Chapter 67: ⁶⁷: Photograph

Kaels Pov:

My eyes remained fixed on Athena’s face.

I didn’t want to miss even the slightest flicker of emotion when I mentioned dark magic.

I had expected the color to drain from her face, or at the very least, some trace of fear to appear in her eyes. But there was nothing.She looked completely normal.

As if I had just mentioned something utterly ordinary, something that had nothing to do with her.

And here at many instances, I had looked at her thinking she was a gentle and innocent girl. Now I understood if she could maintain such perfect control over her emotions, then perhaps she wasn’t the naive girl I had assumed her to be.

"You know, Athena..."

I took a step away from her and slowly turned my attention toward the rest of her room. I deliberately examined everything around me, taking in every detail.

Every shelf, every cabinet, every corner where she might have hidden something.

I needed proof.

Something, anything that could confirm she had been sent here by my enemies.

Because despite everything that had happened today, my infuriating wolf still refused to completely accept that possibility.

Nyx still believes in her.That tiny seed of doubt or perhaps trust was still buried somewhere inside him. And I wanted to destroy it. I wanted Nyx to finally see what I was seeing.

"That book said there are still people somewhere out there who know and practice dark magic," I continued, keeping my voice casual. "They could be hiding within our packs, in the neighboring packs, or somewhere completely beyond our knowledge."

I paused. And then I saw it. A flicker of interest crossed Athena’s face. It was brief, so brief that another person might have missed it. But I didn’t, my suspicion sharpened.

"I was baffled when I read it," I continued, my gaze moving across her bed. "Can you imagine? There are still people who practice such a forbidden art."

"Which book did you read?" Athena’s question came almost immediately. My eyes narrowed slightly. She hadn’t looked horrified. She hadn’t asked why anyone would practice something so dangerous.

She hadn’t even seemed surprised.

Instead, she sounded calm. Almost curious as if knowing about dark magic was just a regular occurrence for her.

Maybe because this isn’t new to her.

The thought settled heavily in my mind.

Perhaps I had been right all along. Athena was connected to those people.

Someone from my own Empire had colluded with my enemies, and now that same person was standing in front of me, pretending to care about me.

But why? What were they planning? And why would Athena go so far as to pretend she was head over heels for me? What exactly did they want from me?

I turned my attention back toward her. "Oh?" I asked casually. "You want to know about the book?" I paused, watching her carefully. "Why?"

I deliberately didn’t accuse her of anything.

Instead, I gave her enough room to come up with an explanation. If she was hiding something, I wanted to hear the excuse she would create when she thought I still believed her.

And if she truly was innocent...

Then perhaps I would finally understand why her reaction had been so strange.

"Nothing," she said from behind me. "I just wanted to know which book it was because hearing about such a forbidden practice as dark magic would scare you, right?"

She paused, perhaps waiting for me to respond. I remained silent. I wanted to hear what explanation she would come up with on her own.

"I just thought" she continued "I should read it so I can learn everything I can about those people. Maybe, as a citizen of the Starlight Empire, I might need that knowledge someday."

A smirk tugged at my lips. Her excuse was almost amusing. She was very good at making things up. Which made me wonder - what else had she fabricated until now?

"Don’t worry. You don’t have to be afraid of those people," I said without looking back at her.

My eyes continued scanning every corner of her room, searching for anything unusual.

"Besides, what will you do with that knowledge? You have more immediate things to worry about. You only need to focus on fulfilling your part of our agreeement which is being pretty for me and hope you don’t actually become pregnant. Because if you do, you already know what that means for you, you know that will be you death countdown."

I stopped speaking when my eyes landed on her study desk. It was covered with books, papers, and study materials. Her bookshelves were packed almost entirely with books.

Interesting.

I walked closer, wondering if I might find something that could tell me more about her. Perhaps there was something hidden among all these ordinary-looking books.

"Why do you keep repeating the clauses of our agreement today?" Athena’s voice came from behind me. I could hear the confusion in it. She had moved closer.

"I know everything that was written in it from the very beginning. I already told you that I don’t care about any of that. So why do you keep repeating it again and again?"

There was a hint of annoyance in her voice now. As if I was trying to give her hints about considering to leave a profitable agreement, not about an agreement that absolutely had a dead end at the end.

Only my emotionally foolish wolf would believe that someone could be so blindly devoted to another person.

And even then, I still didn’t know whether what Athena claimed to feel for me was truly love or merely infatuation.

"Good." I made sure my voice sounded as detached as possible. "It’s good that you remember everything in it."

I turned my attention back to her bookshelf. My fingers moved along the spines until one particular book caught my attention. It had a deep green cover that stood out among the others. I pulled it from the shelf.

I glanced at Athena from the corner of my eye. I wanted to know what Miss Moonvel was interested in reading. And perhaps, if I was lucky, this book would tell me something she hadn’t intended for me to discover.

Before I could read the title of the book, something far more interesting slipped out from beneath it.

A photograph.

It fluttered to the floor, landing face down so that only its back was visible.

I bent down to pick it up, but before my fingers could reach it, Athena had already snatched it from the floor.

I straightened, staring at her. Her reaction had been far too quick. Why had she become so nervous over a simple photograph?

"It’s a really embarrassing picture of me with my dad," she said immediately, exactly as I had expected. Her explanation came effortlessly, almost too effortlessly. "I have cake all over my face in it, so I never let anyone look at it."

I smiled. Not because I believed her. Because she was becoming increasingly predictable.

"Then why keep the picture if you find it so embarrassing that you won’t even show it to me?"

I folded my arms across my chest, watching her carefully. I wanted to know what she would say next.

Athena slipped the photograph into her pocket before taking a slow breath. "It’s the only picture I have." A flicker of pain crossed her eyes.."After everything was taken away from me."

My wolf immediately stirred at the sadness in her voice. For a moment, I felt the familiar urge to ask if she was all right.

I suppressed it.

I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted by her emotions. "Taken away from you?".I frowned. I knew her family home had been destroyed by the fire, but the way she had phrased it made it sound like she meant something more. What exactly had been taken from her? I studied her expression. "What do you mean?"