Chapter 73
QUEEN AQUAMARINE’S POV
I woke up choking.
Mud filled my mouth, thick and cold, sticking to my teeth and the back of my throat like I’d been buried again. I spat it out, coughed, and tried to sit up.
But I couldn’t move my arms. I looked down.
Vines. Dark, thick, and too alive coiled around my wrists. They weren’t tight, but they didn’t let go either.
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The air smelled different. Too clean. Like fresh air in the forest after rainfall. My heart thudded once, then skipped. I wasn’t in the castle.
Panic clawed up my chest as my heart raced.
Where was I?
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The walls weren’t walls at all. Just barks and tendrils curled into spines. Leaves with eyes that seemed to blink at my every move. A canopy of roots curled above me, woven like a prison ceiling.
This wasn’t a room.
It was a living thing.
I blinked, heart pounding, throat raw. No castle. No heat. No moonlight. No Alexander. Just dirt, and that sick, earthy smell.
He was already standing there.
Terran.
He stepped forward with the calm, unbothered grace of someone who believed the world owed him devotion..
Bare feet. No crown. No armour. Just a loose shirt, half–unbuttoned, with roots coiled lazily around one arm like a pet. He looked almost inhuman.
He had Levi’s build. Tall and muscular, but not as big and muscular as Alexander. There was something about his aura and his fox- like eyes that made me drawn to him but something at the back of my mind screamed danger.
Like the look in the white dread–haired Elder I saw a few days ago.
Was it Lorenzo? or Leonardo?
“You’re awake,” he said softly, as if that pleased him. “I was worried you might sleep through our first real conversation.”
I didn’t answer. My fingers twitched inside the vines.
He tilted his head. “Scared?”
I swallowed hard and dry. “Where am I?”
“Somewhere safer than you’ve ever been,” he replied calmly.
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Chapter 73
“I don’t belong here,” I muttered, breathing heavily. “Why am I tied?”
“It will be yours too soon,” he smiled. “You’re not tied. You’re being held just in the right place.”
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The vines curled slightly tighter, like they liked that answer. I shifted away from him on instinct. My arms didn’t move.
“You didn’t have to drag me here,” I said, voice tight. “The Primus would have found a way to fix this.”
He didn’t respond right away. Just walked toward me slowly. Watching me.
“You’re not here because of force,” he said. “You’re here because something inside you finally answered.”
“I never called for you.” I blinked, confused.
“Didn’t you?” His gaze sharpened. “You pushed my sister off and cried yourself to sleep. And somewhere in that moment, the land heard you. I heard you.”
I stiffened.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” he said. “I’m not angry. Not like
you
think.”
I tried to speak, but my voice caught.
“You mourned her,” he continued. “Even when she tried to bury you alive. That’s what makes you different from the others. From him.”
I flinched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” His voice dropped. “You know what he truly is. You’ve seen it and you’ve heard it, even if you lie to yourself. He wears love like a disguise, but it’s all hunger. All instinct. All control. All planned.”
He crouched next to me, too close. The heat of his body reached mine before he even touched me. I jerked back, but the vines didn’t give an inch.
“You don’t belong in his cage,” he said. “No matter how many times you run back to it.“”
My eyes widened, how did he know-
He chuckled, “I know enough. And I know he’ll never tell you the truth. Not about what he is. Not about why he needs you.”
My throat burned. “You know nothing about him or me. You don’t know why I was in his cage.”
Terran tilted his head again. “Because you stole something?” He mocked.
Sweat trickled down my spine and my body trembled. How does he know everything?
He seemed to read my mind when he replied, “I see everything Gaia sees, Luna. I feel everything she feels and I know everything she knows.”
My mouth went dry.
He reached out, slowly and touched a piece of dirt clinging to my collarbone. He brushed it away like he was dusting off a statue.
“I don’t just see her,” he said, voice softer now. “I see you too. Your fear. Your dreams. Your nightmare. Your wishes.”
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Chapter 73
He chuckled softly as my eyes went wide. “The ones where you see blood and wonder if it’s yours. The ones where you see a cloaked person staring and pointing at you. And the ones where you beg him to look at you, to hold you, to love you back.”
I barely breathed, “I don’t love him.”
“You’re more than he sees,” Terran murmured. “And he’ll see it only when it’s too late. You should be with me.”
“I’m not yours,” I whispered.
“Not yet.”
The vines pulsed, warm and slow.
I shook my head. “Please, let me go.”
“Will I? Never,” he said, standing up. “But first… rest. Eat. Let the forest welcome you.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“You will,” he said. “You’ve grown since the first dream. Even then, I knew you were meant for more.”
A flash hit me.
The old dream. His voice whispering in the trees. Roots crawling across my skin. A hand brushing my stomach in the dark. I thought it was fear. I thought it was just a nightmare.
So he was real? It was really him? Not Alexander?
His smile widened. “I’d expect nothing less from a Luna who survived being sealed and buried alive.”
He stepped toward the far end of the clearing, where roots knotted together like a door.
Then paused.
Turned his head slightly.
“You looked like her when you slept,” he said softly. “Gaia. Just for a moment. Before the guilt crept back onto started screaming for that devil.”
your
face and
you
I stopped breathing.
He smiled wider. “But, there is something else I’d love you to scream.”
Something inside me recoiled. My stomach twisted, but my skin burned. Like he was familiar. Wrongly familiar.
Then he walked out. The roots closed behind him like muscle sealing over bone.
Silence fell again, but it wasn’t silence. Something was breathing underneath my feet. Breathing.
And I knew this place wasn’t just a prison.
It was a mouth.
I was already between its teeth and it was moving.
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Chapter 73
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Where was Alexander? Did he even know I was gone? Would he care? Or maybe this was another way to punish me.
Maybe he had let Terran take me because….. because I’m not pregnant for him yet. And now Terran was just the next in line to claim what was left of me.
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