HAZEL
The casual certainty in his voice made sothing inside crack. He’d thought this through. Planned it. Saw all the angles I’d missed while I was unconscious and bleeding on his floor.
"Please don’t." My voice broke. "I will do anything. I will be your slave."
"You were supposed to die that day at the elder’s circle." He stood, moving toward the bed. "For your cris. But you were spared."
I watched him pick up a pillow. White and pristine against all the red surrounding us.
"I think it was fate," he continued. "For you to be my sacrificial lamb today."
He turned back toward , and I saw my death in his eyes. Not rage. Not passion. Just inevitability wearing the face of a man I’d underestimated at every turn.
"I saw what you did and rage consud entirely." He spoke like he was rehearsing testimony. "I could not wait for a trial. I had to bring justice to my father."
"You have no heart."
I started dragging myself backward. The broken legs scread with every movent, but terror overrode the pain. My hands slipped on blood and debris. I gained maybe three inches before he reached .
He flipped over with effortless strength and dropped his weight onto , pinning exactly where he wanted . The pressure on my broken legs made sob.
"Delta!" The na ripped out of . "Delta knew my plan!"
Lysander paused.
I seized on it. Finally... fucking sothing.
"You will never get away with this. My pack will know unless you add more bodies to this."
"You do not even want to die alone."
The observation landed like a slap. He was right. Even now, facing death, I was trying to drag soone else down with . The pattern of my entire life distilled into one desperate mont.
"While you were unconscious," he said, "I realized the strange white powder on you was flour."
My stomach dropped.
"I had to clean that off to douse you in wolfsbane powder to sell what needs to happen." He leaned closer. "But tell if I am wrong. We went to Silvercreek for you to get sothing to get my dad to take you, right? But your Oga servant, sick of your bullshit, pulled a quick one on you."
The truth settled over like a shroud. Of course Delta had switched the powder. How many tis had I belittled her? Threatened her? Treated her like property instead of a person?
Lysander’s breath ward my ear. "I think Delta will keep her mouth shut and be grateful to be rid of you. I will even give her a slot in this pack if she wants."
Tears tracked down my face. Not from pain this ti. From the crushing weight of understanding.
"What do you think will happen?" he continued. "Did you treat her kindly for her to refuse and stand by your side?"
I had nothing. No defense. No justification. Delta would celebrate my death. Probably dance on my grave if given the chance.
A laugh bubbled up from sowhere broken inside . It ca out strangled and wrong.
"None of this would have happened if I had married Cian."
And that was when the pillow dropped over my head.
Pressure followed. Imdiate and crushing. I tried to breathe but got only fabric and the increasingly stale air trapped beneath it. My hands ca up on instinct, clawing at his arms, but the broken legs left without leverage. Without any real way to fight back.
I bucked and thrashed. My lungs started burning. The need for oxygen beca all-consuming, overriding every other sensation. Even the pain from my legs faded into background noise compared to the desperate screaming in my chest.
A mory surfaced.
Years ago. Back when I still had friends who pretended to like . Fair weather bitches! We’d visited a witch with a reputation for prophecy. The kind of thing young girls did when they wanted glimpses of futures they assud would be bright.
My friends had gotten exactly what they wanted to hear. Trisha had been promised a big rose diamond engagent ring. Another girl who I hated so much that I could not even rember haer na even now learned that a boy she liked would finally notice her. They’d giggled and squealed and even paid the witch.
Then ca my turn.
The witch’s expression had changed. Her deanor had gone cold. She’d stared at with eyes that saw too much and said words I’d sohow gotten myslef to completely forget... Until now.
"The sins of your mother will never let you go. You will need love and warmth and you will never get either. Your nature will deny you it too when it cos your way and your greed will cause you to desire more. In the end, you will toil and toil and it will not matter in the end because your pathetic life will be snuffed out in the sa cruel and callous manner your mother once used."
I’d called her a fake, laughed in her face and told my then friends she was just bitter and wanted to ruin our good ti.
But look at now.
Suffocating beneath a pillow. Legs broken. Covered in the blood of a man I’d tried to seduce and manipulate. Alone. Unloved. Exactly as she’d predicted.
My mother had killed Fia’s mother by smothering her while she was awake. It had supposedly been a clean thing. The perfect murder. The funny part even was I’d been there that night. I’d watched her do it, through a crack in the door I wasn’t supposed to be behind. She’d held the pillow down with the sa sick patience Lysander showed now.
The parallel would have been poetic if I could still appreciate irony.
Darkness crept in at the edges. Not the darkness of the pillow, but sothing deeper and frighteningly permanent. My struggles weakened. The burning in my lungs shifted into sothing almost peaceful. Like my body had finally accepted what my mind refused to acknowledge.
I’d spent my entire life fighting. Scheming. Clawing my way toward power and safety I never quite reached. Every person I’d betrayed. Every line I’d crossed. Every choice made in service of survival.
All of it led here.
To a blood-soaked floor in a foreign pack with a man I’d underestimated killing the sa way my mother had killed another.
The witch had been right about everything.
I needed love. I craved it with a desperation that drove every terrible decision. But my nature as she had called it, combined with the legacy my mother left , ant I’d never learned how to accept it. Even when Cian offered sothing real, I’d chosen ambition instead.
My greed had consud everything good before it could take root.
And now I was dying.
Alone.
Unmourned.
Exactly as I deserved. I wondered how Fia would react. Would that pathetic bitch celebrate?
My hands dropped.
The fight bled out of the sa way life bled from the Alpha across the room. Cold fingers gripped my consciousness, pulling down into sothing vast and empty. I stopped struggling. Stopped trying to breathe. Stopped hoping for rescue that would never co.
The darkness welcod with the sa indifference I’d shown the world.
And then there was nothing at all.
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