Hades' Cursed Luna novel Chapter 185

Hades

Silence reigned.

Not the heavy, suffocating kind.

No, this was the cold, sharp silence of a room holding its breath—of men calculating, of power shifting beneath their feet.

And for the first time in his life, Darius miscalculated.

For the first time in his life, the great Alpha, the ruler of the Valmont’s bloodline, the man who always held control—hesitated.

It was only for a fraction of a second. A flicker of shock in his otherwise impassive gaze, a minuscule widening of his pupils.

But I saw it.

I felt it.

She turned to me slowly, her lips parted, her breath shallow. As if she hadn’t dared to believe I would say those words aloud. As if, for all her defiance, for all her strength, she had not thought I would stake my claim in front of the court.

And yet, here I was.

Darius recovered quickly, of course. A man like him did not stay unbalanced for long.

He exhaled, measured and even, steepling his fingers as he regarded me. But when he spoke, his voice carried something new. Not just calculation.

A warning.

"You cannot do this, Hades."

I did not react. Did not blink.

Darius tilted his head slightly, studying me, as if searching for some weakness to exploit. When he found none, he continued, his words deliberate, precise.

"It would be a political disaster."

His voice was not harsh, nor dismissive. No, this was the voice of a man who wielded logic as his sharpest blade. And he wielded it well.

"Lycans and werewolves have been bitter enemies for centuries," he said, his tone smooth, patient—like a scholar explaining the inevitable collapse of an empire. "Our history is stained with war and bloodshed. Your kind and mine have slaughtered each other for so long that peace is nothing more than a fragile illusion, held together by necessity rather than trust."

He gestured toward Ellen, but his gaze never left mine. "And now, you expect to announce that a wolf—a werewolf that your people call mutts—will rule over Lycans as Luna?" He let the question hang, let its weight settle between us. "Do you not understand what that would mean?"

I did not speak.

So he pressed on.

"Your court would revolt. Your gammas would reject her. Your alliances—shaky as they already are—would crumble. If you do this, Hades, you will not simply be making a decision for yourself." His voice lowered, calm and edged with something like grim finality. "You will be making a decision that could drive you to a civil war. There will be riots, there will be coup d’etats. You will lose more than you will earn just because you refuse to accept that my daughter is not safe here. I just want to take her home and help her heal where her own people here. She will be returned, she remains your fucking wife whether I like it or not. I gave her over to solidify our alliance to ensure the safety of my people. I would never dismantle that. Just let her come home."

I held his gaze.

He was not wrong.

Lycans prided themselves on their superiority. Werewolves were mongrels in their eyes—lesser, weaker, tainted by Malrik Valmont who ocastrated the death of Elysia. He banished her children, the Lycans. The idea of a werewolf, not only a subject of the bloodline of murders and usurpers but the bloodline of Malrik himself ruling over Lycans would be seen as heresy.

And yet—

I did not care.

Darius leaned back slightly, his expression composed, but eager for me to waver.

He glanced at Ellen then, just for a moment. His expression darkening as if it was just fully sinking in that he might not get what he seeked when he decided to come here.

A father who understood that his daughter would no longer be able to bend to his will, what ever neferious plans he had.

But before he could speak again—before he could sink the knife in deeper, make another attempt at prying her from me—

I cut him off.

"You cannot tell me how to make decisions."

"There have been fourteen coups since I became Alpha five years ago," I said, my voice steady, unwavering. "Six of them led by my own brother." _{frёeweɓηovel.coɱ}