Chapter 91: A broken rib and some sneak peeks.

July 16 2026, 11:44am.

Elara’s breath left her lungs in one swift burst. For what felt like forever, she stared at her mother as though she had just become a stranger.

"Since I was born..." the words escaped her lips, sounding so strange... so cold... she could’ve sworn it wasn’t her speaking if she couldn’t feel the vibrations in her lungs.

Her mother nodded slowly, tears gathering in her own eyes. "I was going to tell you." She muttered.

"When?" Elara bit back quickly— a little too quickly. And as soon as she asked, her mother lowered her head and muttered;

"I don’t know."

"When?!" Elara screamed, causing her mother to flinch.

At this point, Elara’s entire body had begun shaking violently. Her throat felt sore and tight. Her heart felt like it was being ripped into shreds and her body pulsed with a mixture of betrayal and anger.

Twenty-two years.

Twenty-two years of believing she knew exactly who she was and her mother had known the truth all along. Her stepfather had also known. Perhaps everyone had known too—everyone except her.

"Why?"

Her mother reached for her even after knowing that she would turn away. She did.

"I was trying to protect you."

"From what?"

"You don’t understand."

"Then make me understand!"

Elara’s voice dissolved into a sob. Her mother pulled her into her arms. This time, Elara didn’t fight. She couldn’t. She simply collapsed against her mother’s chest, trembling violently. But even as her mother held her, Elara couldn’t stop thinking about the man she’d spent her entire life calling her stepfather. The man she’d trusted. The man whose blood ran through her veins.

She lifted her head slowly but still allowed her mom to hold her closely. And when she spoke this time, she sounded weak... distraught. She sounded like the rug had just been pulled right from under her feet.

She muttered; "Why did you keep something like this from me for so long? For twenty-two years, you made me believe that my father was someone else. That my father was that smiling, womanizing jackass, Clinton!"

Her mother did not respond right away, but when she did, her voice was small.

She muttered; "Twenty-one years, not twenty-two, Elara. You are twenty-one not twenty-two. I lied about your age too."

"You... what?"

"You are twenty-one." Her mother answered, shame and guilt slipping into her voice. "I lied about that to you as well and had your birth certificate forged. It was done to hide your real identity. I am sorry."

The shock made the world tilt on its axis... or maybe right under her as soon as she heard those words. Her eyes rolled back into her head and her head lolled to the side. She fell limply into her mother’s arms like a sack of potatoes and her breathing seized.

—And when Celine noticed this, her heart skidded to a stop. Her body thrummed with fear and guilt, and at the top of her voice, she yelled;

"Baby!!"

The sound of her loud cry forced an angry Kai out of the room, and Tristan, who had been watching TV downstairs, gingerly rose to his feet as well. He dashed upstairs and came to a staggering stop when he walked in to find an unconscious Elara sprawled on the floor.

Her unconscious state plus mother’s hysterical cries made them all immediately dive into panic mode. And while everyone joined in to help Celine and Elara downstairs and shove the unconscious girl into the car, Celine stopped to glare at Kai.

The look between them crackled with tension. It sizzled with a lot of unanswered questions and unspoken words.

The car slammed shut seconds later and sped out of the driveway, leaving Tristan wondering if Elara had fainted because she was so stressed from what had happened between them or if this was something else.

"I should have been nicer to her..." he said slowly under his breath, his chest feeling heavy. "I shouldn’t have lied about having a date to her."

With that, he stepped back into the house but his mind wouldn’t stop wandering to her. His body wouldn’t stop tingling with weird sensations, and he couldn’t help but rush upstairs to her room to search for ’other clues.’

—

July 16 2026, 12:21pm.

Nyx’ara woke up with a start to a pounding head and a drenched cloth. Her body shook violently as a result of the nightmare she’d been stuck in for the past several hours... or was it days?

Goddess, has it been weeks?

The questions swirled around her head as her eyes darted around the room in fear. She could not help but take in the dark furniture scattered sparsely around her... the dark curtains draping over the floor-to-ceiling windows... the dark bedsheets that covered most of her body... and the dark—

"W-wait, is this hell?" She stuttered, noting with a jarring certainty that this wasn’t a hospital bed.

When she tried to sit up, her midsection burned like it had been exposed to naked fire. A small gasp slipped past her lips from the pain. It was so intense that it had her vision blurring for a fraction of a second; And—

"You should lie down. You have a broken rib." A voice suddenly said from beside her, startling her.

Her hand jumped to the base of her throat as she turned in the direction of the sound, only to find Azriel standing there, leaning against the wall, with a smug smile, wet hair, a bare chest... and a lower body that would’ve been bare save for the towel hanging loosely around his waist.

The scene was like something straight out of a ’I had a one-night stand with a billionaire’ kind of book, and it made a blush spread across her face before she had the chance to stop it.

She lowered her head quickly to hide the blush tainting her face and the tips of her ears, and with her voice so small, it almost sounded muffled, she asked quickly; "W-what are you doing here dre-dressed like that?"

Azriel let his eyes travel from her face down to his very ’not decent’ clothing, and then his smile widened into something almost comical.

"You mean this?"

"Y-yes," Nyx’ara stuttered, "w-why do you look like you just ha-had your bath?"

Azriel smiled as he watched her struggle for words, his amusement growing into something wilder. He spread out his arms in mock bravado, but just as he did that, the towel slipped and fell, exposing legs so tanned and a dick so fat, it had Nyx’ara’s eyes popping out of their sockets.

Azriel had not meant for that to happen. In fact, the last thing he wanted was getting naked in front of Nyx’ara.

Embarrassment slammed into him as he crouched to frantically pick up his towel, and with a voice that sounded almost feminine— too high-pitched and too squeaky— he rushed out;

"Because this is my room, dumb girl, and I have every right to bathe in it even though I lent it to you for the time being!"

He then rushed away, disappearing behind a door, successfully missing the mocking smile on Nyx’ara’s face as she watched him leave.

As well as the way she repeated after him: "th-this is my room, dumb girl, and I-I have every right to bathe in it even though I lent it to you!"

She finished by giggling, but was soon jolted back to reality when pain lanced through her midsection. Her eyes dropped to her stomach and she frowned;

"A br-broken rib? H-how did my rib g-get broken?"