Chapter 15
Selene’s POV
I’m with Mom, still. She pulls away before staring at me deeply. “Selene, My mother’s voice is soft, almost hesitant, as if she’s unsure how I’ll reart. May!
ybe she knows me too well. Knows that Eve spent the last few years stitching myself together with threails of resentment and anger, keeping the wounds hidden just enough so I can pretend they don’t exist.
“He’s been looking for you. Selene. Ever since you left. Her words pull at those stitches, fraying them. “He comes here every week. He doesn’t say masch, but
I can tell. He misses you”
I swallow hard, trying to suppress the sharp sting in my chest. Dorian. Abways lingering in the shadows, even now. I want to laugh at the irony, but it dies in my throat Instead, I force my expression into something that resembles indifference, even though a part of me—the part that I can never fully silence—wants to believe her. Wants to believe that the boy I once loved, the one who broke me beyond repair, still feels something. Still searches for me like I used to search for him in the dark.
Hut I can’t afford to slunk like that. Not an
wwmore.
“I don’t care.” I murmur, my voice brittle, as if saying the words out loud might make them true. “Whatever he feels… It doesn’t matter. We have
Be connectiori nok
My mother watches me closely, her eyes searching mine as if she’s looking for the girl I used to be. I wish she’d stop. Tthat girl doesn’t exist anymore. She died the night Durian threw me out, pregnant with his child, and didn’t even care enough to listen. I tried to tell him, to explain what he meant to me, but he didn’t give me the chance. Not when Amara was already weaving her claws into his life, making sure he chose her over me
And he did. He chose her
Even if it was under a transaction like he said, even if I now know he was forced into that marriage, it doesn’t erase the hurt. It desn’t erase the fact That he let them cast me aude like I was nothing. The packhouse door slamming behind me that night–it might as well have been the sound of my heart breaking. Who knows, maybee he sent those rogues to batter me up as well
“I know you don’t want to believe it,” my mother continues, her voice gentle but insistent, “but he hasn’t let go of you. He’s just
Jost
I shake my head, refusing to let her words sway me. I’ve moved on. I’ve had to. It’s not like I’ve been sitting around waiting for him to figure out that he messed up. That he’s been messing up for years. But hearing that he’s been coming here, lingering in the places I used to walk, the memories we used to share—it chips away at the armor I’ve built.
Sull, I can’t let myself fall into that trap again. Dorian and I are over. We hav to be. He has Amara now, and a child with her. He made his bed, and he can be in it for all I care.
(except a part of me still wants to believe that maybe he didn’t have a choice. That maybe there’s more to the story than I’ve let myself belarve. And that part? That tiny, traitorous part of my heart! It’s louder than I’d like it to be. Fuck. I’m a surgeon and all I have ever wished is for the Goddess to let me pull this one organ out and still live.
“Mom” I say quietly, running a hand through my hair as if that will somehow straighten out the mess inside my head, “He’s not the person 1
was Whatever bar’s feeling now.
She nods, but I can see the flicker of pity in her eyes, the unspoken wish that I’d just let myself feel something. Anything. Maybe I would, if I weren’t wo terribed of falling back into the spiral of what we unte luar
I won’t
Becasoralcmatter how much Dorian claims to miss me, no matter how many weeks he spends searching for the girl I used to be I’m not that girl
mory lie gets to romanticier
He made his choda, and I’ve made mine. Whether we both regorgt it or not.
Bonitamuminat it doren’t hon to firar thar maybe just maylar
Che never stopped thinking about me
stone walls thick
memories I can’t shake. Memories of her. Selene. My every thought, every try to convince myself otherwise. The woman who once stool by my side, whose solt voice and Gorurn of iny soul. My chrit tightens at the thought of her name, Selene.
choing the knite over the wound. I thought it was the only way to al nemier was mir, and I’ve become something far more without
5:47 PM
Chapter 15
“You don’t get to say that after everything”
Her words were adagger to whatever heart that is still left in me, I ought to think she stole it with her in my life, now that I knew the woman I love was beside me earlier, but it’s not to say that it was also not everything from her anti mouth. Thum her so bai Goddammit
was the best walk 1 ever had nuciating–it was, after hearing
can sull remember the look in her eyes when I threw her out of the packhouse–her lips trembling, the words she couldn’t bring herself to say. lingering between its like a knife to the throat. I didn’t know then she carried my child, a child I was too blind, too weak to protect. That decision haunts me, chews at my insides like a rabid beast, F’il tear this entire world apart to go back to that moment, to hold her, to tell her she was never forgotten. Never a second choice.
I slam the door shut behind me, the sound echoing through the empty halls, Amara is waiting, of course, Like a damn lerch. The
e scent of her perfume clings to the air–sickly sweet and suffocating, I never loved her, Hell, I can barely stand her presence, but she’s always there, a bitter reminder of my failure. I didn’t want her. I was forced into this life. Forced to marry her for Selenie’s safety. But I’d kill her myself before I let her harm Selene again.
“Where the hell were you?” she snaps, stepping in front of me, blocking my path. Like she’s got any say in my life. I don’t bother answering her, nor night away. She doesn’t deserve that respect.
I keep walking muscles tensed, tists clenched.
“Don’t walk away from me, Doriant I’m not fucking blind. You think I don’t know where you’ve been?” she hisses, eyes narrowing into slits. “You think I haven’t noticed?”
I grind my teeth, suppressing the urge to rip her throat out right here, right now. “I don’t need to report to you, Amara.”
Her lips curl into a incer
-yout
think I’m stupid? I know she’s back.”
That catches my attention. My heart stutters for a second before anger surges through me like wildfire. Selene’s back? Was she ever even gone! She’s haunting these walls in her presence and the bathroom marble tiles as I get off my dick thinking it’s her in front of me for five years. I never should’ve left her alone. Never should’ve let her slip from my grasp. But hearing that Amara knows, that she of all people knows about her retur seti imy blood boiling. My vision narrows, the room darkening with each breath.
Amati persini on, a smug grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Don’t forget our promise. If I tell my father-
Thats it. My fucking limat.
Before she can finish her sentence, I’m on her. My hand wraps around her throat, slamming her back against the wall so hard I feel the stone shift beneath us. Her eyes widen in shock, the smugness vanishing as fear takes its place. She claws at my hand, but I squeeze tighter, watching as panic Goods her Lace Good. She should fucking be afraid.
“Don’t” The word rumbles from deep in my chest, low and dangerous. “You will never threaten her again,” I growl, “You mention Selene’s name the more tine, and I’ll step your neck like a twig”
choked gasp, the whites of her eyes bulging as she struggles for air. I lean in closer, my breath hot against her ear. “If you even. sljunk about mentioning Selene’s name again. I’ll bury you so deep in the ground not even the worms will find your Issly, I don’t care about jerommet, Almata. You want to play Lama‘ Fije. But you’re here by my grace. Remember that ”
Her head bolt in a jerky nod, her lips trembling as her breaila come in short, desperate gasps. The satisfaction of her fear sends a twisted sense of
calin thouugli mir, but it’s Beeting, a temporary fix to the chaos inside me.
ere a moment longer, relishing the fear in her eyes, the way her body trembles under my grasp. Then, just as suddenly, I release her,
crumples to the Boor, clutching at her throat, gasping for breath like a drowning rat. She don’t dare look at me, too scared to
sman who once believed she had any commul over me. Selene was the only one who ever lul
“If you keep your mouth.
day, my vojor colil Taidary of bring Luna Bui causs for again, and you?
detached as I look down at her like the useless trails that she is, “you can keep this hule
but just how replaceable your are?
puthetically as she tries to steady her breathing. I don’t stay to watch her regain her composure. She’s not worth it.
calk away, leaving her to wallow in her fear and weakness. My mind is already chewhere. Already back to
es muide a summer colling tighter with every step I take I let her go, and I’ve paid the price every
y fucking day since.
Ell protect her—absess over
just anyone who stands in our way Amar
The Gishless. The entire fucking pack it it comes to that.
Chapter 15
Not them. Not fate. Not even Selene herself.
She was always mine.
And this time, I’ll make damn sure she stays that way.
