When The Moon Hides Her Crown novel Chapter 214

SERAPHINA

I knew it was me who had asked him those questions, but for some reason, the silence between us made me nervous to hear the answers. A part of me worried I had crossed a line, gotten too personal but being his soulmate, all of those mysteries about him had been eating away at me. I wanted to know my mate. All of him. Now, it was up to him whether he wanted to let me.

“My mother used to call me a monster,” he said suddenly, something I wasn’t expecting.

I froze. “Monster?”

He nodded slowly. “Since my birth, I was…abnormal. In a way no one could explain, but everyone could feel it.” His eyes met mine, steady and unreadable. “Shortly after I was born, my mother started to change. She didn’t breastfeed me, not even once. I was raised by my father alone. But I always smelled something strange from her, something metallic mixed with blood, and the scent grew stronger as I grew older. The more I grew, the more she seemed to lose her sanity.”

His tone dropped lower, heavy with old memories. “She’d scream, mumble things no one could understand, and refuse to let even my father near her after I was born. Nevermind me. Whenever she saw me, she would lash out, throwing whatever she could reach, her voice breaking as she cursed me. She would do anything to drive me away…calling me a monster every time her eyes met mine.”

I swallowed hard and held my breath. “Why was she like that?”

“I asked my father the same thing for years. Why she had to be chained, why she never joined our celebrations, why she hated me. He always said she was sick and that we had to give her time. He insisted she loved me. I wanted to believe him, so I kept trying to get closer to her. But a part of me had already realized long ago that she was triggered by my aura. The red aura.”

He paused, eyes distant, “Then came my fourteenth birthday. All I wanted was to bring her out of those chains, to have her with us for once. My father resisted at first, afraid to unsettle her. But finally he relented.”

“For the first time in years she came into the living room. She stepped out in a white gown; though pale and thin as if made of water, she was impossibly beautiful. My father held her hand the whole time. You could see the happiness in him like a lost part had returned. To keep her calm, only her closest friends were inside; the rest of the pack gathered in the courtyard. Everyone thought it a miracle, the Alpha and his Luna together again after so long. Even though she didn’t look at me, even though she was silent, I was overjoyed. My theory seemed right: she wasn’t dangerous or monstrous, she simply wanted to be free.”

His voice slowed. “Of course, that hope lasted five minutes.”

Ronan’s nostrils flared as if he could still smell the memory. “When my father led me out to

greet the Alphas in the courtyard, everything fell apart. There was blood everywhere, thick, dark, flowing down the stairs from the living room. When I ran inside, what I saw was beyond anything I had imagined: the bodies of her friends, torn and lifeless, strewn across the floor. She sat among them, calm, their blood soaking the hem of her gown. When she noticed me, a smile, a terrible, small smile, touched her lips. Then she spoke, and the words were not curses or pleas. She whispered something I’ll never forget.”

He admitted it in a voice barely louder than a breath. “I should have killed you in my

womb.”

I felt the room tilt. Around us, the world seemed to hush as his confession hung between

1. us.

“My father, he lost himself,” Ronan continued. “He tried to drag her away, screaming, but the house had already become a battlefield of grief. The mourners wailed; the pack collapsed in shock; and my mother…she only ever smiled that once, then went back to screaming and mumbling like before. That night, everything I believed about her died.

“That day, twelve wolves lost their soulmates. That day, I lost my mother forever…”

My heart tumbled in my chest, and a cold tremor spread through my limbs. The word mother alone held an entire world for me, warmth, love, home. But for him, it was something entirely different. I could feel his emotions through our bond, but they were impossible to name. All I could sense was the weight of grief pressing in my chest, while his face remained completely expressionless.

“After that,” he continued, his voice hollow, “Even the windows of her room were sealed. She stopped screaming, stopped mumbling…just silence. Slowly, she refused food. Then she stopped drinking. My father grew desperate. He brought countless healers, the best of the best, but no one could explain it. They only said she had lost her will to live.”

He exhaled shakily, eyes fixed somewhere far away. “My father broke after that. His wolf couldn’t accept that his mate was fading. He opened her doors, freed her from her chains, and begged her to kill him if that’s what she wanted. But she didn’t even move. She just sat there in the dark, staring at nothing. He locked himself away after that, drowning in his guilt…and I just stood there, watching everything fall apart.”

He blinked, his voice dropping lower. “One day, I went to her room. She hadn’t moved for days, but when I stepped inside, she…looked at me. For the first time in years, she looked at me. Not with hate. Not with madness. Just silence. Then…she cried.”

His throat worked around the next words.

“She said my name. ‘Ronan.”

A small, broken sound escaped him. “For the first time in my life, she called me by my name. I went to her, knelt in front of her, and she touched my cheek. That warmth–the warmth I’d been craving my whole life, finally reached me. Of course then…she asked me

2

something that froze my blood.”

He blinked slowly, his voice trembling. “She said, ‘Kill me, Ronan.””

My lips parted in horror.

She asked me, “Free your mother from this sinful life, Ronan. Grant this final wish to your mother if you love me.” His tone was hollow, haunted.

I pressed a hand to my mouth as tears stung my eyes.

“When my father came, when he felt the mate bond sever, she was already gone. All he found was her body in pieces on the floor…and me sitting beside her, covered in her blood.”

His jaw tightened, but his eyes glimmered faintly, brokenly. “Her last words are still carved in my mind. ‘It was all my fault. I’m sorry.”

Tears slipped down my cheeks before I could stop them. My heart ached so violently it felt like someone had reached in and torn it apart.

The love I had always received from my mother had made me who I was today. But for him…the absence of that love had carved the man he’d become.

Note: double update is coming tomorrow.