SERAPHINA’S POV
Celeste’s room felt colder than the corridors outside.
I stood just inside the doorway for a mont, studying her before stepping fully into the room.
She sat upright against the headboard, wrists loosely secured by the leather cuffs attached to the tal ring behind the bed.
Her hair—once styled to perfection even in the middle of chaos—hung in loose, tangled waves around her shoulders.
She looked thinner than the last ti I had seen her. Not fragile exactly...but diminished.
A wolfless werewolf.
The absence clung to her like a shadow.
I couldn’t help but wonder if that was how I looked without Alina.
Kieran stood beside , close enough that the heat of his body comforted .
Ethan positioned himself across the room near the small writing desk, arms folded tightly over his chest.
Corin lingered near the window, leaning one shoulder against the stone wall, watching everything with quiet, unreadable focus.
For a long mont, no one said anything.
Celeste’s eyes moved slowly across the room.
First Ethan.
Then Kieran.
Then Corin.
And finally, .
For a split second, sothing flickered in her gaze—a flash of panic, quickly smothered.
Then, with a defiant tilt of her chin, her mouth curled into a familiar, mocking smile.
“Well,” she drawled, voice rough but dripping with sarcasm. “Isn’t this cozy?”
No one said anything.
Celeste leaned back against the headboard as far as the cuffs allowed, looking almost relaxed, almost amused.
“So tell ...what dirty little ga are you planning to play with this ti?”
I had to give it to her; she was excellent at posturing.
Her tone held that sa careless arrogance. That infuriating sense that everything happening around her was rely a ga she intended to win.
But the circumstances had changed.
The worst thing she had ever done had been dragged into the open and dissected piece by piece. There was nothing left to protect—no reputation worth salvaging, no wolf to anchor her pride, no future like the one she once believed would be hers.
And perhaps that was why she looked so strangely calm now.
What’s done is done.
The attitude was written plainly across her face.
“Co on,” she continued, tilting her head. “You’ve already dragged through psychic hallucinations, public humiliation, and emotional torture. Surely you’re not running out of ideas now.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened visibly.
Kieran’s hand rested lightly against the small of my back.
I stepped forward. “There’s no ga today, Celeste.”
She raised a brow. “Oh, boo.”
“Mother has been abducted by Catherine.”
For the first ti since we entered, Celeste’s expression fractured. Her eyes widened a fraction, lips parting in genuine shock. For a single heartbeat, sothing real—vulnerability—broke through the sarcasm she wore like armor.
The silence that followed felt heavier than anything that had co before it.
Celeste stared at for a long mont, the earlier flicker of emotion still lingering in her eyes, before her expression slowly shifted again.
Her mouth curved upward, and the careless smile returned to her face as if nothing had happened at all.
"Well,"—she shrugged—"sounds like a family problem. You two should really get on it."
Ethan took a step forward. “Celeste.”
“What?” She shifted slightly against the headboard. “You can’t seriously believe I had anything to do with it.”
“You were together on the island,” Ethan said. “And you’re Catherine’s goddaughter.”
She snorted. “So?”
“So, tell us what you know.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know anything.”
Her gaze slid toward . “And even if I did, I don’t know what the fuck you think I can do about it.”
Her voice turned mocking again. “I don’t exactly have a wolf anymore, rember? No claws. No fangs. No fancy psychic witchcraft like you and your new friend.”
She flicked her eyes briefly toward Corin.
Her shoulders lifted in an exaggerated shrug. "And quite frankly, I don’t give a fuck."
The nonchalance was like gasoline on an open fla.
Ethan snapped. “You ungrateful little shit!”
His voice thundered through the room as he crossed the distance between them in two long strides.
“Mother went to the Maldives because of you!”
Celeste’s shoulders jerked with a brief, involuntary flinch, but she forced her spine straight, hardening her eyes.
Ethan’s hands slamd onto the edge of the bed beside her. “Why is it that everyone who cares about you always ends up hurt?”
Celeste’s eyes flashed.
“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “I didn’t ask her to co. She got herself into this ss. That’s hardly my fault.”
Ethan’s voice dropped dangerously. “She went there to help you.”
She scoffed. “Who said I needed help?” she shot back. “Mother always had a talent for making terrible decisions.”
Sothing dark flickered behind Ethan’s eyes. “Watch your mouth.”
“Oh?” Celeste laughed softly. “Did I hit a nerve?”
Her gaze drifted between all of us. “You know what the real problem is?”
Her smile twisted. “You people chose the wrong daughter.”
The words landed like poison in the room.
“If you had only stood by ,” she continued, voice sharpening, “if Kieran hadn’t insisted on breaking things off—”
Kieran went rigid beside .
She turned back to Ethan, her eyes gleaming bitterly. “If you or Mother had bothered to stop sooner, I never would have gone to the Maldives in the first place.”
She leaned forward slightly. “And none of this would have happened.”
For a mont, no one moved.
The twisted logic hung in the air like a rotten sll.
Ethan stared at her as if he were looking at a stranger.
Sothing in his expression went cold—not just anger, but abrupt finality. His mouth tightened, shoulders stiffening as if he were locking sothing away.
“You’re beyond redemption,” he said quietly.
The words landed harder than if he had shouted them.
Celeste blinked once.
Then she laughed, a soft, incredulous sound that was almost too loud.
“Well,” she said, tilting her head slightly, “that’s rich coming from you.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
She leaned back against the headboard again, the leather cuffs creaking softly as she settled into the pillows, studying him with an almost bored look.
“You know what’s funny?” she continued. “Watching you stand on the moral high ground like you didn’t spend most of your life hurting Sera.”
Ethan froze.
“You didn’t defend her when Mother and Father treated her like an embarrassnt,” Celeste went on, her tone sharpening. “You didn’t defend her when the rest of the pack whispered behind her back and mocked her out in the open. You certainly didn’t defend her when I made everyone believe she was the villain.”
Her eyes glead. “So forgive if I’m not particularly moved by your sudden transformation into the protective big brother.”
Ethan’s hands curled into fists at his sides.
“And now,” Celeste added lightly, “you’re standing on your pedestal pretending you’re better than .”
Ethan’s voice dropped dangerously low. “Careful.”
Celeste’s smile widened.
“Why?” she asked sweetly. “Does the truth make you uncomfortable? Or are you angry because deep down you know I’m right?”
Then she delivered the final blow. “Or are you upset because you’re useless? You couldn’t protect Sera, you couldn’t protect , you couldn’t protect Mother. You couldn’t even save Father when—”
Ethan moved so suddenly that the air itself seed to crack with the motion. His hand shot upward, fury breaking through the last thread of restraint.
Before the strike could land, I stepped forward and caught his wrist, my fingers closing firmly around his arm.
“Ethan,” I said quietly.
He stopped. The muscles in his arm were rigid beneath my grip, his entire body trembling with barely contained rage.
Celeste laughed again.
“Aww,” she said mockingly. “How cute.”
Ethan tried to wrench his arm free from my grasp. “She deserves—”
“No.”
He turned to look at , fury still blazing in his eyes.
My grip tightened slightly around his wrist.
“She’s not going to help us willingly.”
Celeste lounged back against the headboard, a slow, smug satisfaction unfurling in her eyes and curving her lips. "Ding ding ding."
Her eyes flicked toward . “So what now, Sera?”
Her smile widened with open provocation. “Another psychic interrogation?”
I held her gaze. “Yes.”
The change in her was imdiate.
Her shoulders stiffened, and the mocking ease drained from her expression as real unease flickered across her face. She leaned back instinctively against the headboard, the leather cuffs creaking as she tried to put distance between us.
“Don’t,” she said sharply.
Her gaze darted briefly toward Ethan, then Kieran, as if searching for an ally who clearly wasn’t coming.
“You’ve already done this once,” she snapped, her voice tighter now. “You don’t get to keep digging around in my head whenever you feel like it.”
I didn’t stop moving. My hand continued its slow, deliberate approach.
Celeste’s breathing quickened.
“No,” she said, more urgently this ti, twisting her wrist against the cuff as though she might sohow pull free. “Stay the hell out of my mind.”
Her eyes locked onto mine, and for the first ti since we had entered the room, there was no sarcasm in them.
Only fear.
“Don’t worry,” I murmured. "I’ll be gentle."
The mont my fingers touched her skin, the world shifted.
Darkness swallowed the room.
mory rushed toward in a violent surge of fragnts, images, and voices colliding in a chaotic flood. Celeste’s life spilled open around in disjointed flashes: the white sand beaches of the Maldives, luxury hotel rooms glowing with warm lamplight, music pulsing through crowded lounges, and endless nights of alcohol and laughter that never quite reached her eyes.
But when I searched for Catherine—
There was nothing.
Or rather, sothing worse than nothing.
The mories existed. I could feel their shape and weight sowhere beneath the surface, but they refused to co into focus. Every ti I reached for them, the images blurred and dissolved like ink spreading across wet paper.
Soone had deliberately obscured them.
It wasn’t the haziness of trauma or the natural erosion of ti. This felt precise, controlled, intentional.
My pulse quickened as I pushed harder.
The pressure inside my skull intensified, a sharp ache spreading behind my eyes as if my mind were pressing against a sealed door.
A deliberate block.
Corin’s voice echoed faintly in the distance, as though it were reaching from far beyond the moryscape.
“Sera.”
I ignored him.
I forced myself deeper, pushing past the blurred fragnts and broken images that scattered in every direction.
Then sothing different surfaced.
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