A Warrior's Second Chance (Faye and Alexander) novel Chapter 687

Chapter 650

HELEN

I woke up suddenly.

There was no sound in the room that should have caused it. I listened for a moment for any sound from outside, but I heard nothing. No knock at the door, no movement outside, and no obvious disturbance around me. One moment I had been asleep, and the next, I was staring into the darkness with my heart beating harder than it should have.

For several seconds, I remained completely still.

Something felt wrong.

I couldn’t immediately explain what it was, but I could feel the difference in the air around

1. It was subtle, almost too subtle to notice if I wasn’t paying attention, but I had spent too many years around certain things to ignore a feeling like that.

I slowly pushed myself upright.

My breathing was steady, but there was an uncomfortable sensation moving beneath my skin. It wasn’t pain exactly. It was more like the faint pressure that remained after a spell had

been disturbed.

I looked around the room.

Everything appeared normal.

The curtains were still drawn. The lamp beside my bed remained where I had left it. Nothing had been moved, and there was no one else in the room.

Yet something had changed.

I closed my eyes.

The moment I did, I felt it.

My cloak.

My eyes opened again. For a moment, I simply stared ahead. Then I reached for it.

I didn’t need to perform a spell or speak an incantation. The cloak I had placed around myself had been part of my life for so long that I could recognize its presence as easily as I recognized my own heartbeat.

20hapter 650

It had always been there.

Quiet… Steady.

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It was one of the few precautions I had never allowed myself to become careless about. I had made sure my location could not be easily traced through magic. I had woven layers into it, enough to confuse anyone attempting to follow my trail and make my presence difficult to

find.

It wasn’t perfect.

Nothing was. But it was strong enough to keep ordinary magic from finding me.

And now…

Something had passed through it. I sat completely still.

My fingers tightened around the bedsheet. Someone had broken through my cloak.

I didn’t need to think very far. I already knew who it was. Only a Mayfair could have broken through my cloak.

And there was only one Mayfair I knew who would have the ability, the knowledge, and the sheer audacity to attempt it.

My mother.

I let out a slow breath.

Of course.

For

years,

I had kept myself away from everything connected to her. I had changed my life, built another one, and made certain that there were enough barriers between us that neither of us could simply reach into the other’s world whenever we pleased.

Yet somehow, she had still found a way through.

I lowered my gaze to my hands.

There was something unsettling about realizing that. Not because I was surprised by her ability.

I wasn’t.

I knew exactly what my mother was capable of.

If anything, I was surprised that I had allowed myself to believe my cloak would be enough to

Chapter 650

keep her away.

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Perhaps I had simply forgotten that my mother had spent her entire life mastering things I had spent mine trying to forget.

I rubbed my palm slowly against the sheet.

Why would she do it? That was the question that bothered me.

I had not spoken to her. I had not sent for her. I had given her no reason to believe that I wanted contact.

So why had she used magic to find me? I stared toward the window. Was she trying to spy on me?

The thought irritated me immediately. That was entirely possible.

My mother had never been particularly good at accepting boundaries, especially when she believed something concerned her family. If she wanted to know where I was, she would want to know for herself rather than rely on someone else to tell her.

But there was another possibility. Perhaps she wasn’t trying to spy on me. Perhaps she was trying to reach out.

I frowned.

The idea felt almost stranger than the first.

Seraphine had not come back into my life after all these years simply because she wanted to know whether I was sleeping comfortably at night. Whatever had pushed her to use a locating spell had to be important.

I sat there in silence, trying to understand what I had felt.

The disturbance had been brief. Almost like a hand brushing against something that wasn’t supposed to be touched.

But it had been enough. My cloak had been breached. And that meant my mother had found

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