Chapter 331: _ Stir In Her Fairytale
Luis’s Point of View
The hardest part wasn’t the lying. Lying was easy. Lying was natural. Lying was like breathing, and after eighteen years of silence, I’d had plenty of time to perfect the art of silent observation, of listening to people say things they shouldn’t say in front of the boy in the wheelchair. Of letting them forget I was there.
The hardest part was smiling.
Smiling when I didn’t mean it. Laughing at jokes I didn’t find funny. Saying "good morning" like I cared who lived through the night. That was the real hell. Apparently, Mateo, sweet, soft, always-helpful Mateo—had been something of a people-pleasing golden retriever.
Everyone loved Mateo. No one was afraid of Mateo. The pack adored his boring predictability. So when I stepped into his skin; his face, his life, his goddamn tone—I didn’t inherit just his memories. I inherited his obligations.
People waved at me in the halls like we shared a soul. Random pack members dropped off stew at my cabin. One of the beta’s cousins knitted me a scarf. A scarf.
It made my skin crawl.
I smiled. I said thank you. I held the scarf in my lap while fantasizing about setting it on fire.
So yes. Becoming Mateo was harder than I’d expected. The niceness felt like a disease I had to keep catching. I’d never realized how exhausting it was to pretend to like people until I had to spend ten minutes listening to Axel’s stable master talk about hooves. Hooves.
But then there was María José.
Ah... María.
If being Mateo was the curse, she was the reward.
I hadn’t expected her to trust me again, not after everything. Not after the way she said she wished she’d screamed at the demon version of me and swore she’d never forgive what I’d done. But forgiveness was such a slippery, stupid thing. It bloomed in strange places. It grew like moss—quietly, over wounds that should’ve stayed open.
When she first saw "Mateo" again, I expected suspicion. Instead, she looked at me like I was a comforting memory from a lifetime ago. She remembered the days I sheltered her in my home. She remembered the warmth of the fire after I carried her in the rain and took her home and the silence we shared. And now, with Ignacio "gone," as far as she knew — she looked at me with eyes that trusted.
That was all I needed. A crack. She opened the door, and I walked right in.
María talked to me now. About her court battles. About her nerves. About Axel. She confided in me, told me she didn’t know how to forgive him fully, told me she still felt watched, like the witches hadn’t really been flushed out. She let me sit beside her in the gardens when she needed silence, and smiled when I brought her stupid citrus tea that smelled like dreams. She thought I was kind.
That was the best part.
She thought I was kind.
I had to bite my tongue some days just to keep from laughing.
Especially when she told me how grateful she was that I was in her life. That I listened and gave her all the fruitful advice. She said I gave her peace.
I gave her nothing. I took. That’s what I did. That’s what I was. And she let me.
Sometimes, when she was distracted or tired or emotional after a hearing, I’d give her a little push. Just the tiniest psychic compulsion. I didn’t even have to try hard—she was already cracked open, ripe and raw. I’d whisper, inside her mind, and watch the doubt bloom on her face.
"Axel is hiding something from you."
"Álvaro sees you better than Axel ever did."
"You were stronger before Axel came back."
"You should talk to Álvaro. You should be seen."
And she did. She did... Under my compulsion.
I watched her offer herself to Álvaro like a sacrificial lamb on an altar of resentment. However, I ensured there was another audience. Axel. Dear sweet, Axel.
And when María José cried not knowing why Axel was against her once again, and hated herself, and didn’t tell a soul—it was glorious. The shame, the cracks it created in their mating bond. That was my altar. I lit candles to it in my soul. It was the beginning of the unraveling.
They still lived together, sure. Still tried. But I saw the distance. I made the distance. And María José; poor, tired, brilliant María—had no idea that the only man who truly understood her was the one wearing another man’s face.
And now she’s pregnant. That part... oh, that part was divine.
She doesn’t know it yet, not fully. Not in her bones. But the healer confirmed it. There’s life inside her now. A heartbeat. Something growing. Something mine.
Because I know. I know. Don’t ask me how—I just do. Some instinct deeper than my demon. That child? That’s mine. Not Axel’s. Mine.
I know what we did. And I know when we did it. Sure, she might not have memories of it... yet. I’m not going to tell her. Not yet. Let her think it’s Axel’s. Let her stay in that little fairytale while I wait.
Because eventually, the truth will come out. It always does. And even if it doesn’t, I’ll wrench its head out. I’ll return her memories, let her know that seed is mine, not her husband’s.
Ah... when I do, when she realizes that what’s growing inside her is mine, not her husband’s—that her body chose me? She’ll break. And when she breaks, she’ll need someone to pick up the pieces. Someone soft. Someone patient. Someone kind. Someone like Mateo. Except by then... maybe I won’t have to pretend to be Mateo anymore.
Maybe by then, I can be Luis again.
And this time, no one will stop me from taking what’s mine.
Let’s see just how many times Axel could forgive María José and keep overlooking the fact that she was used and would continue to be used by me; Her Big Bad Daddy Luis.