Hades' Cursed Luna novel Chapter 307

Eve

Blood in the cradle...

Blood in the cradle...

Blood in the cradle...

My baby...

Malrik.

I blinked, color leaking slowly into the blackness as my surroundings came into focus. I was back in the room I was slowly becoming familiar with again.

A pulsing pain had bloomed in the back of my skull, slowly ebbing and making sleep impossible.

I closed my eyes against the waves of haunting echoes from a life I might have known. Slapping my hand over my eyes, I let out a ragged exhale, thick with the strain of the day.

There were things to be done—things we were no closer to accomplishing despite all the time we'd had in our hands. Darius Valmont was miles ahead, heading for the goalpost, and I was here... trying not to lose my marbles from the opposition within the very tower where we were planning our contingency.

> "Rhea?" I asked.

She didn't speak for a few moments, but I knew she wasn't resting. She was wide awake and alert. Her presence was as noticeable as her fur against my subconscious.

> "Yes, Eve."

> "The Flux was the first to call me Elysia."

A beat of heavy silence.

> "I know," she replied, her voice small as though she didn't want us revisiting this topic. "I called you Elysia first."

I waited for her to speak—to elaborate.

> "Who is she to you?"

Rhea seemed to take a breath.

> "Who she was to me..." Her voice cracked under the weight of something she seemed to try and hide. Grief. "I was her wolf..." she whispered. "She was my werewolf."

I let silence reign, let her stew a little in the much-needed quiet.

"I failed her, all those centuries ago." Rhea bristled. The agony that had been leaking into her cadence before now seemed to drown out her voice.

> "Is that why you wanted me to escape so badly that night? No matter what it took, even though I tried to hold back?"

She let out a sad little chuckle.

> "You and her are alike. Very alike." She went silent again. "But then you were her all along. It just took Vassir's influence for it all to click."

My chest suddenly felt too small for my claustrophobic heart. I had a past life... I was truly a—

> "So I am a reincarnation of the moon goddess?"

I didn't know why I dreaded the answer to the question. It was only more complications to contend with—another element that Hades and I would have to skirt around while we tried to survive the Fenrir's Chain.

And as much as I didn't want to sound cynical or unempathetic, I wasn't looking forward to unlocking more memories from a tragic past life. My present was already a travesty enough to last me a century. Adding to it felt like another unfair punishment from the gods.

> "I'm sorry, Rhea," I said. "For everything you've had to go through. Twice."

Her chuckle was watery this time. Strained.

> "Don't be. You've always carried too much on your shoulders. Even as Eve."

A pause.

Then, quieter:

> "But this time… maybe we make it through. By the way, Darius is such a perpetual degenerate, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the reincarnation of Malrik himself."

I laughed, though it choked. I wanted to believe her. Gods, I did. But my skin was tight with exhaustion, my heart a pit of overlapping griefs—Eve's and Elysia's—bleeding into each other like ink in water. I hadn't asked for this rebirth. I hadn't wanted this legacy.

What if I didn't want to be her?

What if I just wanted to be me?

No myth. No goddess. No martyr chained to the memory of dead children and a bleeding moon.