Shattered Bonds A Second Chance Mate (by Yui) novel Chapter 205

Chapter 205

Isolde’s scream still rang inside my head long after the door shut.

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“HEY, AT LEAST LET ME GO NOW! SHE WILL KILL ME BECAUSE I TELL YOU ALL. DAMN TE!!”

Her voice had cracked on the last word, sharp and ragged, echoing down the corridor until it was little more than a tremor in the stone walls.

But the sound clung to me, worming into the quiet corners of my thoughts where reason usually held sway.

I had seen fear before–real fear, not the kind staged to manipulate or soften judgment.

This had been different.

There had been no calculation in the widening of her eyes, no elegance in the way her mouth had twisted.

She had looked like prey.

And if Isolde, with all her venom and self–serving cunning, looked like prey, then I had to wonder:

who was the hunter she feared?

I sighed and turned back once, letting my gaze rest on the heavy ward door.

It looked no different from the other reinforced doors in the manor–oak bound with iron, meant to contain both sickness and danger.

Yet it seemed heavier now, as though secrets had weight, and that weight pressed against the wood from the inside.

Then I turned away.

Step after step, I forced myself forward, Audrey’s boots clicking softly behind me, Alfonso’s heavier tread steady at my side.

This was not what I had thought I would hear.

I had expected more venom, more petty spite from Isolde.

Another attempt to twist a knife into Francesco’s heart through me.

Instead, she had given me something I wasn’t ready for: a glimpse of a truth older than the betrayal everyone thought they understood.

Mika stirred beneath my skin, restless. ‘She is afraid,’ my wolf whispered. ‘Not of you. Not of chains. Of something else. Something greater.

“Yes,” I thought back. “But fear does not always mean innocence.”

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Chapter 205

Still, I couldn’t ignore the coil of unease shaking through me.

Francesco had told me the story once.

His father, Totti Lycaon, was powerful and feared,

The civil war that tore their lands apart.

Franco’s treachery, his father’s death, the bloody duel between brothers that ended with Francesco standing

alone.

It was a tragedy enough to break any man–and yet he had survived it.

He carried it like armor, like bone–deep shadow.

But what if that wasn’t the whole story?

I remembered the way Isolde had spat Franco’s name–dismissive, almost bored. A stepping stone, she’d said. ‘A tool.

If she spoke truth–if Franco had not been the true author of the Lycaon family’s downfall–then who had moved the pieces?

Who had seen the Lycaons not as kings but as prey, too dangerous to live?

The thought struck me cold.

Everyone had hated the Lycaons. Their power. Their difference. Their bloodline that stood above wolves like a mountain above fields. It had been easy for councils and Alphas to call them ruthless.

Easy to look at their strength and whisper: they will fall, they must fall.

Had Franco simply been convenient?

The fire everyone could point to, while the real storm brewed behind him?

I clenched my fists. ‘Damn it.’

The corridor opened into one of the wide galleries of the manor, its high windows letting in pale winter light.

Servants bustled at the far end, carrying linens and trays, their chatter quieting the moment they saw us.

Their gazes dipped, respectful, but I caught the flicker of curiosity.

They had heard Isolde’s scream.

Of course they had.

The rumor would spread before the hour ended. Whispers always traveled faster than truth.

Alfonso glanced at me, his sharp eyes assessing. “You’re thinking too much,” he said quietly.

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Chapter 205

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I gave him a look that might have been amusing if not for the heaviness pressing down on me. “And you aren’t thinking enough.”

He grunted, a sound halfway between agreement and irritation. “I think exactly as much as I need to

Audrey snorted softly behind me. “Which isn’t much, most days”

Alfonso shot her a glare, but I caught the corner of his mouth twitching.

Even in moments like this, they were themselves. Loyal, unshakable, bound by Francesco’s trust–and, by extension, mine.

But loyalty didn’t soothe the knot in my chest.

We moved toward the main hall, where warmth gathered from the great fire.

Francesco wasn’t there yet; I could feel it through the bond, the faint tug of his presence still distant, still at the training yard. For that I was grateful. I needed time to shape my face into something steadier, something that wouldn’t betray the storm roiling inside me.

Because how could I tell him?

How could I look into his eyes–those black eyes that had seen too much already–and say, “It wasn’t only Franco. It might have been something bigger. Something older. Something meant to erase you, not just wound you.”

He believed the story was finished.

He had lived with the weight of killing his brother, believing that was the price of survival, the curse of being the last Lycaon.

What would it do to him to learn the truth might be different?

That his brother’s betrayal had been part of something larger?

My heart twisted. I had been rejected once. My pain had nearly ended me.

But Francesco…..

He had been lied to, used, betrayed twice over by love, and burdened with his family’s blood. And still he carried himself like a king. Still he smiled at me in quiet moments as though I was the only thing anchoring him.

How did he do it?

How did he survive when everything had been torn from him?

I swallowed hard and pressed my hands together to still their trembling.

The servants cleared the hall quickly, their heads bowed. Maria lingered near the hearth, her eyes narrowing as she studied me. She had known me since Florence, since before Francesco and I had ever spoken of fate.

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Chapter 205

She knew my tells.

“You’ve heard something,” she said quietly once the others were gone.

I didn’t answer.

No, I couldn’t.

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Her gaze softened, and she touched my arm briefly, the way a mother might steady a child. “Do not let whispers rot your heart before you share them. Secrets grow teeth when they’re left alone.”

And her words struck deeper than I wanted..

“Luna?” Audrey’s voice brought me back.

She was watching me closely, suspicion clear in her eyes. She had heard Isolde’s scream as well. She had seen my reaction.

But I wasn’t ready. Not yet. Not until I had more than scraps.

“Nothing,” I said. “Not yet.”

The rest of the day blurred, filled with small duties that required my presence but not my heart.

Meetings with the cooks about stores for the winter. Conversations with elders about repairing the manor’s west wing. A walk through the gardens where the first green shoots pushed stubbornly against the frost. I smiled when I needed to, offered comfort when asked, but my mind spun like a wheel caught in mud.

By the time dusk fell, I was exhausted–not from labor, but from holding the weight of silence inside me.

That night, Francesco found me in the garden.

He always did.

I had been sitting on the low stone wall, soil still beneath my nails from tending the rosemary I’d planted days before. The cold air bit at my cheeks, but I didn’t care.

I felt him before I heard him.

The bond tugged at me, warm and insistent, and then his scent–smoke and pine and something older- wrapped around me like a cloak.

“Ellaine,” he said softly.

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