2024-08-21 09:43:49As Alex approached the house entrance, Sophia noticed that Alex
was behind her."Haven’t you had enough?"
"Believe me," Alex replied, "running into you is the last thing I wanted today."
Sophia stepped out, blocking his path.
"So, what is it then? Are you here to remind me of the biggest mistake of my life?"
"Mistake?" Alex’s tone grew colder.
"I could say the same. You think I enjoyed waking up and realizing I’d wasted my time with someone so shallow?"
"Shallow?" Sophia’s eyes flashed with anger.
"You’re just bitter because you know I’m right. You’re nothing but a loser, a gold-digger."
Alex laughed, shaking his head.
"You’re delusional. I don’t need anything from you, least of your money."
Sophia stepped even closer, her finger jabbing the air between them.
"Then what do you want? To ruin my life even more?"
"No, I’m not here to ruin anything." Alex locked his eyes with hers. "I’m meeting my fiancée."
"Your fiancée? You have a fiancée?" Sophia shocked.
"I’m here to meet someone named Sophia Lancaster at this address," Alex’s patience wearing thin.
"I’m not looking for you. So, if you can help me out, call her, and I’ll leave as soon as possible."
WTF?!
Sophia paused, her expression shifting from shock to realization.
"Wait... you're here for that Sophia Lancaster?"
Alex coldly replied.
"Yes! Can you please just get her? I don't have time for games."
Sophia bit her lip, trying to mask the confusion swirling inside her.
"There’s no need to call anyone. I’m... I’m Sophia Lancaster."
They stood there, staring at each other in stunned silence.
Just then, a voice called out from inside the mansion.
"Alexander Leonhart!"
An old man stepped out, his face lighting up with a wide smile.
"Master told me you would come today! What are you doing out there?"
"Grandfather," Sophia called.
The old man, Abraham Lancaster, turned towards them, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
He looked between them, his smile growing even wider as if he had been waiting for this moment.
"So, you've met Alex, your fiancé. It’s great to know you both know each other."
Sophia quickly interjected, "We are not—"
"Call your parents, Sophia," Abraham said, cutting her off.
"Gather everyone in the Great Hall. I have an announcement. You both are going to get married today."
Sophia stood, shocked.
"Finally, my long-held wish can be fulfilled today," Abraham’s voice trembled with happiness.
He walked over to Alex, his hand reaching out to grasp Alex’s.
"Come, let’s go to the Great Hall. You’ll meet your in-laws."
Sophia watched them walk away, disbelief and anger surging through her.
She had lost her virginity to that man, and now she was supposed to lose her future too.
"This can't be happening!"
She had dreamed of an extraordinary fiancé, someone worthy, someone heroic, not any rubbish!
Instead, she was now being handed to a man she could have picked off the street.
As CEO of Lancaster Group, known for her beauty and bright future, how could she marry such a man?
What would people think?
"No," she decided. "I'll stop this marriage, no matter the cost."
***
In the Great Hall, Abraham guided Alex to an honored seat.
"How is Master?"
"Still healthy after a hundred years," Alex replied.
"You’re young, successful, and humble. I’m fortunate to have a grandson-in-law like you. Sophia is a good person; please give her a chance to get to know you better."
Alex nodded politely, but he doubt the possibility.
Sophia didn’t look like she wanted the chance.
"Wonderful, wonderf—" Abraham laugh joyfully.
However, just then, an angry voice cut in.
"Are you insane?! Sophia cannot marry him!"
Lady Lancaster, Abraham's wife, angrily stormed into the Great Hall.
She was flanked by their two sons and two daughters-in-law, with Sophia trailing behind them.
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Chapter 712
Proofread & edited version:The medal stayed warm in Alex’s hand long after he left the Hall.On the walk back he turned it over, wanting a closer look. Instead the knowledge hit him all at once, the way a forgotten name suddenly returns complete.It was Legendary work. Not praise—just fact. Only something like the guardian could still make a thing like this. What it did was simple to say. Living with it would not be.It could take a beast’s own skill, understand it completely, and make that skill his to give away.Three rules. No exceptions.He had to see the skill used with his own eyes, by the beast that owned it.He had to touch that beast—skin, fur, or hide—while the memory was still fresh.And the time between seeing and touching could not stretch past most of an hour, or the impression faded and the skill failed to copy.Teaching the skill to another beast cost something separate. Strength, spent according to how strong the skill was. And only onto a beast built to receive it.
Chapter 711
Alex looked at the fox, then at the old woman's face, and understood — with real irritation — that he'd already lost.The fox wasn't dying. That would've been simpler. A dying thing he could argue himself out of.This one was just old: one back leg curled wrong from a break that had healed badly years ago, wheezing thin and soft, like a bellows with the leather gone."Please." The old woman's nerve had run out on the first try. Her voice dropped to almost nothing. "He's all the company I've got left."Behind her, Monica wasn't even trying to hide her smile.Alex exhaled through his nose. "Inside. Not out here where the whole street can watch."He worked fast. No ceremony this time, no long search for the heart by feel — he knew where it sat on this body now.Three needles. A thin thread of inner force, in and gone again inside a minute, just enough to unknot old scar tissue and settle the lungs. The fox jolted awake, blinked up at him with wet black eyes, and immediately tried to bite
Chapter 710
The airport wasn't a terminal. It was a stone platform open to the sky — and before Alex caught the smell of wild magic Beatrix had promised him, a shadow slid across the tarmac, three full seconds ahead of the sound.He looked up. Wings longer than the runway banked once over the rooftops and vanished, unhurried, like a hawk over a field it already owned.Nobody else looked up.A woman walked past with a fox-sized creature draped over her shoulder like a scarf. Six eyes blinked at him, one after another, as they crossed paths. A cart rattled by — something ox-shaped and beetle-plated, hauling crates, answering its handler in clicks that weren't quite a language.This city was built around something Alex didn't have a name for yet. He figured he'd have one by nightfall.Beatrix's directions took him through the merchant quarter and down into streets that got older with every block — buildings sagging, signage faded, the crowd thinning to nothing. Willowmere, the locals called it. The
Chapter 709
Alex didn't raise his voice. He never needed to."Febyella." Something in the flatness of it made even Marta go still. "You mustn't forgive them. Not for this. Not tonight.""Give them an inch now, and they'll spend the rest of your life proving you were right to give it — and wrong to think it meant anything changed. Let them answer first. Let them pay for what they took before you decide whether to carry it for them."Nobody in the room breathed.Then Marta broke — no dignity left to spend, no register left to retreat into.She went down on her knees in front of her granddaughter, gloved hands closing over Feby's, and the others followed like the gesture was contagious.Adeline pressed her face to the back of Feby's hand.Leon kept saying sorry, sorry, sorry, the word worn smooth.Wilhelmina just held on, shaking, silent.Their lives depended on one word from her.Feby stood rigid in the middle of it, breathing carefully. She did not sit back down."This is his doing." Marta didn't
Chapter 708
The knock came the day after the ultimatum — soft, uncertain, the kind Feby almost mistook for pipes settling in the walls.She opened the door expecting a healer's follow-up, maybe a Reagent courier. Instead: her grandmother, her mother, Leon, and Wilhelmina, dressed too plain for any of them, holding a single shoebox tied with string between them like something they'd rehearsed holding.Nobody spoke. Marta's gloved hands trembled at her sides. Leon's eyes wouldn't land anywhere. Wilhelmina hung a half-step behind the others, smaller than Feby remembered."Febyella." Marta's voice had none of the banquet stage left in it. "May we come in? Just to speak. We won't stay."Feby's hand found the doorframe. She thought, seriously, about shutting it in their faces.Behind her, Alex stood three steps into the kitchen, a cup halfway to his mouth, watching her decide — saying nothing, because this wasn't a choice anyone got to make for her twice.She stepped aside.They crowded onto the small
Chapter 707
The marsh road ended a mile short of the farmhouse. Alex walked the rest alone.It was three in the morning. Still full dark. No moon. Only the weak glow of a few lanterns from the house itself. He walked straight down the middle of the causeway in his old street coat, hands loose at his sides. Anyone looking could see him coming from a long way off.Six Reagent security men waited back where the road ended. Their orders were clear and hard: nobody follows, nobody circles, nobody even stands up until Alex signals or the sun comes up. Whichever comes first.Rael’s last order had been exact. If anyone came near that house — kill her. A group of men would get her killed. A raid would get her killed. Knights on the road would get her killed.But one man, alone, unarmed, walking up the open road in the dark like he had simply gotten lost — that was different. That was a visitor.They saw him from far away, just like he wanted. By the time he reached the yard, the farmhouse had already ch
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Reader Comments
but he doubted the possibility
good novel
like seriously