UNPLANNED REBIRTH: MARRIED TO MY STEPSON

Chapter Six — Smoke in the Crystal

The crystal woke before I did.

It pulsed faintly in its silk wrapping, a heartbeat that was not my own. When I set it on the table, the smoke inside stirred, curling into shapes I had not seen in many, many years. Threads of silver. A girl’s profile caught between flame and shadow. The glint of steel-blue eyes locking with hers.

For a moment, I forgot to breathe.

Selene Duskbane. Alive. Again.

The past unrolled before me like parchment scorched at the edges: her wrists bound in rope, her silver-tinged blood dripping into firelight, the scent of it clinging to the air long after the flames had devoured her. No one else understood what that shimmer meant—Moon-touched, chosen, set apart. I did. I saw her for what she was, even then. And still I failed her.

This life—this strange mercy—I would not waste.

The smoke thickened, and visions bled through in fragments. The girl standing in frost, head lifted like a blade. Kael Ravaryn watching her as though the world itself had shifted beneath his feet. A thread snapping taut between them, humming with power, with danger.

The mate bond.

I leaned close to the crystal, my breath fogging the glass. “So the Moon has changed her game,” I murmured. “Even fate grows restless.”

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When Malrik summoned me, the fortress was already drunk on wine and power. Torches spat smoke against stone walls, and servants scattered like mice before a wolf. He sat in his gilded chair, swollen with indulgence, his eyes half-bright with drink, half-dull with arrogance.

“Witch,” he growled, raising a jeweled hand heavy with rings. “Tell me what the goddess whispers of my new Luna.”

I placed the crystal on the table between us. Its surface caught the firelight, shadows writhing within like caged serpents. Malrik leaned forward, greedy, as if he might seize prophecy with his bare hands.

“She is not ordinary,” I said softly.

That caught him. His breath stilled.

I let the words unravel slowly, silk over thorns. “Selene carries silver in her blood. The goddess marked her. She is a thread woven directly from the Moon’s hand. If you bind her name to yours, Alpha, the borders you dream of will not resist. With her, even the northern packs may bow.”

Malrik’s lips curled, teeth glinting. The goblet in his hand shook, wine sloshing over his knuckles. “So she is my weapon. Mine.”

I lowered my gaze, hiding the flicker of triumph in my own eyes. “Yes. But beware. She is Luna in name only. Her purity must remain untouched. To stain what the goddess has sanctified would be to spit in the face of fate.”

His jaw tightened, pride warring with superstition. “Superstition.”

“Prophecy,” I corrected, voice a whisper threaded with steel. “The Moon blesses, but She also punishes. Take her body, and you may find She takes your kingdom in return.”

Malrik sneered, but the twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed him. He would not gamble when the goddess’s hand hovered so near.

Good. For now, Selene was safe—shielded not by kindness, but by fear.

---

But the crystal was not finished with me.

Its smoke swirled again, and Kael’s shadow rose in its depths. His eyes, cold and sharp as the edge of winter, burned with ambition. Behind him, men loyal enough to die for him. And beside him, a figure I knew too well now—Selene, caught in the bond that fate had strung between them.

When Malrik spoke again, his voice cracked through the vision like a whip. “And my son?”

I blinked, hiding my reaction.

Kael.

In the last life, I watched him rise like fire from dry grass—unstoppable, brilliant, dangerous. He broke his father’s empire piece by piece until nothing remained but ashes. Even then, I could not help but admire him. Malrik’s brutality made him feared. Kael’s brilliance made him followed.

Malrik slammed his goblet onto the table, wine spraying across the wood like blood. “I see the men he gathers. His insolence festers. Tell me, witch—how do I kill my own son?”

I lifted my eyes to the crystal. Smoke coiled, shimmered, split into two paths: one dark with blood, one silver-lit. Both ended in fire.

“To sever what the goddess has spun,” I said slowly, “is to risk unraveling more than one thread.”

He snarled, leaning forward until his breath stank of wine and fury. “Enough riddles. Give me a way. Plan me a trap. I want Kael dead.”

I bowed my head, hiding the curve of my lips. “Then I will give you what you desire, Alpha.”

And I did. With words dipped in smoke, I painted a scheme convincing enough to sate him—one that promised Kael would stumble into ruin. Malrik listened, eyes gleaming, convinced he held his son’s life in his palm. He did not see that the trap was spun hollow, designed not to kill but to shield.

Because this is my second chance as well.

And this time, I will not be merely the prophet who watches the story burn. I will be the hand that bends it.

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When I left the hall, the crystal pulsed faintly in my palm, warm as blood.

Selene Duskbane—silver-threaded, chosen, reborn. Kael Ravaryn—ambition incarnate, a wolf who would carve his own kingdom from the bones of his father. And between them, the mate bond that had never existed before.

The world had shifted.

It was not a question of whether they would meet again, but whether they would stand side by side… or tear each other apart.

And I—keeper of smoke, servant of prophecy, silent guardian—would be waiting, watching, longing. Ready to tip the scales when the time came.

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