Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 142

POV: Damian

The central plaza of the Blackwood manor, a space built to showcase the strength and unity of my clan, had become a courtroom. Hundreds of my people stood in a vast, silent circle, their faces a mixture of confusion, fear, and grim anticipation. They had been summoned by their Alpha, but the man who stood before them on the steps of the great hall was a stranger—a hollow-eyed king presiding over the ruins of his own soul.

Sylvie was forced to her knees in the center of the circle by two of my guards. She was no longer the elegant, composed mistress of the house. Her fine clothes were disheveled, her hair a mess, and her eyes were wild with panic and defiance.

I looked out at the sea of faces, my own face an impassive mask. I began to speak, my voice flat and emotionless, carried by the pack's amplification system to every corner of the plaza. I was not a prosecutor seeking justice. I was a broken man reciting the litany of his own damnation.

"For three years," I began, my voice a dead monotone, "we have been at war. We lost allies. We lost wealth. We lost our honor. I told you this was the work of our enemies, the Thorne family. I was wrong. The enemy was here, inside our walls."

I pointed a single, trembling finger at the kneeling woman. "The architect of our decline was Sylvie of the Silver Creek Pack. She saw a moment of discord and used it to her own advantage. She whispered lies in my ear. She staged a phantom affair on the night of my wedding anniversary to turn my own Luna's heart against me."

A shocked murmur rippled through the crowd.

"And when that was not enough," I continued, my voice a relentless, self-torturing drone, "she took matters into her own hands. She used a forbidden poison, an herb of death, to murder my unborn child in my Luna's womb."

The crowd gasped, a collective sound of horror and disbelief.

"I curse you, Sylvie of Silver Creek," I proclaimed, my voice cold as the grave. "By the old laws, by the right of blood for blood, you will be forever barren. You will never know the joy of a child, never feel a life quicken inside you. The future you tried to steal, you will now be eternally denied."

The curse reached its apex. Sylvie's body convulsed one last time, and then she lay limp, sobbing, on the cold stones.

"Strip her of her jewels, her titles, and her name," I commanded the guards. "And cast her out. She is nothing to us now."

They hauled her to her feet and dragged her, a broken, wailing thing, toward the gates. Her own curses and pleas were lost in the stunned, horrified silence of the crowd. She was a piece of trash to be discarded, and I, the king of this ashen throne, was the one who had thrown her away.