She was crying openly now.Tears streaming down her cheeks, her body shaking with sobs she was trying to suppress.The smell of her grief filled the room, salt and pain and something broken.
“Raphael, please.I don’t understand.I love you.I told you I love you, and you?—”
“I never said it back.”
Four words.The truest and cruelest thing I’d said all morning.
Her face crumbled.Whatever hope she’d been clinging to died in that moment.I watched it happen.Watched the light leave her eyes.Watched her become something smaller, something broken, something I had made.
Stop.Stop.Take it back.Hold her.Fix this.
The wolf was clawing at my control, desperate, frantic.I could feel the shift pushing at the edges of my consciousness, threatening to break through.My jaw ached from clenching.My hands were trembling.The beast wanted out.Wanted to wrap itself around her and never let go.
But I kept my face stone.
“Get dressed.”My voice didn’t waver.“Alice will pack your belongings.Parsons will drive you back to the hotel.”
She didn’t move.Just sat there, the sheet clutched to her chest, staring at me like she was trying to find some trace of the man who’d made love to her last night.The man who’d held her afterward, who’d stroked her hair while she slept, who’d memorized her face like he was trying to store enough of her to last a lifetime.
That man was dead.I’d killed him myself.
“Why?”she whispered.“Just tell me why.I deserve that much.”
She did.She deserved so much more than I could ever give her.She deserved the truth, the whole truth, the story of wolves and packs and a beast inside me that could tear her apart.She deserved to know that I was doing this to save her life, not destroy it.
But if I told her, she’d fight.She’d refuse to go.She’d put herself in the path of the Pakhan’s judgment, and they would kill her.Not because they wanted to, but because she would know too much and belong to no one who could protect her.
My silence was the only shield I had left.But silence wouldn’t make her leave.Silence left room for hope.
“Because you were convenient.”The words tasted like ash.“A warm body with a debt to pay.Nothing more.”
The lie was so complete, so final, that even I almost believed it.
Something in her broke.I could see the exact moment it happened.The light that had been fighting to stay alive in her eyes finally went out.
She moved mechanically after that.Found her clothes.Dressed with her back to me, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.I watched every movement.Memorized every second.Her scent had changed completely now, all the sweetness drowned in salt and grief and something that smelled like dying hope.
This was what I was choosing.This was what I was giving up.
At the door, she stopped.Turned.One last chance.
“Tell me this is a mistake.”Her voice was raw.Wrecked.“Tell me you didn’t mean any of it.Tell me something, Raphael.Anything.”
I looked at the woman I loved, the woman I would love until the day I died, the woman who had seen through every mask I’d ever worn and somehow wanted me anyway.
And I said nothing.
She left.
The door closed behind her.I listened to her footsteps in the hallway, then on the stairs.I heard Alice’s voice, concerned and questioning.I heard Lena’s broken response, too quiet to make out words.I heard the front door open and close.I heard the car start.
I heard her drive away.
And then the wolf erupted.
It slammed into my control like a battering ram, snarling, clawing, fighting for dominance with everything it had.I staggered, my hands bracing against the wall as my muscles cramped and my bones began to shift.The beast wanted out.Wanted to run after her.Wanted to drag her back and claim her and never let her go.
You destroyed us.You destroyed her.You destroyed everything.
