Hades' Cursed Luna novel Chapter 270

Eve

They were coming.

I could hear the thunder of boots behind me—fast, relentless, trained.

Gamma units.

> "They're deploying tactical," Rhea warned, sharp and cold. "They'll shoot to injure. Or worse."

No shit.

I turned a hard corner, paws skidding against polished marble. Blood trailed behind me—thick, hot, mine. My shoulder screamed with every movement. My side was on fire. But adrenaline had taken the wheel. Not logic. Not pain.

Just survival.

The next hall exploded in gunfire.

Crack—crack—crack.

I dove behind a pillar, bark and plaster shattering around me as bullets ripped the air. Some of them weren't using rounds—they were using shock darts, designed to paralyze Lycans mid-shift.

One grazed my leg and it went numb for a breath before I shook it off.

> "Left!" Rhea shouted. "They're trying to flank—go, now!"

I leapt from cover, claws digging into the ground as I bolted toward the adjacent corridor. A Gamma lunged from behind a column, already mid-shift, eyes glowing gold.

I didn't wait.

I dropped low, raked his thigh with my claws, and used his own weight to throw him into the wall behind me.

Two more closed in.

My vision blurred.

My muscles trembled.

But I was faster.

Not stronger—but desperate.

They'd underestimated what desperation looked like.

> "Third stairwell," Rhea snapped. "It'll lead to the west wing balconies. You only need five more floors. Five. That's survivable."

I skidded into the stairwell and bounded down three steps before the impact of a tackle hit me from above. A soldier had jumped the landing. We tumbled.

My shoulder slammed into the railing.

My arm went completely dead.

He roared and aimed his weapon—

And I bit him.

Snarled through bloodied teeth and sank them into the soft space between collar and shoulder.

He screamed.

I kicked him off, breath ragged.

My limbs were failing.

I had to move.

I clutched the railing with my good hand, vaulting down another two flights, vision swimming, lungs heaving like I was drowning in them.

Behind me, they regrouped.

They were calling out my position.

Coordinating.

Hunting.

> "Just get to the floor with the window," Rhea urged. "One more flight. Just one. You jump, we shift. We land. We run."

I hit the last landing.

Alarms screamed in my ears, every light now flashing red across the corridor.

The hallway beyond the stairwell was clear—for now.

I burst through the door and limped toward the glass at the end of the hallway.

It was reinforced. Meant to withstand attacks.

But even glass had a weakness.

I dropped to all fours, claws dragging across the floor.

Gathered every drop of strength I had left.

> "Now," Rhea whispered.

I sprinted.

Then suddenly a horrible white searing hot pain exploded in the thigh of my hind leg. I let out a howl that revibratated in my own skull.

The pain was a torrent that pulled me under its tide as I could no longer move.

Rhea began to crawl towards the window in a last ditch effort before we could recaptured only for a chilling voice to stop me dead in my tracks.

"Move inch and your head goes next,"

The fur along my neck raised as his voice registered, his footsteps on the marble threatening to cause my hearts expulsion from my chest.

I twisted my head and immediately pain lanced through my entire body. All of the shots that I had been inflicted were suddenly registering anew in a way that brought back the weakness and gnawing hunger that ripped at me.

The pain was staggering.

White-hot and suffocating, it rooted itself in my thigh like a burning spike of molten metal, fusing bone to agony. My body collapsed. Rhea's strength ebbed under the weight of it—crippled. Struggling.

We weren't healing.

Not fast enough.

"What the fuck was that?" Rhea hissed, barely able to hold her form. "That's not normal—Evie, that's—"

"Move an inch," a cold voice echoed, "and your head goes next."

My entire body seized.

That voice.

I knew it.

Every bone in me remembered.

The footsteps were measured. Predatory. Echoing through the hall like a noose tightening around my throat.

I turned my head, slowly, painfully—and instantly regretted it.

Pain bloomed all over again, sharper, deeper, like it was trying to tear me from the inside out. My blood felt thick. Heavy.

My vision cleared—just enough.

And there he was.

Montegues.

Danielle's father.

A wraith of grief in the body of a soldier. His eyes were carved from stone, but there was no warmth in that gaze—only obsession. Hatred that had simmered too long. And on his shoulder—

Some kind of weapon.

Massive.

Like a miniaturized bazooka built for precision and brutality. Still humming.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" he asked softly, tilting his head. His voice was calm. Too calm.

Deadly calm.

"Right through the muscle. You're lucky it missed the bone—though I guess luck's relative now, isn't it?"

My breathing rasped through clenched teeth. I couldn't move my leg. Could barely feel it.

He took a step forward.

"Special round," he said, stroking the weapon lovingly. "Custom. Platinum core. Silver-etched tip. Pressurized venom shell." He smiled, cold and brittle. "Designed it the day we found out what you were. What kind of filthy, blended abomination lived inside our walls. Just in case."

My heart thudded against my ribs.

He'd prepared for this. He'd known.

He was waiting for a day like today.

Waiting to hunt me.

"You killed my daughter," Montegue said, voice cracking mid-sentence. "My Dani. You slit her open and left her to die on dirt soaked in blood. And they still dared to say you were a victim."

I flinched.

>"Evie," Rhea warned.

But it was too late.

Guilt slid down my throat like glass. I felt it lodge deep. I'd tried not to think of Danielle. Of the way she'd looked. The way she screamed for mercy for her child."

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

It came out strangled. Not because of the pain.

Because it was true.

"I never meant for her to die. I swear on—on everything. I didn't want—"

"LIAR!" he screamed.

The composure snapped. His face contorted, not with rage—with devastation. Madness born of heartbreak. Of guilt he couldn't scrub from his soul, so he poured it into me.

"You touched her! You were in our home! You marked my grandson! You murdered Dani!"

"I didn't—!" My voice cracked. "I didn't know how stop! I tried to stop it—I tried—"

"You are a beast," he spat. "Don't you dare say her name."

He raised the launcher.

I saw the charge build.

The barrel glowed faintly violet.

And for a moment—just a second—I felt it.

The weight of everything.

The chains.

The blood.

The silence.

And all the death.

Danielle.

The massacre.

The child I couldn't save. Elliot.

Felicia.

All of it.

Hades. Grey eyes filled with hate and love.

>"Rhea—"

>"I can't shield you from this one," she said, voice tight with sorrow. "Brace, Evie. Goodbye again, Elysia."

The world slowed.

The barrel locked on my skull.

I saw Montegue's finger tighten on the trigger.

And then—

He fired.

And everything went white.

Eve

The blast should've ended me. _{frёeweɓηovel.coɱ}

I heard it—no, felt it. The bone-deep vibration, the howl of air splitting apart as the projectile screamed through space. There was a scream—I think it was mine—but I couldn't be sure. Everything turned white, then red, then nothing at all.

But I didn't die.

I didn't even fall.

Instead, the world stuttered—halted mid-breath.

And something slammed into me.