The door opened. I started undressing. Three years of this had taught me not to think. Not to fight. Just comply. But tonight, instead of heavy breathing and the stench of feral musk, I heard a voice. “Elara, would you like to return to your mother’s side?” I had four fathers once. Four SSS-level Alpha Kings who ruled the four kingdoms. The Dragon King. The Bear Emperor. The Nine-Tailed Fox. The Phoenix Lord. I grew up beloved by all of them. I inherited my mother’s S-level calming power. I was the most envied female in the realm. Until Giselle arrived. The daughter of their former fated female. She whispered lies, and my fathers believed every one. She said I cursed her. The Dragon King stitched my mouth shut. She said I poisoned her. The Nine-Tailed Fox threw me into the Shadow-Spider Cavern, where insects devoured my face and ate my left eye. She said I defiled her. The Bear Emperor threw me into the Feral Dens. I became a rut slave. Mounted, clawed, bitten bloody by berserk shifters. And through it all, I was forced to use my calming power to soothe their savage minds. Three years of that. And now, a voice in the dark was offering me a way out. …… I jerked my head up. The room was empty. The voice came again, echoing inside my skull. It said it was Mother’s guardian spirit. That Mother was a traveler from another realm who’d left in a hurry, not knowing I’d survived. Now she knew. And she wanted me back. All I had to do was die. “Elara,” it murmured, “your mother has been desperate since learning you exist. Are you willing—” I didn’t let it finish. I grabbed a rusted blade and pressed it to my throat. Yes! Mother was alive! I’d see her soon! Pure joy drowned my fear of death. Just as I pulled back to slash— —something massive slammed into my wrist. Pain shot through my hand. The blade clattered to the floor. A taloned foot stomped down on it. “Elara. You trying to kill yourself?” I looked up. My mouth opened instinctively. “Fourth Dad.” I regretted it immediately. His expression darkened. “Don’t call me that. I severed our bond years ago.” The man before me was Rowan, the Phoenix Lord. When I was small, a feral warlord kidnapped me. Rowan tracked my scent alone to the warlord’s lair. He knelt before his sworn enemy in full shift, bared his throat three times, and let the warlord tear six gashes through his wings. All just to get me back unharmed. After I was rescued, I cried over his wounds. He just nuzzled my hair and said those gashes didn’t hurt at all. But watching me cry hurt so much he wanted to die. Of the four fathers, Fourth Dad loved me most. Too bad that love vanished four years ago when Second Dad brought injured Giselle back from the borderlands. I’d always known the four fathers shared an obsession—a female they’d never gotten over. I just didn’t know it wasn’t my mother. It was Giselle’s mother. They say the four fathers were once outcasts, each exiled from their own kind. Young Mother found them and helped each one reclaim their territory and rise as Alpha. They say Mother was their fated female—all four of them. But just before the bonding ceremony, Giselle’s mother Genevieve appeared. The moment she appeared, all four fathers shifted to her. After that, Mother supposedly grew jealous and tormented Genevieve. Finally, consumed by despair, Mother drowned herself in the river. After Mother died, Genevieve vanished too. Only when Giselle returned did the fathers learn the truth. Genevieve left because she felt responsible for Mother’s death. I never believed it. My instincts screamed Mother was innocent and Genevieve was poison. But fathers didn’t trust me. They said I was jealous like Mother, competing for mates. So whenever Giselle and I clashed, they chose her. Before long, I went from the most treasured female in the realm to a Feral Den slave. Fourth Dad picked up the fallen blade and studied the cut on my throat. Then he flipped it and drove the edge toward me. I jerked back. The blade kissed my skin, opening a fresh wound. Fourth Dad smiled coldly. “If you want to die so badly, why dodge?” “You’re just like your mother, Elara. Pathetic. Both of you hurt yourselves for attention.” “She was smarter though—she did it in front of all four of us.” “You picked this shithole. Stupid.”
I started to explain I wasn’t acting. Then I remembered—they never listened anyway. So I lowered my head. “You’re right, my lord. May I ask—did you come all this way just to watch me perform?” Fourth Dad blinked. “Don’t flatter yourself. Today is Giselle’s birthday and her Naming Rite. She’s being declared Sacred Female. She says she’s willing to forgive you. I’m here to bring you to her.” Three days ago I’d heard: First Dad was naming Giselle the Sacred Female. A title the four fathers had promised me since I was ten. Before, if someone took what was mine, I’d tear the whole territory apart. Now I just said, “I don’t want to go.” Fourth Dad stared. “That’s not your choice.” He grabbed me and dragged me out. Then brought me back to his nest, had me washed and groomed. He summoned his sky carriage, a gilded chariot drawn by two winged serpents. On the way, Fourth Dad wouldn’t stop talking. Bare your throat when you see Giselle, don’t provoke her, submit. My chest ached. The higher we flew, the louder Mother’s voice called in my head. So I stood, pushed open the carriage door, and jumped. I heard Fourth Dad’s scream behind me. At this height, I’d surely die. But the impact never came. I landed in warm arms instead. Fourth Dad had caught me. His wings folded around us as we crashed and rolled twice on the ground. His furious roar shook the air. “Elara! Have you lost your mind!” I looked up. Blood from a gash on his forehead dripped onto my face. I reached up to wipe it away. His expression turned vicious. “Stop these games. You just want to see if I still care. I don’t. I’d catch any falling creature. If I’d known you’d pull this, I never would’ve dove after you.” “Next time you want to die, go ahead. I won’t bother.” My hand froze. I caught the shimmer of the river below us. I smiled bitterly. “Good. Remember that, Rowan.” Before he could react, I sprang up and dove straight into the river. Fourth Dad nearly drowned as a cub. Deep water terrified him more than anything. And after what he’d just said? He wouldn’t save me. So when the icy current flooded my lungs, I was happy. Finally. I was going home to Mother.
I don’t know how long the darkness lasted. When it lifted, I sat up—desperate to find Mother. Then someone’s hand cracked across my face. “Selfish bitch! We only had you doing chores at the dens, and the second you see Rowan you throw yourself in the river? You know he almost drowned saving you!” Third Dad’s voice rang overhead, his face twisted with fury. Of the four fathers, I’d been closest to him. The others were too busy ruling their clans, so raising me fell to Third Dad. He taught me to read scent trails, identify healing herbs, mix remedies. He was always gentle. No matter what I did wrong, he never punished me. He only guided me with soft words. But the day Giselle returned, this male who’d never even bared his fangs at me struck me for the first time. Giselle touched one of his venomous spirit beasts and got stung. She swore I was the one who put it on her. Third Dad’s tails lashed the air. He struck me across the back so hard my skin split open. “This is my fault, Elara. I didn’t raise you properly. That’s why you’ve become so rotten, treating lives like toys.” Later when Giselle was poisoned again, Third Dad fed me a pill that attracted shadow-spiders. Then he threw me into the Venom Pit. Thousands of creatures burrowed into my flesh, laid eggs under my skin, burst out in sprays of blood. Even after Third Dad healed me, I’d lost my left eye. Seeing my silence now, he took it as admission. His fury deepened. He raised his hand to strike again. Fourth Dad caught his wrist. “Brother, calm down. Today is Giselle’s Naming Rite. Elara probably can’t handle it. She tried killing herself three times in front of me.” I glanced at Fourth Dad. He’d shifted back to human form. His wounds were bandaged. But his face was deathly pale. Third Dad snorted. “You’ve been away from court too long. She’s pulled this stunt dozens of times over four years. Just another grab for attention.” Fourth Dad paused—then exhaled in relief. “So that’s what this is.” Third Dad turned back to me. “Elara, today is Giselle’s birthday. Throw your tantrum here if you must—but don’t you dare make a scene in front of First Dad and Second Dad. You know how they are…” Before he finished, I lunged for the medicine chest behind him. I’d lived with Third Dad long enough to know exactly where he kept his deadliest poisons. I grabbed the worst one and swallowed it. Third Dad’s face went white.
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