The Alpha's Fated Outcast Rise Of The Moonsinger novel Chapter 418

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.

She was beautiful in an unsettling way, with features that were almost too perfect, too symmetrical. 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 run.

This was the woman who had attacked me in my former house and the same woman who had disguised herself as Circe.

The woman who had 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 and the lives of my unborn children.

I felt the anger that'd been slowly stirring within me, burning with intensity now as I struggled against the restraints.

The silver shackles bit deeper into my wrists until I felt the warm trickle of blood, but I didn't care. All I could think about was how thoroughly I'd been deceived, how completely I'd let this creature into my life.

"You!" I spat, thrashing more against the bind. "You're the one—"

She chuckled, "Be quiet, Lyla. My brother has been dying to taste your blood, and one false move from you might convince me to let him have just a small sip."

I turned my head and saw him then – another figure standing in the shadows near the door. He stepped forward into the light, and I had to bite back a scream. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

He was tall and lean, with pale skin that looked almost translucent under the harsh lighting.

His dark hair was 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 lurch – a wide grin that revealed elongated canines that gleamed like daggers.

A vampire. One of Xander's children, just as Circe – was it the real or fake Circe who had warned us?

He was looking at me like I was a particularly appetising tongue darting out to lick his lips 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 throat and drink until there was nothing left.

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