Chapter 172
LYRA’S POV
It’s been over twenty minutes, and yet I couldn’t stop the tears that kept streaming down my face.
“You still love him,” Dad spoke behind me. I couldn’t help but turn to look at him. He wasn’t looking like the cold king who sat on his obsidian throne. Before me was just a man.
“I shouldn’t,” I whispered, sniffling slightly. “Not after everything he’d done,” I added.
“Yet you do,” He smiled in understanding before pulling me into a hug. “Sometimes, love doesn’t come in fancy packages, but the moon goddess never makes mistakes. In a way, I am glad he did the things he did.”
I frowned and looked up at my father, raising my head from his broad chest.
He smiled at me and placed my head back on his chest. “Of course, I do not approve of him hurting you. But it was only because he hurt you so much that you had vowed to make him pay. Your level of hate ran as deep as your love for him. That hatred was what prevented you from ascending as an Aethera.” He tilted my chin up and smiled again.
“Because of this, I get to see you in the flesh. I get to see my daughter. If not, we would have never met, and I would have never known how powerful my daughter is to be able to wrestle with gods and remain human amongst us.”
My chest heaved as I stared into his eyes.
My dreams. Those fearful dreams that left me waking up in sweat, terrified sometimes, while I was in the Bloodfang pack.
“How—how do you know?” I asked, surprised.
“I know a lot of things, Lyra. I also know that you need to choose soon. Between love and hatred. You are still an Aethera even though you haven’t ascended, and if you let this hatred consume you, you might have to ascend against your will, I fear.”
“What?”
He nodded. “I’m afraid so. An Aethera can never be corrupted. Your soul was corrupted because of the pain in your heart after the loss of your child. So when your powers awakened, you subdued your ascension.”
“Okay—doesn’t that mean I should still have this ate with me to avoid ascending? What does that even mean? I don’t want to leave you.”
He laughed.
“It doesn’t work that way. I think you were given a window. But if your soul is still corrupt, you would have to go. An Aethera is pure light.” He answered
“And if I choose love?” I asked. My breath held tight while I waited for his response.
“It has to be worth fighting to stay back for,” He replied. “Now go, he already caught a game. He will be looking for you now,” then my father turned and left the magic chamber.
I stood there staring at the walls of nothingness.
How could I still love him after everything he’s put me through? I couldn’t believe myself.
Yet, when the magic had thrown Ryker into his room in the pack house and conjured up Vera on top of him. I had hated every bit of it. The scene was still so alive in my head. The way he groaned in pleasure while he fucked her. I couldn’t help but imagine that was how he was with her those nights, too many times.
It was too painful. So painful, I had almost shifted and torn through the magic, ready to rip her to shreds and throw her off him.
He was mine. Mine in every sense. He had no business having sex with another female.
But inside the magic loop, I had felt something from him. All those times he had slept with Vera, he had imagined me. Every single time.
Well, while that didn’t give me relief because I had borne the pain and humiliation. But it made me see things differently. He had been a proud Alpha who was blinded by his revenge, who was also fighting the bond and his heart. He already had feelings for me, right from the start.
But when?
I couldn’t remember a time he showed me any form of compassion. He was always cold and a bully. Things only felt different when he came back from the Alpha King’s trials.
“Lyra,” I heard my name, and I looked out through the magic door.
It was Ryker.
He had kept his game in a cave. He had caught a tiger and had not even cleaned off the bloody stain of the hunt from his flesh. I stood observing him from the invisible barrier separating us. He looked genuinely worried.
No…scared.
He looked scared.
I waited for him to leave before stepping through the magic doors, as I masked my scent and walked towards the direction of the cliff that overlooked the river.
I needed to think. There was no rush. It was just the two of us here in the Xemir forest after all.
Unknown to me, the moment I stepped through the barriers, another figure appeared at a distance using another portal with a bow and an arrow. I hadn’t sensed their presence, which was unlike me. Their target was me. Whatever it was they wanted, they definitely couldn’t do anything under the watchful eyes of my father in the palace. But here, in the Xemir forest where I was meant to be most safe, was where they had intended to attack.
Little did I know, their intention wasn’t to attack me but to render me useless. It was meant to be a kidnapping.
With the soft breeze caressing my cheeks, I closed my eyes, wrapping my arms around me a little too tightly as I felt a chill from the wind. I looked at my clothing. It was perfect enough to protect me from a cold. I was putting on black on black. Leather pants, long-sleeved top, with a long, fitted leather jacket, which secured me perfectly.
Suddenly, Liora perked up as the scent hit us.
The smell of ocean breeze, so clear and so refreshing, I almost moaned in sheer delight.
Ryker.