Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 122

POV: Seraphina

Killian's question hung in the air, clinical and precise. It wasn't an accusation or a test, but a strategic inquiry. And it forced me, for the first time since I had fled the Blackwood manor, to perform a brutal autopsy on the corpse of my own heart.

I turned away from the city lights and let my mind drift backward, forcing myself to search through the ruins of my past. I tried to find a memory of Damian that still held warmth.

I thought of our first meeting at the Great Hunt, the way he had smiled at me, a rare, genuine smile that had made the world feel new. I summoned the image to my mind, but it was flat. A two-dimensional photograph of two strangers. The feeling, the breathless excitement I had once known, was gone. It was just a fact, an event that had happened.

I thought of our mating ceremony, standing under the moonlight as our souls were bound together. I remembered the scent of night-blooming jasmine and the weight of his hand in mine. But the memory was hollow. The profound sense of rightness, of destiny, had evaporated, leaving only the bitter irony of a promise that had become a prison.

I even thought of the day Nico was born, the moment Damian had placed our son in my arms, his eyes shining with a pride that had, for a fleeting moment, felt like love. Even that memory, the most sacred of them all, was now tainted. It was a prelude to the pain, the first chapter in a story of my son being slowly, methodically turned against me.

The love was gone. It had been systematically poisoned, beaten, and starved until it had simply ceased to exist. Its absence was not a painful void, but a quiet, barren clearing where something beautiful had once grown.

I turned back to face Killian. The tremor in my hands had stopped. My eyes were clear and my voice was steady when I finally answered his question.

Killian's reaction was instantaneous. I saw a flash of something in his eyes—not pity, but a profound, shocking wave of shared pain. A deep, empathetic sorrow. He finally understood. He understood the true source of the poison, the true reason my hatred was so absolute, so eternal.

He didn't speak. He didn't offer a single word of comfort.

He simply took one step forward, his tall frame moving to stand directly between me and the vast, dark window. His body blocked the cold city lights, his shoulders creating a solid, unbreachable wall. He enveloped me in his shadow, a silent, living shield that asked for nothing and offered only one thing.

Sanctuary.