Chapter 159

• The revelation that Kenzo had been deceiving me from the very beginning gnawed at my mind, tightening my jaw in frustration. The mere thought of enduring yet another betrayal made my chest constrict—I wasn’t sure I had the strength to survive one more. I was exhausted by the relentless cycle of everything falling apart. Life would have been so much simpler if I were human. When a human man desires you, he doesn’t invoke destiny as leverage, doesn’t twist fate into a chain around your throat just to bind you to him.
• Kenzo had done everything in his power to make me feel guilty for not choosing him. He planted the seed of doubt so deep in my heart that I could never escape its shadow. He wanted me to believe that if I chose Hadrian, I would be defying a higher power, bringing a curse upon myself. That belief had taken root inside me, poisoning my thoughts, infecting every inch of my soul. But if I wasn’t truly his mate, then why had he lied? What could drive him to such desperation to claim me as his Luna? I refused to accept that my worth to him was merely strategic, that I was nothing more than a stepping stone to the throne. He could have claimed his birthright without me.
• Unless… unless I wasn’t his mate because someone else was.