His Abandoned Luna, Her Disabled Alpha

CHAPTER 35

Ivy blinked slowly, her long lashes heavy as if they had forgotten how to move. She didn't respond.

Why would she?

The voices were nothing but a trick of her mind. She has already heart enough strange sounds tonight. There was no reason to believe this one was different.

She was always taught to put up a fight. If her own mind wanted to betray her, then Ivy would fight that too.

The voice came again.

Ivy squeezed her eyes shut. It sounded strangely familiar now that it was closer. Instead of reassuring her, it only strengthened her suspicion that none of this was real.

"Miss—"

"Wait."

A colder voice cut through the corridor before the man could finish.

The interruption was brief, but it immediately silenced everything else.

"Maybe she's asleep," the first man said after a moment. Even through the distance, Ivy could hear the uncertainty in his tone.

"She is awake."

The second voice sounded calm, almost amused. There was a brief pause, as though he was giving her an opportunity to stop pretending before he spoke again.

"Ivy?"

Ivy's heart skipped a beat.

The single word echoed inside her chest far longer than it should have.

It felt as though nobody had called her name like that in years. There wasn't the expected impatience behind it. It rolled off his tongue effortlessly. Without any resistance.

As early as three years ago, Ivy had become accustomed to hearing her name only when something was wrong. It usually came attached to anger, or blame or disappointment.

Even Grandma Norma rarely used it, preferring affectionate nicknames that carried far more warmth.

Perhaps her mind truly was breaking apart.

Otherwise, why would something as simple as hearing her own name affect her this much?

The thought made a faint smile tug at her lips.

"Ivy?" The voice called again. This time, she responded. If madness was really about to give her a rare taste of sweet, then she didn't mind humouring herself a bit before it ends.

Slowly turning over, Ivy pushed herself upright and lifted her head toward the cell door. Her vision was still blurry from sleep and exhaustion, but she followed the sound instinctively.

Two figures stood beyond the iron bars.

The corridor behind them was dark, leaving their faces hidden beneath layers of shadow. She couldn't make out their features, nor could she guess who they were.

Yet her gaze settled almost immediately on the man seated in the wheelchair.

The soft creak of wheels against stone had reached her ears earlier. It was faint enough to miss, but now that she noticed it, she couldn't ignore it.

For some reason, she was certain the voice belonged to him.

Ivy did not have to think very hard. There was only one person she knew who relied on a wheelchair to get around.

Her lips parted, but no words came out. She blinked several times, trying to clear the haze clouding her thoughts while desperately searching for the correct way to address him.

Calling a royal by the wrong title was not a mistake she could afford to make. Even in her current state, that much common sense remained.

As if sensing her hesitation, Kael let out a quiet chuckle. The sound drifted through the dead air of the prison corridor like a ripple across still water. It was soft, almost pleasant, yet it sent an inexplicable shiver down Ivy's spine.

A slight frown appeared between her brows. Her hands tightened into weak fists against the mattress. She still could not decide whether Kael was truly standing outside her cell or whether her exhausted mind had finally crossed the line between reality and illusion.

"Y-You..." Ivy slowly pushed herself upright. Every movement felt sluggish, as though her body no longer belonged to her. Her gaze remained fixed on the shadowed figure sitting beyond the bars while she wet her dry lips and corrected herself. "Your Highness..."

Whether he was real or not, caution seemed like the safer choice. The last time she crossed paths with royalty, her life had been turned upside down. She had no intention of repeating the experience.

The man standing beside Kael cleared his throat and stepped closer to the cell door.

"Ahem, Miss Reed—"

"My surname isn't Reed anymore," Ivy interrupted quietly. "It was changed a while ago. It's Greenwood now."

Only after speaking did she properly register who he was. Through the darkness, she finally recognized Leon.

He was always beside Kael, following him like an inseparable shadow.

Whether inside the palace or beyond its walls, Leon stood between Kael and the countless dangers lurking around him.

His straight back and composed expression often resembled a shield more than a person.

"My apologies," Leon said immediately. "I wasn't aware of that."

He seemed to assume that was why she had ignored him earlier.

"Hm." Ivy leaned her head against the cold wall behind her. "It's alright. Not that it matters much."

"Ivy Greenwood." Kael repeated the name slowly, genuine curiosity woven into his voice. The syllables rolled effortlessly off his tongue. "I think it sounds better than Reed."

Ivy blinked at him through half-lidded eyes. "Does it?"

Her thoughts felt disconnected from her body, drifting somewhere between exhaustion and wakefulness.

Under normal circumstances, she would never have entertained such a pointless conversation with a royal.

She would have been too cautious, too aware of the dangers hidden behind every word. But exhaustion had a strange way of stripping people bare.

The broken state of her mind had left her with a reckless confidence she did not recognize.

It was the confidence of someone too tired to care about consequences and too detached to remember fear.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Ivy knew she would probably regret this once she regained her senses.

If she had been even slightly more clear-headed, every instinct in her body would have forced her to kneel by now.

Even without Kael saying a word, the difference between them was enough. The overwhelming pressure of royal Lycan blood over an ordinary omega should have had her lowering her head in submission.

But here she was. Instead of seeing the reality of their situation, her thoughts wandered somewhere they had no business going.

Those grey eyes seemed to glow faintly in the darkness, like polished gemstones catching the light.

They held an unsettling depth to them, quiet and endless, drawing her attention again and again despite herself.

Ivy felt like a leaf caught in a slow-moving current, drifting helplessly toward a whirlpool she could neither understand nor escape.

The more she looked away, the more aware she became of his gaze lingering on her.

Neither of them spoke.

The silence stretched between them, neither uncomfortable nor peaceful. It simply existed, filling the narrow prison corridor while the darkness settled around them like a living thing.

Time seemed to slow within those few heartbeats, neither side willing to be the first to break whatever strange understanding had settled between them.