All Chapters of The Ex-Luna's Revenge: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

/-Alora-/The air seemed dense with each passing second as if the world was breathing with bated breath. My heartbeat echoed in my head when I was finally standing in front of the robed men who came out from the darkness. They were oppressive; the look they gave me was a constant press that pushed me into realizing things I didn’t know about myself. They knew me. Knew my name.I should have been frightened, should have been feeling the tightening of the grip around my throat. But the truth settled in, a heavy truth I could no longer deny: I had been aware of this moment for as long as I can remember. I had always understood that I became the bearer of bloodline as not only the blessing but also the curse, the sin that was never meant to be hidden. But now it was waiting to be taken up.It was yet another conversation with Randall, whose voice suddenly filled the emptiness as it became a growl. “I said to wait,” he told me, standing tall and facing the leader of the robed men. They ha

/-Alora-/A little voice brought the sense of sleeping to life, as did the sound of the wind crawling through the leaves of the trees, ultimately waking me up.Randall's arm, stretched around my waist, was the sole solid object in a universe that was quickly becoming too vast and unknowable.I could still feel his fingertips against my skin and taste his lips as if a link had been woven between us that could not be simply untied.But the words of the robed creatures weighed heavily on my imagination. It is up to you, Alora, and that is where you will make your decision. Power is costly. Their foreboding message hung over everything, dimming the brilliant flame of oneness we had.This time, I shifted slightly sideways to avoid disturbing Randall. It began to profoundly affect me; I then focused on his chest, rising and falling in steady breaths before exhaling; I allowed myself to relax for a second.I realized that he had always provided me with the steadiness that I lacked when thing

/-Alora-/The earth spun when we ambushed the first wave of enemy combatants from where we stood on the forest's edge.I waited breathlessly for a response, but all sounds had stopped, and my heart was hammering. The wind blew harder, whirling my hair, and then tens of thousands of Shadowborn troops appeared in the darkness, wearing black armor."Stay close," Randall said, and his hold tightened; his palm was again on my back, forcing me closer to the tree line. The warmth of his flesh under my hands was comforting, but the force that drew us together was perilous—each stride toward this conflict, each inhalation in the face of death, was a live wire."I don't need protection," I screamed at him, wanting to break free from his grip for whatever purpose he had, but my voice lacked the bite I needed. The fact was that I needed him. I took interest in him more than I wanted to acknowledge.His lips formed what could only be described as a grin, but it did not touch the icy, hard-to-see

/-Alora-/When Tyrone fell, no one spoke or cheered. It felt like guilt; it was heavy and real, and it pulled at me like a weight around my neck. Finally, I got up from the floor. My muscles were shaking like chicken meat, and I was still thinking about how bad what I did was. My husband, you fooled me, and then you tortured me, but now Tyrone is no more. Taken over by the force I had always tried to avoid and the force I was now embracing so fiercely.This stared back at me even while I stood in triumph—my win, their defeat, a hollow feeling in my chest. There can't be any element of victory herein, having destroyed a man who had taken from me all the things I held dear. It wasn't even a steady memory of laughing, and yet it mastered me; it still does. And the loss of Lila by my side still feels all too real. Being apart from her hurt so much that it can't even be put into words. Whatever I won or whatever I lost, a war whatsoever the number of wars I was fighting, she's already

/-Alora-/Allison's words hit us like a weight and made my breath skip. That was the first time I felt like I could not believe what I heard. A bond of fate? With Randall?The fact that Randall didn't make eye contact with me made me think that he knew this was ridiculous.I knew he told me this when we first met, but I thought it was one of his stupid jokes because I was a slave in the pack at the time. Now Allison was proving it and making plans to stop it for real.Anyone could have said or done something, so they just stood there in silence. But the silence was broken by Patrick's first words, which he said in a low, strained voice. "Are there still some things we don't know?"I turned towards him and looked into his eyes, and my hands were trembling as I looked for some sensible reply. "I don't know," I said, barely raising my voice above a whisper. “That,” he said, “is the first time I have ever heard such a thing.”“Oh, that’s very convenient,” Allison jeered, crossing her arms