Chapter 175 ROOM OF ECHOES

Chapter 175 ROOM OF ECHOES

ROOM OF ECHOES
MILDRED’S POV

The first thing I felt was the cold. A cold so sharp and biting that it ran along my skin like blades made of ice. My eyes fluttered open, heavy and disoriented, and the moment my vision sharpened I realized I was no longer where I had been. The ground was gone. The ruins were gone. The cries of my children were gone.

Instead, I sat in a chair made of stone and iron, my arms pulled outward and bound tightly with thick ropes that glowed faintly in the darkness. Every tug made them coil tighter around my wrists, digging into my skin with a heat that felt almost alive. I hissed through clenched teeth and twisted again, but the ropes responded like serpents tightening around their prey.

I couldn’t help the bitter laugh that escaped me. Not because anything was funny, but because of the sheer stupidity of the people who thought this would keep me down. They knew what I was capable of. They had felt my strength again and again. Yet they chose ropes. Ropes. As if mere bindings could contain everything boiling inside me.

I pulled harder, testing the limits, and the ropes snapped inward like claws. Pain shot through my arms in burning pulses.

“This isn’t ordinary rope,” I whispered to myself. “This is magical.”

Which meant I wasn’t breaking free anytime soon.

I scanned the room. The walls were made of black stone, carved unevenly and covered with marks—faint symbols, cryptic writing, old stains that looked like dried blood. It was a chamber designed for suffering. A room meant to silence screams and swallow hope. There were no windows. No cracks for light. No visible door from where I sat. Only emptiness and silence, thick enough to suffocate me.

I tried leaning forward to fall, thinking if I got the chair to tip over, maybe I could crawl my way across the floor toward wherever the exit was. But the chair didn’t budge. It was fixed to the ground. Firm and unmovable.

Rage surged hot and fast through me.

“Marcella!” I screamed. My voice echoed through the chamber, bouncing back at me like a taunt. “You annoying, miserable girl. Come out and face me. Fight me one on one, coward. Do something for once by yourself without hiding behind an old witch.”

The silence that followed was more insulting than any words she could have spoken.

Nothing. Not a single sound. Not even the faint shuffle of someone listening behind the walls.

My chest heaved with anger. If I made it out of this room alive, if I broke these ropes and stood on my feet again, Marcella would never know peace. Her days would be filled with fear. Her nights would choke her with nightmares. I would personally show her what a mother is capable of when pushed against the edge of loss.

I forced myself to stop shouting. Rage wasn’t helping. Instead, I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly, desperate to reach for the bond I shared with my twins. Even if I couldn’t communicate, I could at least sense them. I needed to know whether they were alive, whether they were still fighting.

My breathing slowed. My heart steadied.

And then I felt it.

A faint pulse. Not from my body, but from somewhere far away. Familiar yet shaken. Weak but present.

My children were alive.

But they were suffering.

I could hear the faintest humming through the walls—like the slow, steady vibration of a spell at work. It was rhythmic, greedy, draining. A spell that pulled energy from its target. My stomach twisted.

“Marcella is taking my children’s power,” I whispered. The words tasted like poison.

Images of their small faces flashed in my mind. Their bright eyes. Their excited little voices when they trained with me. The way they snuggled into my arms at night. The memories cut deep, sharper than any blade.

Then the memory of earlier slammed into my chest—the sight of their tiny bodies trembling while Marcella hovered over them, her eyes glowing with hunger. The look of triumph she wore as she held their powers in her hands.

It broke something inside me. Something fragile. Something irreplaceable.

“Everything I did to protect them,” I whispered. “Everything I worked for. Was all useless.”

I had spent years training them, building walls around them, teaching them to be strong and alert. But I forgot the biggest danger of all. The enemy inside the walls. The one I had foolishly allowed back into my home. The one I insisted on forgiving, on controlling, on supervising.

I had brought my own destruction into my life. I had placed Marcella close enough to touch my children.

I tugged at the ropes again, desperate and wild. They burned deeper into my skin, and I could smell the faint scent of singed flesh. But I didn’t stop. Pain was nothing compared to the panic clawing inside me.

“Let me go!” I screamed. “Marcella! Marcella, I am calling you. Come out!”

Still no reply.

She was preparing. I knew it. She was strengthening herself with what she stole. She wanted to be perfect before she faced me. She was greedy enough to wait until she felt powerful enough to strike a final blow.

The thought of Hayden came uninvited. And with it came the sharp sting of betrayal.

If only he had listened.

If only he had taken my warnings seriously instead of brushing them aside as paranoia.

If only he trusted me the way a mate was supposed to trust.

“We could have stopped Marcella,” I whispered. “We could have prevented all this.”

Instead, he argued. He dismissed. He let rumors cloud his mind. He let others whisper lies into his ears. And I knew I had not been faultless either. I was hard on him. Too hard. I doubted him endlessly. I reminded him of every mistake, every flaw. I threw his past in his face when I should have stood beside him.

But even with all that, even with the bitterness between us, he should have known something was wrong by now. He should have felt it the moment I disappeared. He should have tried to mind-link me. He should have searched. He should have come for me.

But he didn’t.

Not a sniff. Not a whisper. Not a single sign.

My heart hardened.

“He is incompetent,” I muttered. “He failed me. He failed our children. And now everything is burning because of him.”

The only person I ever truly trusted, the only person who ever seemed to stand firmly by me, was my father. Everyone else had failed me in one way or another. Hayden. The pack. My so-called allies. Even the children’s protectors who had been nowhere when Marcella struck.

I shut my eyes tightly and drew a shaky breath.

Grieving would not save my twins. Rage would not break these ropes. Tears would not give me strength.

I needed to think. I needed to control myself. I needed to survive.

“Marcella!” I shouted again, louder this time. “Come out and face me if you have the courage!”

My voice crashed into the walls and returned to me, hollow and mocking. I gritted my teeth.

Minutes crawled by. Or perhaps hours. Time in this room was twisted, stretched, distorted. I had no idea how long I had been tied. My body was stiff. My arms throbbed. My throat was raw.

But then I heard it.

Footsteps.

Slow. Measured. Confident.

They approached steadily, growing louder and clearer with each step. Someone was coming down a corridor. My heart pounded against my ribs, and I froze, listening. The footsteps stopped right outside the hidden door I had not seen earlier.

A long creak followed.

The door swung open.

And Marcella stepped inside.

Her smirk alone made the air heavier. It was no longer the smug, petty smile of the omega she once was. This smile was sharper. Darker. Hungrier.

She stood taller. Straighter. Her posture radiated confidence that did not belong to her before. Her eyes burned with unfamiliar power, glowing faintly with stolen energy.

The cold air shifted around her, responding to her presence.

She had changed.

She was no longer an omega.

She had taken what she wanted.

She had taken what belonged to my children.

Her presence alone made my blood boil. My hands curled into fists despite the ropes cutting into them.

Marcella moved slowly, deliberately, her steps almost graceful. She stopped inches away from me, leaned slightly, and tilted her head as if studying a wounded animal.

“Well, look at you,” she murmured. “Just where I wanted you.”

I wanted to spit in her face, but I held myself still. Instead, I lifted my chin and glared at her.

“What did you do to them?” I asked, my voice quiet but edged with venom.

She grinned. “Everything I needed to do.”

A cold wave washed over me. I felt the chamber shrinking, forcing me to confront her and the truth I had feared since the moment I woke.

She had done it.

She had taken the power of my children.

And I had put her in their lives.

I had placed her near them.

I had brought her back into the pack when Hayden warned me not to.

I had kept her under my roof.

I felt something inside me shatter.

“I caused my own problem,” I whispered. The truth was too bitter to swallow.

Marcella’s grin widened, as if she tasted my regret like honey.

She leaned closer, eyes glowing. “Yes. You did.”

And for the first time since waking in that cold room, real fear sl
id through my bones. Not fear for myself, but for what she planned to do next.

Because Marcella had not come to gloat.

She had come to finish what she started.