The Betrayed Princess Rising (Lylah and Ezra) novel Chapter 111

Chapter 111

Lylah’s POV

By the time we reached the penthouse, all I wanted was to shift. To let my wolf take over, to understand what had passed between us earlier. Whatever we saw in that fractured moment… it hadn’t been imagination.

But Ezra didn’t give me the chance.

He guided me inside, his hand firm at the small of my back, steering me down the hall as though he were shaping my every step toward my room.

You should change and get some rest,” he said. “You were soaked.”

‘Not as soaked as you.” I arched a brow. “Unless the Alpha of Moonclaw enjoys catching pneumonia, you should probably change too, Ezra.”

A slow smile curved his lips–dangerous, amused, entirely aware of itself. “Of course. I’ll change in my room. Unless you have another suggestion?”

My eyes widened before I could stop them. Heat crept up my neck.

‘Right,” I muttered, looking away. “In your room. Obviously.”

His chuckle followed me all the way to my door.

I thanked him–for tonight, for the way he’d save me from Cora and Rowan without making a spectacle of it. Then he left.

I changed into something dry, but sleep refused to claim me.

The rain had thinned to a restless wind.

I opened the window and let it strike my face, cool and wild. Lunaris flickered below like fallen stars, but they felt distant compared to the tempest inside my chest.

‘Selestine, I called softly.

Silence.

She was asleep, curled deep within me.

Since my first shift at eighteen, we had been inseparable. But sometimes she retreated into a profound slumber, unreachable even by instinct. Tonight was one of those times.

“What we saw earlier…” I whispered into the wind. “I know that wasn’t a hallucination.”

The memory flashed again–shards of another life, another time. A battlefield soaked in blood and moonlight. A crown. A bond that burned brighter than the sky.

“It felt like a fracture from a past existence,” I murmured. “But if that was our life… how was Ezra there too?”

My pulse quickened.

“And not just there. He was our mate.”

The word tasted sacred. Terrifying.

The sharp ring of my phone shattered the silence.

“Lylah!” Tiara’s voice exploded through the speaker, high and dramatic as ever.

“Stop,” I said, laughing despite myself. “You’re ridiculous. But this is serious.”

Ezra was an Alpha. His dominance was natural–his aura alone could make lesser wolves lower their I’d lived under Alpha authority before. I knew what power felt like.

“You lived with an Alpha for five years,” Tiara said carefully. “Even if he was an Alpha asshole. No offense. Did you ever feel this with Rowan?”

I shook my head automatically–then remembered she couldn’t see me.

“No,” I said softly. “And that’s the point. I didn’t.”

With Rowan, what I felt was more like duty–repayment for the kindness he’d shown me. He took me into his pack when my own family cast me aside. He gave shelter to a girl no one else wanted.

I told myself that loyalty was love. That gratitude could grow into something deeper.

But was it?

Was that truly love–or just the desperate devotion of a younger version of me who needed somewhere to belong?

What I felt with him had weight. Expectation. A quiet pressure to give back as much as I’d been given, to prove I was worth the space I occupied.

And sometimes, if I’m honest, it felt suffocating–like I was constantly trying to repay a debt carved into my bones.

This… whatever is happening with Ezra… doesn’t feel like that.

It doesn’t feel like a debt I owe.

It feels written in my blood.

Wild. Ancient. Magical.