w
But before the blow could land, Draken stepped forward to shield her. With a single flick of his hand, Kael was thrown backward and landed hard in a graceless sprawl.
His head snapped up and locked Draken with a fatal stare. “Stay out of this! This is a lion clan matter, so get out!” He began driving the other clan members away, but everyone was too shaken by his outburst to move.
Even I was startled by the raw hatred on his face. As much as I despised Arya, the newborn cub was innocent.
The color drained from Arya’s face, and her whole body shook as she glared at him. “You’re a monster, Kael. He’s just a baby!” But Kael no longer looked at her with the past affection.
“Arya, we lions are loyal to our mates, but you paraded your betrayal in front of every clan. How dare you accuse me of cruelty!”
To be fair, the clan leader of the lions was utterly useless, and loyalty was his only redeeming quality.
In my past life, after marrying into the lions, I’d exhausted myself managing their finances and scraped every coin together just to keep them afloat. Yet all Kael ever did was complain.
“You’re always earning money, working, and never have time for me. Do I even matter to you anymore?”
To the outside world, Kael loved me dearly. I was the luckiest woman alive among the beastfolk.
However, in the first year since I married him, my body was already broken from exhaustion. Still, Kael insisted I get
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Chapter 5
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pregnant because he wanted a cub that shared our bloodline.
Mother’s ancestors carried traces of Aetherblood. I inherited that spark of Aetheric Divinity, just enough to have no trouble
conceiving an Aetherborn.
But if the mother was too weak, the Aetherborn would devour the mother’s vitality.
After the birth, I was already at death’s door. Kael had kept me alive through an old wolven magic until the cub turned one year old.
Even if Arya hadn’t killed me, I wouldn’t have lived much longer anyway.
So in this life, when she’d stolen the place that once belonged to me, I didn’t mourn its loss. Instead, I wondered how she’d bear its weight.
Chapter 6
