Darrian's POV
----
She didn't scream.
She didn't cry.
Not at first.
The Moon Goddess's hands glowed with a pale, silvery light as she lifted them toward us. Heather clutched me, frantic, whispering my name again and again like if she said it enough, it would protect us.
Then the pain started.
It wasn't physical—at least not in the way I'd prepared for. It was like someone reached into my soul and began unraveling threads that had been stitched into me from the start. The bond between us began to burn—hot, violent, then cold. I felt it all. Every memory, every shared heartbeat, every echo of her laughter… slipping.
Heather's eyes locked with mine in confusion as her breathing hitched. Her grip loosened.
Her soul recoiled.
"Darrian?" she whispered, almost as if the name felt foreign on her tongue.
I choked down a sob. "I'm here. Just a little longer."
But she was already slipping.
Already forgetting.
The light around us intensified. Her body shimmered like mist caught in moonlight, her edges glowing brighter, beginning to lift from the veil.
Her pupils dilated.
Her mouth parted.
"Who…" she blinked, "…are you?"
That was the final blow.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak.
She took a step back from me, blinking slowly, confusion in every line of her beautiful face. The same face that had once looked at me with love, trust, fire.
The Moon Goddess approached her gently. "Come, child. It's time to go home."
Heather turned once more, looked at me like I was just a stranger on a roadside she'd passed in a dream.
And then she walked away.
I didn't move.
Couldn't.
My legs gave out the moment she crossed the veil, disappearing into the light.
The moment I became nothing to her.
Forever.
I stayed kneeling there, silent, surrounded by the ash of the bond that had once defined me.
My wolf howled deep inside me, a sound so broken, so mournful it echoed through the veils like a dying star.
I was empty.
I was gone.
But I had done what I came to do.
She would live.
Even if I would never again be the reason she smiled.
The veil spit me out like I was nothing. A speck. A shadow.
One moment I was surrounded by light. The next, cold stone pressed against my back as I gasped, drawing air into lungs that hadn't felt real in what felt like an eternity. I blinked into a dark chamber, the quiet hum of enchantments vibrating in the walls around me.
My body had returned.
But something was missing.
I sat up slowly. My muscles remembered strength. My heart, though—it didn't remember why it had ever ached.
There was a moment, a blink in time, when I felt… sad?
No.
It was just a whisper in the back of my skull. Something far away. Forgotten before it could fully form.
Why had I gone into the veils?
I frowned.
For someone? For something?
A name flickered across my thoughts like smoke.
Heat—no. Light.
No name. No memory.
Just a void.
And I was fine with that.
I stood and dusted off my clothes. I wasn't broken. Not anymore. Whatever I had been feeling, whoever I had been clinging to—it was gone. Wiped clean. Nothing bound me. Nothing tethered me to weakness anymore.
Good.
Emotion was a chain. And I had been shackled for too long.
I pushed open the heavy doors of the ritual chamber and stepped into the grand hallway of the packhouse. My return was silent, without the fanfare I might've once expected. No cheers. No guards.
Good again.
Let them fear me. Let them wonder.
I passed by warriors who bowed, eyes wide with a mix of reverence and terror. I didn't speak. Didn't smile. Just walked.
Straight to my office.
Straight back to the throne I had abandoned.
The weight of my title settled back onto my shoulders like an old cloak—familiar, comfortable. Cold.
I sat.
Looked out over the courtyard from the tall windows.
Somewhere out there, something had once mattered to me. But the hole in my chest was sealed now. Nothing left but the echoes of a man I didn't recognize.
I would lead again. Stronger. Sharper. Colder.
They would call me Alpha Darrian, the Beast .
The merciless.
The untouchable.
And that was how it should be.
Whatever warmth had once lived in me… was gone.
Forever.