Chapter 152 Breaking the possession

Chapter 152 Breaking the possession

KAI’S POV

Her voice was wrong.

The second those cold words left Ophelia’s mouth—“You look just like your father did before I broke him”—something freezing and foreign shifted behind her eyes. My stomach dropped hard. Inside my head, Vai let out a furious snarl that almost split my skull.

I didn’t think. I just moved.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her back against the nearest tree. Rough bark scraped my knuckles. Thick fog swirled around us. Luna was still strapped against Ophelia’s chest, small and quiet. I took Ophelia’s face in both hands, forcing her to look at me.

“Come back to me,” I growled. “Ophelia. Now.”

She blinked. For a second that cold, distant look was still there.

Then I kissed her.

It wasn’t gentle. It was desperate and rough—pure mate bond. I pushed every bit of power I had through our connection. Heat exploded between us. I poured everything into her: the nights she chose me, the way she said my name when we were alone, the fierce protectiveness that belonged only to her.

The foreign presence inside her recoiled hard.

Ophelia gasped against my mouth. Her fingers twisted into my shirt. The cold film over her eyes shattered. When I pulled back, she was shaking and breathing hard.

“Kai—”

“I’ve got you,” I said, resting my forehead against hers. “Stay with me.”

She nodded once.

Before either of us could say another word, the howls started.

They came from every direction at once—low, coordinated, and wrong. Black-eyed wolves broke through the fog in pairs and groups. These weren’t the mindless ones we fought before. These moved like trained soldiers.

“Contact!” Damien shouted from the left. “Flanking left—two high, one low!”

I shoved Ophelia behind me and let the shift roll over my shoulders enough for claws and speed. Vai surged forward, completely unleashed. The first wolf that came at me died with its throat torn open. Blood hit the wet leaves hard. The fog made everything hard to judge—every shadow looked like another body.

Damien was already calling positions like he could see their next moves. “Right side, three coming in tight! Ophelia, stay behind Kai!”

Seraphina’s lightning cracked through the trees, dropping two more with sharp pops of ozone. Eve fought on the outer edge, blades flashing clean and fast.

We were holding.

Then a much larger shape stepped out of the deeper fog.

The wolf was massive, shoulders higher than any normal Lycan, eyes pure black. It ignored the rest of us and went straight for Eve. She turned to meet it, knives ready, but the creature didn’t attack. It stopped hard in front of her, claws digging deep into the mud.

For a second the whole forest went quiet.

The giant wolf opened its jaws and dropped a silver scroll at her feet. The metal casing hit the wet ground with a clear sound. Then it turned and vanished back into the fog as if it had never been there.

The remaining black-eyed wolves broke off immediately and melted into the trees.

Silence rushed back in, broken only by our heavy breathing and water dripping from the branches.

Eve stared down at the scroll. Her face was pale.

Ophelia stepped closer, still holding onto my arm. “What is that?”

Eve picked it up carefully. The silver was so cold her fingers flinched. She broke the seal and unrolled the parchment. Her eyes moved across the writing once. Then again.

When she finally spoke, her voice was thin.

“It’s a birth record,” she said. “From the original hybrid trials.” She looked straight at Ophelia. “It says I was born a twin to Celeste.”

The forest felt even quieter.

Eve’s next words filled the air.

“I’m your aunt.”

EVE’S POV

The scroll felt heavier than it should.

Silver casing. Old parchment. Black ink that had somehow lasted centuries. My hands had been steady when I first opened it. They weren’t steady anymore.

Twin to Celeste.

My sister.

Ophelia’s aunt.

The words kept rearranging themselves in my head like they might change if I stared long enough. They didn’t. The forest around us was dead quiet. Fog clung to my clothes and the back of my neck. I could still smell blood and the sharp smell from Seraphina’s lightning.

I had spent my whole life alone in the ways that mattered. Dead mother. No real pack. A scar and a nickname given by a monster. “Little thief.” I wore that name like armor. It was easier than wanting anything else.

Now the armor was gone.

Ophelia stepped closer. I saw the exact moment the truth settled on her face shock first, then something softer and more dangerous. Hope.

“Eve…” she said.

I shook my head once. “Don’t.”

She didn’t listen. She pulled me into a hard, awkward hug, careful of the baby against her chest. Luna made a small sound but didn’t wake. Ophelia’s arms were warm and real. I stood stiff for three full seconds before something in my chest cracked.

My eyes started burning.

I hated it.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I muttered against her shoulder. My voice came out rough. “I don’t know how to be… this.”

“You don’t have to know yet,” Ophelia said. Her hand stayed firm between my shoulder blades. “You’re not alone in it. That’s the only part that matters right now.”

I pulled back enough to look at her. The resemblance was suddenly obvious in a way I had refused to notice before—same shape to the eyes, same stubborn set of the mouth. My stomach turned with a messy mix of grief and something that might eventually become belonging.

Kai watched us in silence. Damien stood a few feet away, expression unreadable. Seraphina kept her eyes on the tree line.

Ophelia’s voice dropped. “If you’re Celeste’s twin, your blood can open the Citadel locks too.”

I knew what she was really saying. The target wasn’t only on her back anymore. It was on both of ours.

A short, bitter laugh escaped me. “So I stole the key as a child and now I find out I was part of the lock the whole time. Perfect.”

Ophelia almost smiled. It didn’t last.

I looked down at the scroll again. Accepting this meant accepting that my mother died protecting me from the same woman hunting Ophelia. It meant I had a sister I would never meet. It meant this fight was no longer something I could walk away from when it got too hard.

I had survived for years by not needing anyone.

Needing someone was terrifying.

I opened my mouth to say something that would put the distance back.

Before I could speak, Kai’s head snapped toward the deeper trees. His whole body went still in that predator way.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

I listened.

At first there was only fog and the drip of water from the branches. Then it came faint but steady. A rhythmic, mechanical clicking. Too precise for any living wolf. Too coordinated to be random.

The sound was coming from every direction at once.

Kai’s voice was low and sharp.

“We’re surrounded.”