Shattered Bonds A Second Chance Mate (by Yui) novel Chapter 222

Chapter 222

Chapter 222

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A voucher.

“I remember your last words to me,” she began, her voice smooth as old river stone. “He tells you…”

The pause was deliberate. She let the silence stretch, let it press against the walls, until I could hear my own blood in my ears.

“What?” I asked, though my mouth was dry, though my bones already knew the answer,

Her lips curved faintly, the ghost of a smile with no kindness in it. “Your King. Your Lycan. Francesco,”

At the sound of his name, Mika stirred inside me, ears flat, a low growl in the hollow of my chest. My wolf did. not like this woman–not the way she said his name, not the way she weighted it like a coin she had once owned and might yet spend again.

I forced my breath to steady. “What do you claim he told me?”

She tilted her head, reed–colored hair slipping over one shoulder. “Not claim. I know… The words he left in your ear.”

Ice pricked my spine.

The word struck like a flint against memory. A half–remembered whisper from weeks ago, a thread of voice tangled in sleep. Bring the sea back its stolen name.

My stomach clenched. She saw it. Of course she did.

“Ah,” she breathed, eyes sharpening. “You do know I will know.”

I did not answer.

I would not give her the satisfaction.

But the air seemed to lean closer, hungry for the next word.

“He tells you,” Mother Severine said again, lower now, like a confession spoken in a church with no God to hear it, “because blood remembers what mouths try to forget. Because the old Lycaon promised me something he never gave. And promises have teeth.”

Her eyes locked to mine then, steady, patient, relentless. “Tell me, Luna–do you know what your mate’s father stole from me?”

My throat ached, but I lifted my chin. “If he wronged you, it was not Francesco’s hand that did it.”

For the first time, something like heat broke in her expression–not anger, not sorrow, but a spark of satisfaction. “And yet… it is Francesco’s blood that carries the debt.”

The bond between me and my mate thrummed tight in my chest, protective, warning. I wanted to end the conversation, to turn my back, to call Audrey, Marlow, anyone. But I held her gaze. Because if this woman smelled even a breath of fear, she would feed on it like wolves on marrow.

11:56 Fri, Oct 3 M…

Chapter 222

“What debt?” I asked. My voice was calm. Too calm.

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Mother Severine’s smile deepened, slow as dusk. “The kind that cannot be paid with coin. Only with names. And blood. And the truth you do not yet know.”

She stepped closer, and the lamplight caught her eyes, turning them silver–gray like storm clouds.

“Shall I tell you, Luna?” she whispered. “Shall I tell you what your King has never dared speak?”

I gulped nervously.

Her voice dropped, soft as a thread slipping through cloth. “Bring the sea back its stolen name.”

She knows…

The words sank in me like a stone in water. My breath caught before I could stop it. She saw. Of course she saw–the flicker in my face, the tightening in my shoulders.

Her smile was a thin blade, sharp and cold.

I forced my chin higher. “If you came here to frighten me with riddles, you’ll find me harder to scare than you think.”

She moved one step closer into the lamp’s reach.

The gray cloth of her dress looked dull until that moment, when it caught the faintest sheen, like wet ash. Her presence pulled the air taut, every shadow in the room bending closer to her.

“Your mate’s father,” she said evenly, “the old Totti Lycaon. A man with a crown in one hand and fire in the other. He promised me power. He promised me forever.”

A sick chill coiled in my gut. “Promised you…?”

“Love,” she said without hesitation, without shame. “He whispered love into me like salt into water. He wanted my magic–the deep magic, older than wolf or Lycan. I was a girl then. Foolish enough to believe a king’s vow Foolish enough to give him what he asked.”

Her eyes glittered hard, bitter. “Together we dreamed of ruling the whole of Europe, He said we would build an empire that neither wolf nor man could shatter.”

Oh God…

She laughed then, like he could hear the horror in my head, but it was an empty, rattling laugh. “And then he left me. Left me with nothing but the taste of lies. He took from me what he could not keep—and when he abandoned me, he sealed my power away with chains of dark iron. Buried me alive in silence, in stone. For decades I lay there, breathing dust, waiting.”

I couldn’t breathe. My skin prickled cold.

The old Totti… Francesco’s father?

11:56 Fri, Oct 3 M…

Chapter 222

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69

El 56 vouchers

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