Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 130

POV: Killian

The central plaza on Aethelgard was designed to be a place of community and light. Today, it was an execution ground. A cold, damp wind swept in from the sea, whipping the pack banners that lined the square and making them snap like angry beasts.

Seraphina stood alone in the center of the vast, empty space. She wore a simple, severe black dress, and she stood as still and silent as a statue carved from ice. The vibrant, warm woman who had smiled at him over a cup of hot cocoa just a few nights ago was gone, replaced by a terrifyingly remote and frozen queen. I could feel the waves of sheer, glacial coldness rolling off her. This wasn't just for Damian. I knew, with a sinking heart, that this performance was for me, too. It was a warning. A wall.

Damian was escorted into the plaza by two of my best guards. He looked like a ghost, a hollowed-out shell of the powerful Alpha he had once been. His clothes were rumpled from his voyage, his face was gaunt and unshaven, and his eyes—the once arrogant, commanding eyes—were now wide with a desperate, broken humility.

The guards released him. He stumbled forward a few steps, his gaze fixed on Seraphina, before his legs seemed to give out. He fell to his knees on the cold stone of the plaza, the sound echoing in the unnatural silence.

"Sera," he choked out, his voice raw with pain. "I... I am so sorry. For everything. I was a fool. I was a blind, arrogant fool. I destroyed us. I destroyed everything."

He crawled forward, a king reduced to a beggar. "I know now. I know what I did. The baby... Sera, I didn't know. I swear to you, I never knew. If I had... I would have torn the world apart for you. For our child."

Tears streamed down his face, carving clean paths through the grime on his cheeks. "I don't expect you to forgive me. I don't deserve it. But I cannot live in this emptiness anymore. It's killing me. Please. Just... tell me there's a chance. Tell me I can earn my way back. I'll do anything. I'll give up my title. I will spend the rest of my life atoning for what I did. Just... don't leave me in this hell alone."

She turned her back on him then, a final, absolute dismissal.

I moved forward, stepping between her and the broken man kneeling on the ground. I put my arm around her, to guide her away, to shield her. She was trembling, a fine, violent shudder that racked her entire body. She leaned into me, her body accepting my physical support, but it was like holding a figure carved from marble.

As I held her, I could feel it. She was with me, her head resting against my chest, but her heart, the heart that had just begun to tentatively open itself to the possibility of warmth, had retreated. It had fled back across a vast, frozen wasteland, back to a place of absolute, solitary safety.

Damian's arrival hadn't just reopened a wound. It had convinced her that the only way to survive was to never, ever feel again. And I knew, as I held her cold, trembling body, that the path to her heart had just become a thousand times longer and infinitely more difficult.