Chapter 106\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nolan POV\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was three in the morning by the time I finally stopped.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My desk was buried beneath the weight of it. The printouts, intercepted text messages, copies of emails, and recordings of call logs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every thread I tugged unraveled into another, all of it twisting together into a knot I couldn\u2019t ignore. It was the kind of proof no one could deny, no matter how much I wanted to.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Felicity\u2019s schemes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her fingerprints were on everything. The spies in the pack house, the poisoned meal nearly a year ago, the constant drip of whispered lies meant to erode Ellie\u2019s place by my side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
All of it traced back to her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t even need to drag Ellie\u2019s attacker into it, not tonight. I wasn\u2019t sure I could stomach hearing him confirm what I already knew-that Felicity had known Ellie was pregnant, that she\u2019d ordered her death anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My chest ached, too raw for words like heartbroken. No, this wasn\u2019t heartbreak. This was being gutted, hollowed out, as if something vital had been torn from me and ground into the dirt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How had it come to this?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes, trying to push away the images flashing through my mind. Not the proof spread across my desk. Not Ellie, pale and broken on the ground after the poison had nearly killed her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not the thought of our unborn children stolen from us before they had a chance to take a breath.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No, the images that cut deepest were the oldest ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first time I met Felicity, she\u2019d been six years old, a skinny little girl with scraped knees and messy pigtails. I was seven, bleeding in the dirt after my father\u2019s training had gone too far again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They called it discipline. I knew better, even then.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Silver Fang wasn\u2019t a large or powerful pack back then. My parents were ambitious, determined to grow the pack into something formidable. To make that happen, they needed me, the firstborn son and future alpha, to be perfect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t care what it took to make that happen. So, while the other children played in the summer sun, I trained in the fields, from sunup until my body gave out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I could still remember the look of disgust on my father\u2019s face as he looked at me lying on the ground, my smeared in dirt and blood. \u201cDon\u2019t come home until you\u2019ve learned to act like a man.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
face\u00a0<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t expected anyone to find me that day. I\u2019d hidden away from the other kids, ashamed of my weakness, determined not to drag myself home until I could stand tall again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But she found me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Felicity came running across the field, a half-eaten pastry in her hand-some kind of sticky summer treat the kids used to beg the bakers for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t know me, not really. I wasn\u2019t the Alpha\u2019s son to her then. I was just a boy curled in the dirt, trying not\u00a0<\/p>\n
1\/3\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 106\u00a0<\/p>\n
+25 Bonus\u00a0<\/p>\n
to cry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And she offered me the rest of her pastry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look sad,\u201d she said, tilting her head curiously.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t answered. I didn\u2019t know how. It was such a simple observation that it froze me in place. Then her little hand was shoving the pastry at me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is really sweet, it\u2019ll cheer you up!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was the first time anyone had looked at me and seen more than a title or an opportunity. The first time anyone had seen me for what I was, a sad little boy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I thought that meant something. For years, I thought it meant everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She had been the one constant in my life, the first warmth I ever felt. When my parents drove me until my body gave out, Felicity was there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I believed no one in this world could love me for who I was, Felicity proved me wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I made her so many promises, and she was the only one I ever tried to follow through for. I made Silver Fang into something powerful, something to be proud of, and I did it all with her by my side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She held me when it was almost too much, she made me feel safe when the weight of it all was crushing me. And I let her have her way, I spoiled her in every way I could\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
But now?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now she had traded my children\u2019s lives for ambition. She had turned her loyalty, her cunning, her access, into weapons against me. Against Ellie. Against our family.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, fighting the burn. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn\u2019t reconcile the girl with the woman she\u2019d become.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That little girl with scraped knees had grown into someone who saw becoming my Luna as more important than the lives of my unborn children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The thought made me sick.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the worst part?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I still loved her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the same way I felt about Ellie, not the bond that burned and refused to break no matter how I fought it, but it was strong in a different way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A part of me would always love Felicity, because she had been the first. My first friend. My first taste of kindness. My first love.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But that love was a ghost now. A hollow echo of something that no longer existed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I glanced back down at the evidence, my jaw tightening as the fury swelled again. Logic told me it was adrenaline making my veins feel like ice, but it didn\u2019t matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My wolf paced inside me, restless, snarling, demanding justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Felicity couldn\u2019t be trusted. Not again. Not ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2\/3\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 106\u00a0<\/p>\n
+25 Bonus\u00a0<\/p>\n
I had given her too many chances. I had turned away from her schemes, her insults, her petty cruelties, because I didn\u2019t want to see what was staring me in the face.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because part of me wanted to believe the girl with the pastry was still there, somewhere, buried under the venom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But she wasn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She had chosen her path.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And now I had to choose mine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t stop for sleep. There was no point; I knew it wouldn\u2019t have come. Instead, I summoned my highest- ranking betas, the heads of security, the council members who still had my trust.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By four a.m., they were all awake and gathering in the great hall for an emergency meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The evidence felt heavy in my hands as I carried it there. Every page felt like it added another stone to the crushing weight in\u00a0<\/p>\n
my\u00a0<\/p>\n
chest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cassian was there when I arrived, Ellie and Lance sitting beside him, looking exhausted and confused. I didn\u2019t offer any explanation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t, and I could tell by the solemn look on Cassian\u2019s face that I didn\u2019t have to. He understood what this\u00a0<\/p>\n
meant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d found the traitor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the guards informed me Felicity was on her way, I dismissed them with a sharp wave. I needed a moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The hall was silent, the air thick with expectation. I stood at the head of the long table, my reflection faint in the polished wood.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My wolf\u2019s growl rumbled low in my chest, vibrating through me, making the room feel too small, too close.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Any second now, she would walk through those doors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And I didn\u2019t know which part of me would speak first-the Alpha who needed to bring her down, or the boy who still remembered the girl with scraped knees and a sticky pastry clutched in her hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Cold Marriage That Turned Warm 106 Chapter 106\u00a0 Nolan POV\u00a0 It was three in the morning by the time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-unremembered-mate-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}