Chapter 152: Ghost

The question hung in the air, scorching both my consciousness and my soul. His wife... To be his wife. To belong to him in every sense that existed. In truth, I already belonged to him, body and soul.

"But... I don’t even have proper documents..."

"I restored everything today. Everything." He locked his eyes onto mine, freezing in anticipation. His grip tightened, a steel vise, as if he feared I might run.

"Yes... Magnus, I will be..."

A second later, my lips were scorched in a sweet and equally fervent kiss. We broke away only briefly for Magnus to pull a small black box from his trousers pocket and open it.

A ring. A band of white metal with a blood-red stone. I had never seen anything like it. I had never in my life seen white metal, for it cost a legendary fortune. Simply astronomical.

Taking my hand, he slipped the ring onto my finger and seemed to physically relax. He looked at my hand, then unexpectedly drew it closer and kissed my fingers.

"Mine. My Luna. Mistress of my days and nights. Light of my soul..."

"Why the light of your soul?" I asked softly, wrapping my arms around his neck.

"Because in my soul, without you, there is nothing. Only you illuminate the correct path for me, keeping me from vanishing into the darkness. You lead me. And this ring was once created by a jeweler and named ’The Light of the Soul.’ There are many rumors surrounding it. They say if a person is pure of soul, the metal will remain white. If their thoughts are not pure, it will turn black and burn them. All rumors, of course, but it is the most beautiful ring, and you deserve exactly that."

His words resonated in my chest with a dull, sweet tenderness. When we descended from the wheel, chaos still reigned inside me, a mix of emotion and arousal. Matthias was openly asleep in the arms of one of the guards. Magnus quietly took our son back, cradling him gently against his broad chest, and we headed toward the park exit.

We walked through a darkened avenue, lit only by rare, dim lanterns. Magnus strode slightly ahead, holding our son, while I followed behind them. And it was exactly at that moment, randomly turning around, that I looked toward the dense thicket of bushes near the park’s cast-iron fence.

One look, and my breath hitched.

Behind the fence, pressed against the metal bars, stood a figure. A woman. She looked so gruesome that my first thought was of some living corpse. Filthy, tangled hair hung in matted locks along hollow, sickly gray cheeks.

She was dressed in some formless, rotting rags, looking more like trash bags. But her eyes... feverish, insane, burning with an unhealthy fire in the darkness, they were staring directly at me.

Shifting nervously from foot to foot, I peered at those distorted features, and an icy current flashed across my skin. My body seemed to turn to stone. My brain refused to believe what it was putting together into a cohesive picture.

Karina? That very same Karina? The aristocrat, the schemer, one of those who had caused my life to turn into hell, who had caused me to end up on the operating table five years ago?

But perhaps I was mistaken... Right now, it was hard to recognize that specific girl in this creature. So there was no certainty in my thoughts. Perhaps I was merely frightened by the surprise and jumped to that conclusion.

Clenching my teeth and shaking my head, I squeezed my eyes shut. This could not be. I wasn’t sure if Karina was dead, but I knew for sure she was exiled. Still, she could not have sunk to such an animalistic state. She could not have turned into this filthy, mad homeless woman who was now watching us from the shadows.

"Jane?" Magnus froze, pivoting toward me as his instincts surged to full alert. He flared his nostrils, aggressively scanning the area as his gaze turned dark and oppressive. "What is it? What did you see over there?"

My heart hammered madly against my ribs. What was I supposed to do? Tell him? Point toward the shadows where that ghost of our past lay hidden? If I spoke up, he would tear her apart without a second thought. But I was still consumed by doubt.

What if she was just a lone rogue? What if my traumatized mind was simply projecting old ghosts onto a harmless stranger? I didn’t want to ruin this night. I refused to plunge us back into violence and blood right after we had finally begun to bridge the chasm between us.

"It’s nothing," I forced out, tearing my eyes away from the iron fence and striding quickly to Magnus’s side, choosing silence over chaos. "Just my imagination. A shadow from the trees. Let’s go home, Magnus. I’m feeling... strange."

The Alpha narrowed his eyes in suspicion, sweeping his heavy gaze over the avenue once more. Luckily, the wind blew toward us, carrying all scents away into the night before he could catch her trail. With a tight nod, he turned back toward the SUV.

Yet a sickening, sticky aftertaste from that feral gaze lingered in my mind. The sensation of an unseen threat crept through my consciousness, knotting my stomach in raw anxiety. But I truly did feel strange. The intoxicating heat that had flared up while we kissed on the Ferris wheel hadn’t faded at all—it was intensifying. Not even that sudden fright could flush it from my veins... and that unnerved me to my core.

Upon returning to the estate, we settled a sleeping Matthias into the spacious, brightly lit nursery that Magnus had ordered prepared earlier that afternoon. Carefully tucking the duvet around our son, I stepped out into the hallway, completely drained. The emotional roller coaster of the evening had stripped me bare. My body temperature was slowly creeping upward, and my breathing grew erratic.

Magnus was waiting for me in the master bedroom. After shedding my clothes, I prepared to head into the bathroom to wash away the tension of this chaotic day, but I didn’t even make it two paces.

A sudden wave of intense dizziness crashed over me. My legs buckled, sending me crashing hard onto the floorboards.