Hades' Cursed Luna novel Chapter 33

Eve~

I picked up my phone, and I stopped breathing when my eyes fell on the caller ID. My mother was calling, and despite waiting for so long, my finger only lingered on the accept button. Without thinking too much, I picked up the call.

"Mom?" I spoke.

"Eve," my stomach dropped at her cold tone, and I clasped the phone a bit tighter.

"Mom?" I echoed, my heart threatening to break out of my chest.

"Your calls are becoming incessant. It is a nuisance," she told me.

A bullet hit me in the chest.

I swallowed, summoning some courage. Why were my hands sweating so much? "If you picked up your calls, maybe I would not need to keep calling."

"And what gives you the right to have a conversation with me?" she asked, her voice so dispassionate that it gutted me.

"I just... got married. At least you could see how I am doing."

"And what if I am not interested in knowing?"

I bit back a sob. "I know I am here because of what Dad did."

"So?" she asked dismissively. "You should be grateful that you have some use now."

My throat tightened, and breathing had become harder. "How can you call yourself my mum?"

"Simple," she replied without hesitation. "I don’t."

Her dismissal was a bulldozer to the chest. I bit my quivering lips hard, trying my absolute best not to let it be discovered that my father deceived the king, yet I was treated like nothing but some criminal. "You know I could tell the truth. Tell him I was not the daughter he wanted. That you people lied to him. I could set all of this on fire."

The quiet that greeted me at the other end was nerve-wracking. "Then you will truly live up to your name," she replied. "The cursed twin that will bring ruin to our pack. Just as the prophecy said. I am pretty sure that he will toss bombs on Lunar Heights first and then the rest of Silverpine. All because we allowed the cursed twin to live."

The silence that followed was deafening. I felt my breath hitch as her words settled in. The cursed twin. The words that had been etched into my soul like a brand. The prophecy had always loomed over me, a dark cloud that cast a shadow over everything I did, and now... even my mother used it against me.

"Is that all I am to you?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "A prophecy? A curse?"

"You’ve always known your place, Eve," she replied calmly. "Don’t pretend this is news to you. You are an inconvenience at best, a disaster waiting to happen at worst."

The tears I’d fought so hard to hold back finally broke free, streaking down my face as I stood frozen in place. I had expected coldness, but this... this was cruelty. And what was worse, part of me had been foolish enough to hope for something more, for some shred of maternal love, or at least concern.

"Do you even care what happens to me?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, almost afraid of her answer.

"I care about the pack, Eve," she said, her voice sharp and unrelenting. "And if keeping the truth from the king is what saves us, then that’s what matters. You should know that by now."

I squeezed my eyes shut, clenching my jaw as I tried to steady my breathing. "I’m your daughter," I choked out. "I’m your blood."