Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 126

Chapter 126

+25 Bonus

Chapter 126

Chapter 126

BIANCA

I sat in Rivera’s study at two in the morning, surrounded by medical records I had no legal right to possess, and tried to piece together a puzzle that was becoming increasingly horrifying.

Louis’s biological mother had died five years ago. I knew that much–Rivera had mentioned it in passing during those early weeks when I’d first moved in, a brief acknowledgment of loss without details. I’d never pushed for more information because it hadn’t felt like my place to ask.

But now, staring at the medical documentation Klaus had obtained through his Alpha King resources, I was seeing patterns ! couldn’t ignore.

Elena Rivera. Age thirty–two at time of death. Cause of death: complications from magical exhaustion following acute curse

exposure.

Magical exhaustion from curse exposure.

Not curse infliction–which would suggest she’d been cursed by someone else and died from the effects.

Curse exposure–which was the specific terminology medical examiners used when someone had been actively working with curse magic and overextended themselves.

I pulled up the detailed autopsy report, my hands steady despite the growing dread in my chest. The medical examiner had noted several significant findings:

*Extensive scarring on magical channels consistent with prolonged curse–breaking work*

*Residual magical signatures indicating frequent contact with dark magic fragments*

*Tissue samples showing cellular damage patterns typical of counter–resonance practitioners*

Counter–resonance practitioners. That was the clinical term for curse–breakers.

Elena Rivera had been a curse–breaker. Like my mother. Like me.

And she’d died from it.

I thought about Louis’s curse–the sophisticated blood work that had nearly killed him, the way it had resisted every conventional treatment until I’d applied techniques my mother had taught me. Techniques that existed outside official pack medicine.

What if Elena had been treating Louis herself? What if she’d been using curse–breaking methods to manage whatever was affecting her son, and the strain had killed her?

Or worse–what if someone had discovered what she was and killed her for it, the same way they’d hunted my mother’s network fifteen years ago?

I pulled up another document–Louis’s medical history from birth to age two, before his mother’s death. The notes were sparse, mostly standard pediatric checkups. But there were gaps. Periods of weeks where no medical care was documented, followed by sudden visits with vague notes about “monitoring ongoing condition” and “continuing home treatment protocols.”

Home treatment protocols. Elena had been treating Louis at home, outside the formal medical system.

Because she’d been a curse–breaker who couldn’t risk exposing what she was by seeking conventional help.

My phone buzzed with a text from Rivera: *Still awake?*

*25 Bonus

I typed back * In your study. Looking at Elena’s records

Apause. Then: Coming down.*

He appeared two minutes later, wearing sweatpants and a t–shirt, his hair disheveled from sleep he’d clearly been attempting and failing at.

“You should be resting,” he said, but his voice was gentle. “Today was

“I know what today was.” I turned my laptop so he could see the screen. “Lucian, your wife was a curse breaker”

He went very still “What?”

“Elena. She was a curse–breaker. Look at the autopsy report the scarring patterns, the residual signatures, the cellular damage. Those are all markers of someone who’d been doing active curse–breaking work for years.”

Rivera moved closer, reading the screen over my shoulder. I watched his expression shift as he processed the information surprise, then recognition, then something that looked like old grief resurfacing,

“I didn’t know,” he said quietly. “I knew she was a healer. That she had unusual abilities with magical trauma. But she never told me she was specifically working with curse–breaking.”

“She wouldn’t have.” I pulled up more documents. “If she was part of the network my mother belonged to or even if she was working independently–she would have kept it secret. Curse–breakers were being hunted. The Council of Elders was systematically eliminating anyone with those skills.”

“Thorne led that purge,” Rivera said, his voice hardening.

“Exactly. And Lucian, look at the timeline.” I pointed to the dates. “Elena died five years ago. Louis was two. The curse that nearly killed him activated around the same time.”

“You think her death triggered the curse?”

“I think someone cursed Louis to get to Elena. Or cursed him and killed her when she tried to break it.” I stood, moving to the window to stare out at the guards patrolling the property. “The tracking curse Louis described today—the shadow he’s been seeing–that’s not just monitoring. That’s preparation. Someone has been watching him, waiting for the right moment to finish what they started five years ago.”

Rivera was silent for a long moment. “What do they want with him?”

“His bloodline.” I turned back to face him. “Louis said the woman in his vision mentioned that he’d ‘serve their purposes as well as the mother would have.‘ They wanted Elena for something. A ritual, maybe. Something that required curse–breaker blood. And when they couldn’t get her–”

“They decided her son would do just as well,” Rivera finished, his voice deadly quiet.

I nodded. “The attack today wasn’t random. It was a test. They wanted to see if Louis had inherited Elena’s abilities, if his blood carries the same magical signature.”

“Does it?”

“I don’t know yet. But Lucian, if he does—if Louis has even latent curse–breaking abilities—he’s in serious danger. The same people who hunted my mother’s network, who killed Elena, who’ve been systematically eliminating curse–breakers for decades -they’re not going to stop until they get what they want.”

Rivera moved to his desk, pulling out a file I recognized as Klaus’s intelligence reports on Marcus Thorne.

“Thorne led the purge fifteen years ago,” he said, his fingers tight on the folder. “He’s the one who orchestrated the systematic hunting of curse–breakers. And now someone connected to him–possibly him directly—is targeting Louis.”

Chapter 127