Hades' Cursed Luna novel Chapter 197

Hades

"I told her," My voice was a whisper, but it did nothing to cushion the blow.

Kael’s eyes widened, his jaw practically unhinging. "About the flux?"

"Yes, about the flux." I murmured.

His expression changed slightly, realisation dawning, mixing with the shock. "You...marked her too. You are fully bonded."

I nodded. Exhilarating, that was what it had been, yet the heaviness persisted.

Kael adjusted on his seat, his throat working. "So...so, did it work?"

A pregnant pause.

"Yes, her wolf has returned. It is done." Yet there was so much more now. She had bared her soul to me, but I could not fully do the same. I had pushed to confide in me with every torment, every torture, every destructive word, every starvation, every fucking experiment but I... could not fully let all of mine out, not without crushing her.

She had been forced to lie about her identity, while I plotted not only use her but to end the entire werewolf race.

Where could I go from this?

Kael’s silence was uncharacteristic. He was always the first to have something to say, to taunt, to question. But now, he merely stared at me as if I had just admitted to breaking the very foundation of the world.

"You marked her," he repeated, slower this time. His voice was strained, as though the weight of the words made them difficult to say. "And now she’s bound to you—completely?"

"Yes," I murmured, pinching the bridge of my nose. "She is mine, and I am hers."

Kael ran a hand through his blond hair, exhaling sharply. "Hades," he said, more carefully now. "You realize what this means?"

I leveled him with a sharp look. "I realize everything."

"So what happens now?" He swallowed again, his skin pale.

I could feel his reluctance. He did not want to hurt Eve.

"Swear something to me first, Kael," I asked.

He blinked, taken aback. "Of course, I am loyal to you."

He stared him down, the decision warring in my mind. Eve trusted him and cared for him like she cared for Jules. Stood between me and him to protect him. If not for the stakes in this game, she would have told him herself. "I love her." It came out as a breath.

Kael’s expression shifted slightly, not surprised that I loved her but that I said it out loud.

"I love Eve Valmont." I said.

His face fell and it took a minute for it to sink in. His brows knitted. "Ellen’s death sister. How can you say that after marking her? You are making no sense."

"I did not mark Ellen Valmont, Kael. It was Eve all along."

Kael’s face drained of color, his mouth parting slightly before snapping shut again. I could see the exact moment his mind shattered—fragments of logic and belief colliding violently. He wanted to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

So I gave him no room to refute it.

"I love Eve Valmont," I repeated, slower this time. The weight of it settled into the air between us, suffocating. "Not Ellen. Not a ghost. Eve."

His breath hitched, and finally, finally, he exhaled a single, broken laugh. Not from amusement. No—this was the sound of a man teetering on the edge of disbelief, trying desperately to grasp something that kept slipping through his fingers.

"That’s—" He stopped himself, shaking his head like he was trying to physically rid himself of the thought. "Hades, that’s impossible. Eve Valmont was executed. You saw the corpse."

I tilted my head slightly. "No, Kael. I saw what they wanted I to see."

His eyes darted over my face, searching, his breathing growing unsteady. "A decoy," he whispered, his voice hoarse.

"Yes."

He recoiled as if I had struck him. "That thing they paraded in front of Silverpine, the one that was riddled with bullets." He sucked in a breath, his hands fisting at his sides. "It wasn’t her?"

I shook my head.

A tremor ran through him. "Then where the hell has she been all these years?" His voice was raw.

"Imprisoned. Tortured. Experimented on."

Each word was a blow, each syllable carving deeper into the silence between us. I didn’t rush. I let it settle, let it crush whatever illusions Kael still clung to.

His breathing turned ragged. I could hear the sharp inhale through his teeth, the way his hands twitched at his sides as if his body was rejecting the truth.

"By who?" His voice was a rasp.

I didn’t answer immediately.

He already knew.

The second the realization struck him, his pupils dilated, and his throat bobbed with a thick swallow. His face—normally sharp, confident—twisted with something ugly, something I rarely saw from him.

Fear.

Kael’s lips curled into something bitter. "You don’t deny it." _{freēwebnovel.com}