The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 542

“Then I suppose,” Belinda said, sneering up at me, “we’ll all lose something tonight.”

Her fingers twitched, and my father leaned out over nothing.

Callum ran.

Three strides and a dive, his hand closing on the King’s collar as the King’s boots left the stone, both of their bodies tipping dangerously over the drop together. Callum’s free hand caught the stone, the other gripping my father’s jacket, teetering precariously.

His eyes flicked to mine.

“I love you,” he said.

His hand slipped.

“NO!” my wolf howled.

I lunged before I could think twice, releasing Belinda and charging across the parapet. I grabbed the back of Callum’s shirt with my jaws and hauled as hard as I could, sending both flying backwards, onto the stone.

Callum fell onto his back, gasping, and looked up at me. Then, he looked through my enormous legs and froze.

When I looked back, Belinda was on her feet with both hands raised, light gathering between her palms, and she was smiling, and I was too far away. My father began to lift off the stone, all two hundred pounds of him, eyes cold and empty. Just like Daisy.

“Very well,” the witch said as the light began to carry him back toward the edge. “If you won’t let him go, then I—”

Just then, a bang made us all turn. The stairwell door was hanging open, empty, clattering against the stone in the wind.

Nobody had heard it open. Nobody ever heard her.

My mother appeared behind Belinda as if seeping out of the shadows. A pale, thin arm wrapped around the witch’s throat. Rheumy eyes met mine over Belinda’s shoulder, and in that moment, I knew.

This was it.

I shifted, and a scream tore from my throat.

“MOM!”

My mother didn’t say a word. She wrapped both arms around Belinda in something that was almost an embrace, and their momentum carried them into the gap between the stones, and the night took them.

The woman who’d killed a man with her bare hands while I screamed in my crib.

She’d used the last of everything she had, and it was for me, and I never even got to know until it was too late, let alone thank her for any of it.

I didn’t realize I was shivering and completely naked until Callum draped his hoodie around my shoulders, smelling like him, and then his arms followed it, pulling me back from the edge and into his chest.

“She could barely breathe,” I choked into him. “She couldn’t even open her eyes when I went to her. How did she climb all those stairs?”

“She’s your mother,” he said into my hair. He didn’t need to say anything else.

A second pair of arms came around us both then, heavier, the ceremonial coat rough against my wet cheek. A broad hand cradled the back of my head.

I lifted my head to meet my father’s eyes, and for the first time in a long time, they were fully clear.

The spell was broken.

The war was won.