Chapter 190

CHAPTER 32… ANDRES Valentina slept curled against my side, her breath warm against my chest, her fingers still tangled in the fabric near my collarbone as if even in sleep she refused to let me drift too far. For a long while, I didn’t move. Not because I feared waking her— but because I was afraid that if I shifted even an inch, this fragile, impossible peace would dissolve like morning mist. My kingdom had never been quiet. My life had never been gentle. But this moment… This was both. Luciano slept in the cradle in his room, right next to us which I could see through my phone. wrapped in soft moonweave blankets, the faintest silver shimmer pulsing beneath his skin— but no longer dangerously bright. Not divine. Not overwhelming. Just… our little boy. And yet, beneath the sweetness of the moment, beneath the warmth of Valentina still clinging to me, there was something else. A strange hum in the walls. A pressure in the air. A wrongness I could feel in my bones. The palace had been si