The Alpha’s Fated Outcast: Rise Of The Moonsinger

Chapter 418 - 418: The web of deception...

Lyla

I came back to myself slowly.

My eyelids were heavy, and my lashes were sticky with dried tears. My head throbbed. I took a breather, and there was a metallic taste in my mouth that made my stomach churn.

The first thing I became aware of as I came to consciousness slowly was of the twins. They were moving restlessly inside me. As soon as I noticed that, I panicked.

I tried to move my hands to soothe them, to place my palms on my belly in the gesture that usually soothes them over the past months, but that was when I noticed my hands were bound too.

I could perceive the acrid smell of silver biting into my wrists and the clink of chains echoing in the room.

All the fatigue vanished from my eyes.

I was lying on a narrow bed in what appeared to be some medical facility or laboratory. The walls were stark white, lined with equipment I didn't recognise. The air smelled of antiseptic and something else – something that made me recoil in fear.

The lighting was harsh, so harsh that it made my eyes water.

Both of my hands were bound to the bed frame with heavy silver shackles that were already chafing my skin. Iron. The realisation chilled through me.

I struggled against the restraints, tugging at them with all my strength, but they held firm. The metal was cold and unyielding, and every movement sent sharp pain shooting through my wrists where the edges bit into my skin.

"Be careful," a voice said from somewhere to my right, "You don't want to injure the babies."

I turned my head toward the voice and felt anger stir within me. A woman sat in a chair near the foot of the bed, watching me with eyes that seemed to shift colour in the harsh lighting – sometimes green and sometimes gold.

Her hair fell in waves of auburn that caught the light like spun copper, and her skin had an ethereal quality that seemed to glow from within. But there was something wrong about her beauty, something that triggered every instinct I had to

in my former house and the same woman

sat in my kitchen, who had laughed with me, who had offered to enter my dreams to help interpret Nymeris's messages—the woman I'd trusted with my life

the anger that'd been slowly stirring within me, burning with

warm trickle of blood, but I didn't care. All I could think about was how thoroughly I'd been deceived, how

spat, thrashing more against the

blood, and one false move from you might convince me to

– another figure standing in the shadows near the door. He stepped forward into the light, and I had to bite back

and lean, with pale skin that looked

slicked back from a face that might have been handsome if not for the predatory gleam in his red-tinged eyes. But it was his smile that made my stomach

children, just as Circe – was it the real or

in a gesture that was both sensual and terrifying. I could see the hunger in his eyes, the barely restrained need to sink those fangs into my

is Seliora and I'm half-fae, half-Lycan. That is my brother, Takas, and he's half-vampire, half-Lycan. You've met my

"You think I am interested in knowing about

studying my expression like it amused her. "You're wondering how close you are to death. I'd say…one wrong word. So be good,

point, I was too angry to be

me. You shapeshifted into Circe," I said harshly, turning back to the woman who had violated

her eyes, her lips curving into a mocking smile. "Shapesshift? Oh, no. Please don't insult me. I'm far too mature to

"Then how—"

"A simple matter of making you see what I wanted you to see. Fae magic is far more elegant than the brute force shapeshifting that lesser creatures

she?" I demanded.

standing behind her – a figure I hadn't noticed before, dressed in dark clothing and standing so still they might have

"Bring her," she commanded.