Chapter 19

NADINE'S POV

When I woke, the world was softer, muted. My body no longer felt like it was being torn in two, but my head pounded as though I had been struck.

A cool weight pressed against my forehead. I blinked, disoriented, until my fingers brushed over damp cloth. A towel. Someone had placed it there with care.

I sat up slowly, my muscles aching from the collapse. The room swam into focus, and the first thing I realized was that I wasn’t in the dungeon, or the training grounds, or even sprawled on some cold floor. I was in my chambers, or rather, the Luna’s chambers. The bed was too big, the sheets too soft, the carved headboard stretching like a crown above me.

For a moment, panic clawed at me. I was alone. Completely alone.

My breath caught, heart thundering. The silence pressed down too thickly, the absence of his presence as sharp as his nearness had been. Madden had been there when I fell. I remembered the heat of his chest, his scent drowning me, the harsh whisper, Your soul is mine.

I shuddered and pushed the thought away, pulling the towel from my forehead and setting it on the bedside table.

The chamber itself was suffocating in its grandeur. High ceilings arched overhead, painted with faded constellations I didn’t recognize. Heavy drapes spilled down the tall windows, their fabric embroidered with the same crest I’d seen on the soldiers’ uniforms, his mark, etched into everything.

I swung my legs off the bed, the cold stone floor biting at my bare feet. My body felt weak, but curiosity, or maybe defiance, pushed me to move. If these were to be my “prison walls,” I would know every inch of them.

The air smelled faintly of lavender and smoke, a strange mix that didn’t belong to me. The vanity was littered with untouched powders and brushes, the wardrobe doors carved with moon sigils. I crossed to it, pulling one open.

Silk and velvet spilled out, gowns in dark shades, black, deep blue, blood-red. Not a single piece was mine. Every stitch screamed Luna.

A sharp ache bloomed in my chest. These weren’t clothes meant for me. They were meant for a role. A replacement.

I closed the wardrobe with more force than I intended, the sound echoing too loudly in the cavernous chamber. My hands trembled.

I turned to the desk near the window. Stacks of parchment lay there, sealed letters with royal crests. Most bore Madden’s mark, but one, half-hidden under the pile, drew my eye.

The wax had cracked, the script faint, almost erased with time. My fingers hovered over it. For a heartbeat, I thought of opening it, of tearing it apart until I unearthed whatever secrets it carried. But something deep inside me whispered caution. If it was left here, visible, it was meant to be found… by him.

Still, the temptation lingered.

I forced myself away, my chest tight.

Instead, I moved toward the tall mirror against the far wall. Its silvered glass caught the moonlight spilling between the drapes. For a moment, I hardly recognized the woman staring back at me.

Her cheeks were hollowed, her eyes rimmed red, hair falling loose in a tangled curtain down her back. But it wasn’t exhaustion that made me pause, it was the faint glow beneath her skin.

I turned, tugging the back of my nightgown lower.

There. At the base of my spine, the crescent-shaped scar shimmered faintly, the glow almost imperceptible until the moonlight touched it.

I gasped and stumbled back. My wolf stirred violently, pressing against me with a hunger I didn’t understand.

“No…” I whispered, shaking my head. “Not this. Not now.”

The glow dimmed slowly, fading until it looked like nothing more than scar tissue again. But the image was burned into me.

I pressed my palm against the glass to steady myself, my reflection trembling.

Everything in this room felt like it was closing in, clothes that weren’t mine, walls bearing his crest, the scar I couldn’t escape. No matter where I turned, it was all tethered to Madden.

I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering.

Alone. Always alone.

And yet, somewhere in this palace, I knew he was prowling. Watching. Waiting.

I lingered near the desk again, my pulse quickening. The cracked letter still called to me, louder now, as if the silence of the chamber had sharpened its voice.

This time I didn’t hesitate. I slid the pile aside until I uncovered the bundle beneath, a stack of letters bound with a fraying ribbon. The parchment was aged, edges curling, but the ink… the ink had not lost its bite.

My throat tightened.

The handwriting was not Madden’s.

It was elegant, sweeping, almost too delicate for a Luna’s hand, yet every curve dripped with venom I could feel even before I read the words.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, clutching the bundle. My fingers trembled as I untied the ribbon.

The first letter began innocently enough.

My dearest…

I scanned quickly, my heart racing faster. It was a love letter, intimate, confessional, aching with longing. But not for Madden. Not for her mate.

The words painted a picture of another man, someone hidden in shadows, someone she called “my true salvation.” She wrote of stolen touches, of wanting to burn the crown that chained her.

My stomach knotted.

I shoved it aside and picked another.

And another.

Some were sweeter, cloaked in secrecy. Others brimmed with hatred barely veiled beneath the elegant script.

He suffocates me. The way he looks at me, it is not love, it is possession. He thinks the mark binds me, but he is blind. A mark cannot bind a soul that refuses to belong.

My hands shook. My wolf stirred uneasily. These weren’t just the words of a trapped woman. They dripped with calculation.

The last letter at the bottom of the pile was different. The parchment was rougher, the ink blotched in places as though written in haste.

I unfolded it slowly, my breath caught between my lungs.

He thinks he is mine forever, but he is just a stepping stone. I will carve my way out of this gilded prison, and when I do, both crown and bond will burn with him.

My chest constricted.

The letters slipped from my lap onto the bedspread, scattering like fallen leaves.

A chill crept over me, crawling up my spine until it clamped around my throat.

Seraphine hadn’t been the tragic, delicate ghost the whispers painted her to be. She hadn’t been a broken Luna who died for love. She had been planning. Scheming.

And Madden blamed me.

The room suddenly felt smaller, the air heavier. My skin prickled, every instinct screaming that I should not have read these, that I had touched something poisonous, something that could cost me my life if discovered.

I scrambled to gather the letters, tying them back with the ribbon in clumsy, shaking hands. My chest heaved, and I shoved the bundle beneath the mattress, tucking it deep where no one would casually stumble upon it.

When I sat back, my heart was pounding so hard I could hear it echoing in my ears.

Seraphine’s ghost wasn’t a haunting. It was a warning.

And now I carried her secret.

I pressed my hand over my scar, the faint crescent tingling under my touch, glowing just faintly in the edge of the moonlight.

I didn’t know what was worse, that Madden might already know… or that he didn’t.

Either way, I was caught in the snare of a dead woman’s betrayal.

And there was no way out