that was it. I hadn’t imagined it. I hadn’t misread her.’

Valmora had already been there—already watching, already judging, already protecting her.

That influence didn’t start now. No. It hadn’t.

Meredith inhaled, steadying herself, then continued. “After that night, I didn’t hear her voice again for a long time. And even then, I didn’t know it was my wolf. I thought it was just a voice in my head.”

My jaw tightened.

“The next time I heard her,” she said, “the next time I truly met her and began to build a relationship with her, was when we mated. When the mate bond snapped into place.”

The truth settled heavily in my chest.

“So being mated to you,” she finished quietly, “helped break half of the seal placed on me. And it released some of my abilities—one after the other, time after time.”

I stared at her. ’Mating with me had done that?’

The weight of it hit hard. This wasn’t pride. This was something far heavier than that.

I exhaled slowly, then looked at her again. “Also, let me guess,” I said, my voice low. “Your wolf pushed you to train with me.”

She hesitated, then nodded. “It was Valmora,” she admitted. “She pushed me to seek you out. To train. To be ready.”

I dragged a hand down my face and released another deep sigh.

Everything—the timing, the choices, the paths that had crossed far too precisely, none of it had been a coincidence.

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