Shattered Bonds A Second Chance Mate (by Yui) novel Chapter 203

Chapter 203

Chapter 203

For a heartbeat, no one breathed.

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Isolde’s words hung in the ward like frost–the kind that forms in strange lace, beautiful until it bites your fingers. Audrey’s grip whitened on her sword hilt. Alfonso shifted closer, quiet as a shadow, his body angled to put himself between me and whatever this revelation might awaken. Monica hovered at my shoulder, healer’s calm fraying at the edges.

“Say it again,” I managed, because my voice needed to hear the shape of it out loud to believe it. “Who made you… younger?”

Isolde’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “You heard me the first time.” Her gaze slid to the window again, as if the poor anemic sunlight could make her softer. It didn’t. She looked back and lifted her chin. “Youth is a trick, Luna. Skin can be taught to lie.”

“Magic,” Audrey said, flat and disgusted, as if spitting a bad taste.

Isolde’s lashes lowered. “What other kind is there left to anyone who wants a thing long enough?”

“Names,” Alfonso said, all Beta authority now, voice like a blade laid across a table. “Give us one.”

She considered, as if tasting which version of the truth would hurt most. The air thinned. Something old stirred along the back of my neck–Mika lifting her head, nostrils flaring, not in fear but in recognition.

Isolde smiled, slow and cruel and tired. “Mother Séverine.”

The name fell as if it had weight.

Monica stiffened. Audrey swore softly in her own language. Alfonso’s eyes narrowed the way they do when he adds one more piece to a map he’s been building in his head for a year.

I had never heard it–at least not where my ears could tell my mind. But my bones recognized it, the way old houses recognize storms.

“Who is she?” I asked, and my voice sounded steadier than I felt.

Isolde let out a small hum, like a woman remembering a song she learned as a child. “There are covens that sell love potions to girls who believe boys are kingdoms,” she said, almost idly. “There are hedge witches who trade blessings for eggs. And then there is Séverine.” Her smile sharpened. “She does not trade. She takes. She has no cottage. She has a fen.” Isolde’s eyes glittered. “Have you been to the Camargue, Luna? Salt and reed and endless, hungry water? That is her body. She is old enough to remember when men were still ashamed to call themselves kings.”

“Witch–queen,” Monica murmured, something like dread in her voice. “We thought she was a tale to keep girls from wandering.”

“She is,” Isolde said. “And she isn’t.”

Alfonso folded his arms. “And what did you give her for your… youth?”

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Chapter 208

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Isolde’s smile faltered then, just a fraction. “What everyone gives when they go to an altar with empty hands.” she said quietly, “Oaths. And blood that wasn’t always mine.”

Audrey took a half step forward, voice low and lethal. “Whose blood?”

Isolde’s gaze slid to me. “Whose do you think?”

My stomach turned. “Lycaon,” I said. The word felt like iron. “She wanted Lycaon blood.”

“Wants,” Isolde corrected softly. “Still wants.” Her eyes shone with a dark amusement. “Franco was a trick. Your King has always been the prize.”

“You said Franco didn’t order you,” I said, hearing the hard edge in my voice. “But he used you. You used him. And above you both, this Mother Séverine used you all.”

Isolde lifted one shoulder. “Tools within tools.”

“Tell us how it began,” I said.

She stared at me for a long moment, as if she might refuse and send me scrambling to find truth in shadows. Then something in her shoulders loosened–the smallest surrender, or perhaps only the joy of being the one to cut the veil.

“Franco came to me first,” she said. “I was not nobody, even then. Pretty girls are commodities; I learned how to price myself before I learned how to read.” She did not flinch as she said it, and I made myself not look away. “He told me I was meant for more than bright rooms and dim beds. He said I could be the woman at a King’s right hand if I helped him to remove the King he did not prefer.”

“The twin,” Alfonso said, voice dry.

“The mirror,” Isolde corrected, almost wistful. “He said Francesco was a blade without a sheath, that the world feared him and the world was right. He said if I could make the Executioner human, the court would see him differently. While they were busy being warmed by that sight, Franco would step where he wanted to step.”

“And did Mother Séverine step in then?” I asked.

Isolde’s smile returned. “No. I went to her. I was not a fool enough to think I could step into the orbit of a Lycaon without more than my face.” She turned her wrist and traced the pale blue veins there with her fingertip. “I had wanted… time. That’s all I’d ever wanted since I was fourteen and a man old enough to be my grandfather told me I had six summers left before the bloom would fade. If I had time, I could choose how to spend it. If I had time, I could make men believe I was a season that never passed.”

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