Chapter 188\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ellie POV\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Royal Hospital was unusually busy for a weekday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The halls hummed with the rhythm of shuffling feet and quiet voices, the soft beep of monitors, and the faint scent of antiseptic. I moved through it all with practiced ease, clipboard in hand, my hair, which was growing out again, was pulled back neatly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I walked into the long-term care wing, where the morning sun streamed through the high windows.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGood morning, Mrs. Wren,\u201d I said gently as I stepped into one of the rooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The old woman looked up from her knitting, her bright eyes sharp despite her years. \u201cYou\u2019re late, dear.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I smiled. \u201cTwo minutes. I checked the clock.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mrs. Wren gave me a mock glare. \u201cA messenger of the goddess shouldn\u2019t quibble over minutes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I froze, my smile faltering. \u201cMessenger?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what they say, isn\u2019t it?\u201d the woman said, her needles clicking. \u201cHalf the staff\u2019s been whispering about it for days. That the goddess chose you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I sighed softly, setting my chart down. \u201cRumors have a way of growing legs around here. I\u2019m just a nursing assistant, Mrs. Wren.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s eyes twinkled. \u201cNonsense. You\u2019ve got the look, that glow about you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s sweet of you to say, but-\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, now,\u201d she said with a tut. \u201cDon\u2019t deny your gifts, dear. Wear them proudly! It\u2019s who you are, who you were born to become.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before I could reply, one of the other patients called out from across the hall, breaking the moment. I excused myself with a gentle pat to Mrs. Wren\u2019s hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the words followed me as I moved through my rounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By midday, the sky had turned gray, heavy with the promise of rain. I\/sat in the small staff lounge, stirring sugar into my tea as my mind drifted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My mother\u2019s voice from the dream the other day still lingered: The goddess doesn\u2019t make mistakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maybe the old woman was right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t deny your gifts. It\u2019s who you are.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was good advice, I knew that, but I had been fighting these visions since the moment they began. I was in denial; I couldn\u2019t seem to help it. What if that was the reason this wasn\u2019t making sense?\u00a0<\/p>\n
And suddenly, without warning, a memory struck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not like a thought.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like a sound-sharp and shattering.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I was small again. Eight years old, my hand sticky from holding a melting piece of candy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
1\/3\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chopter 188\u00a0<\/p>\n
+25 Bonus\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cassian was ahead of me, laughing, a blur of dark hair and quick feet as we ran down the dusty road.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWait for me!\u201d I\u2019d called, tripping slightly over my shoes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re too slow, Laney!\u201d he\u2019d teased.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Our nanny had shouted for us to stay close, her voice distant over the rustle of wind through the trees. But we\u2019d been children, full of joy and freedom. The road ahead had been too tempting \u2013 sunlight spilling through the forest, the sound of the river nearby.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We\u2019d been playing some game of pretend, knights and monsters, when the car came around the bend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At first, I hadn\u2019t noticed anything strange. Just travelers, I\u2019d thought. But then I\u2019d seen their eyes, hard, yellowed, wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rogues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The nanny had screamed for us to run. Cassian grabbed my hand and pulled me behind a tree, but we weren\u2019t fast enough. They saw us.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cassian put himself in front of me. He was older, but not much. Still, he did everything he could to protect me. I could see the flash of red as one of the rogues lashed out, cutting across Cassian\u2019s forearms as he lifted them to shield us both.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That was what I was looking at when it happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the men had lunged toward me from the side, grabbing for the glittering gemstone at my neck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty stone,\u201d he\u2019d growled. \u201cBet it\u2019s worth something.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLet go!\u201d I\u2019d cried, twisting away, the chain biting into my skin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was the moonstone necklace that my mother had given me. It was important, and my mother was always telling me that I needed to be responsible with it. I couldn\u2019t bear to think about losing it for good.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I tried to hold on to the necklace.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He yanked hard, and I fell. My head slammed back into something solid, and pain bloomed at the back of my head, just below my ear. I\u2019d landed on a tree root partially protruding from the ground. The world tilted, blurred.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cassian had shouted my name, the sound distant and terrified.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The nanny was still screaming and she must have pulled the rogue away from me. I remember lying on the ground, staring up at the bright blue sky through the canopy of trees. The sound of struggles were all around, but everything felt muffled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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A Cold Marriage That Turned Warm 188 Chapter 188\u00a0 Ellie POV\u00a0 The Royal Hospital was unusually busy for a weekday […]<\/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-23757","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\/23757","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=23757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}