Chapter 143: To those who knew
1
MADELINE
I hated this.
The thought repeated itself like a mantra while I stood at the edge of the ballroom. My fingers wrapped around the stem of an empty champagne glass. The crystal felt fragile. Breakable. Like everything else in my life right now.
I hated that Cian was the last person I wanted to do this to. The absolute last person who deserved another manipulation. Another lie dressed up as sothing it wasn’t.
But Aldric had been clear. Crystal clear in that way he had where his words felt like threats even when he was smiling.
Co late. While I play around with Cian’s head.
The text sat in my phone like a ticking bomb. I’d read it fifty tis since arriving at the Knight Estate. Each ti it made my stomach turn over.
I’d chosen white. Sothing simple. A slip dress that caught the light when I moved but didn’t scream for attention. Not that it mattered. I was going to be a sore sight no matter what I wore. A ghost returning to haunt soone who’d tried so hard to bury .
I didn’t know how Aldric had gotten Julius Knight to invite
to a mostly werewolf gathering. I didn’t even want to know. He had his ways. His connections. His ability to twist situations until they bent exactly how he needed them to.
Another text ca through while I stood there. My phone buzzed in my clutch.
Be in place at the ballroom. My job is done. Do yours.
I stared at the words until they blurred. Disgust rose in my throat like bile. This was what my life had beco. Taking orders from a man who treated people like chess pieces. Who found joy in breaking things that were already cracked.
A waiter passed nearby. I flagged him down with a sharp gesture.
"Three glasses. Whatever’s strongest."
He looked surprised but obliged. Set three glasses of amber liquid on his tray and handed them over one by one. I didn’t bother to ask what they were. I didn’t care. I just drank.
The first one burned going down. Good. The second one numbed the edges. The third one settled sowhere in my chest like a weight.
The goal tonight was simple. Painfully simple.
The witch had disappointed and backed out. Left Cian desperate and alone with his dying mother and no one to help him. So I would be the savior. I would offer my hand. Use this opening to slide back into his life like I’d never left. Like I hadn’t been the one to carve the wounds in the first place.
And I would destabilize his new forming relationship with the Oga. The girl he’d bonded to. The one Aldric seed obsessed with destroying.
Win win. That’s what Aldric had said. Like this was a ga with prizes instead of people bleeding out on the board.
But I knew better. I didn’t like the girl. I knew Cian must have hated that girl’s guts for a while. The bond was forced upon him. Unnatural. Sothing thrust upon him when he was vulnerable. She had entrapped him. She was not a good person. But at this point, Aldric’s obsession with destroying whatever was between them seed excessive. Cruel for cruelty’s sake.
My thoughts scattered when the ballroom doors opened.
Cian walked in.
My entire body went rigid. Every muscle locked into place. I forgot how to breathe for a second. Maybe longer.
The Oga was with him. His hand wrapped around hers. They moved together like they’d done this before. Like it was natural.
I fixated on her first. Couldn’t help it. I’d expected to stare at the epito of a rebound. A deja vu. So blonde girl with blue eyes who looked enough like
to be a placeholder. A cheap copy he could pretend was the original.
But this girl looked nothing like .
Nothing.
She was petite in a way that was almost angelic. Delicate. Her face had a youthful quality that made her seem younger than she probably was. And her eyes and hair were as black as a moonless night. Dark where I was light. Small where I was tall.
My stomach knotted.
I forced myself to look at Cian then. Really look at him.
My heart went ablaze. Just caught fire in my chest like soone had struck a match against my ribs.
He looked as beautiful as ever. More beautiful... I dared say. It was like staring at a radiant sun. The kind that hurt to look at directly but you couldn’t turn away. His dark hair was styled perfectly. His suit fit him like it had been made for his body specifically. And his face. Goddess, his face still did things to
that I couldn’t na.
I couldn’t help but smile. The expression ca unbidden. Natural. Like my face rembered what to do when it saw him even if my brain knew better.
I forgot everything for a mont. Forgot why I was here. Forgot the white dress and the plan and Aldric’s texts sitting in my phone like poison. I just stood there and looked at Cian and felt my chest ache with wanting sothing I’d thrown away.
It would have stayed that way if I hadn’t seen his face more clearly.
The smile died.
Aldric had done sothing alright. Sothing terrible.
Cian didn’t look like he used to. The light in his eyes was dimr. The set of his shoulders was wrong. Tense. Like he was carrying weight that kept getting heavier and no one was helping him hold it. He looked like the life had been constantly sucked out of him. Day after day. Drop by drop.
Pity hit
hard. Sharp and unexpected. I’d had a hand in this. In breaking him down. In making him look like a shadow of who he’d been when I first fell in love with him.
But I was going to fix it. I had to believe that. Had to hope to Hekate that I could fix it. That whatever I did next would sohow make things better instead of worse.
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