I paused, letting out a breath that trembled under the weight of everything I wouldn’t say.
Zara was more than that. So much more. But I couldn’t give Alina that truth.
The memory of Zara, what we built together—what we lost—was a wound still too raw and sacred. The thought of exposing that part of myself, her, and our children felt like an unforgivable betrayal. So, I gave Alina the version of the story she could handle—the surface, the blood and fire, not the love, not the pain, not my children’s laughs I still heard in my dreams.
“She completed me,” I said instead. “I told Mathias she was mine. And I was hers.”
Alina let out a low, guttural growl.
I turned, locking eyes with her—ice meeting fire.
“Where is this lover now?” she spat, her voice sharp with venom. “Do I need to kill her?”
The jealousy bleeding through her words was so thick I could taste it.
She was furious. Possessive.Mine.
I nearly smiled.
Alina was jealous of a memory.
OfZara, the ghost I couldn’t speak of, couldn’t shake.
“Your father took care of her,” I said evenly.
Alina stiffened. Her breath hitched with a fury she barely contained.
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
I glared at her with eyes like razor blades. My stare could cut through steel, and I wanted her tofeelit right now.
“I told your father she was mine,” I said, voice low and deadly. “And if there had been any way to have her again, I would’ve taken it. Every single time. Letting her go wasn’t a choice—it was madness forced upon me. Love turned my brain into water. It made meinsane.”
Each word sliced through the air between us like shrapnel.
Alina’s fists clenched at her sides. Her glare blazed. “What is her name?” she demanded, voice edged with anger—and something else. Something raw and breaking.
I raised my chin, jaw tight with defiance.
“That name will never leave my lips,” I said coldly. My voice hit her like a gust of arctic wind, sharp enough to cut, cold enough to burn.
Her eyes flared with rage. Her whole body tensed.
“You’re driving a stake through my heart with this,” she hissed. “You speak of her like she still owns you, and yet I’m supposed to remain quiet, to swallow the pieces of your past without choking.”
She shook her head, tears brimming but unshed.
“Balthazar, you’re killing me.”
Then her voice turned to blades.
“I don’t want to hear another word about her. I don’t care what she meant. I want you toburyher. To blessus. We’re the killers now.Weare the present. You and me.”
A dark smile curled on my lips—malicious.
“I’ll talk about her if I fucking choose to,” I snarled. “Your father knew the depth of what I felt for her. Heknew. And still, he thought he could take her. Hedidtake her.”
Alina froze.
