A Broken Alpha Heiress' Revenge novel Chapter 165

Chapter 165

Third Person’s POV

+8 Pearls

All those years of pain, injustice, and silent despair finally erupted like a dam that could no longer hold. Riley’s sobs echoed within the room, raw and shattering, each cry dragging shards of anguish to the surface. Her shoulders trembled violently as she collapsed over the embroidery table, her fingers still stained with blood from the earlier prick, crimson blooming across the silk fabric like a cursed omen.

Unbeknownst to her, Lucien Duskgrave had been standing quietly behind her for a long while.

He had not announced his presence. He didn’t need 10.

As Alpha of the Stormridge Pack and heir to one of the oldest Lycan bloodlines, he had walked through fire, war, and political deception. But none of those battles had ever pierced him as deeply as the sight before him now–Riley, a she–wolf already wounded far too many times, finally crumbling under the weight of her grief.

He reached out, instinctively wanting to pull her into his arms. But his hand lingered in the air, frozen.

He didn’t know if she would welcome the contact. Would it soothe her or push her further into darkness? She couldn’t hear him. Her world was silent. And in that silence, she wept.

Lucien’s chest ached. Not from helplessness–he had long since learned to move past that emotion–but from fury. Fury at a world that had allowed her to be broken this way. Fury at the Ebonclaw Pack. Fury at the so–called “parents” who had treated her like nothing more than a vessel–an organ donor to be gutted and discarded.

Soft, broken cries escaped from between her arms.

“What did I do wrong?” she choked out, her voice hoarse and cracked. “Why did they treat me like this?”

“You knew I wanted to belong… to have a family. And yet you used that against me. Am I really… so unlovable?”

Lucien’s hand, still suspended, slowly lowered back to his side–then clenched into a tight fist. The skin around his knuckles turned white as bone.

He bent down slightly, whispering–uselessly, but with all the quiet conviction he could muster, “You are not unlovable.”

“You’re everything they aren’t. Strong. Brave. Worthy,”

“We all see it. We all see you.”

“They’re the monsters. Not you*

But she couldn’t hear a word of it. Her sobs continued, gut–wrenching and starp, as if each one was being torn from her soul.

The room filled with the sound of her crying. And just outside the open door, three women stood frozen in

in place.

Matriarch Duskgrave, usually as steady and composed as the mountains surrounding Stormridge, now stood with tears pooling in her ancient eyes. The regal silver in her hair shimmered faintly in the light, but even her long–held strength faltered in the face of Raley’s sorrow.

Beside her, Mrs. Beck and Mia stood shoulder to shoulder, their expressions mirroring the same raw, maternal ache.

Not far off in the sitting room, Duke and Theo had heard it too.

Duke’s hands slowly curled into fists. His normally tired eyes were now sharp with unfiltered rage. He gritted his teeth, jaw tight. Those fucking parasites, he muttered under his breath. “How dare they…

All thoughts of rest vanished from his mind Fury burned through his veins, scorching away any remaining fatigue. In the next breath, he turned, storming out of the manor with thunder in lus steps. The black SUV’s door slammed behind him, and

the engine, the car tore down the gravel path, leaving only a fading roar and a cloud of dust in his wake

His lungs felt crushed. The room itself seemed heavier. saturated with something dark and unbearable. The sound of Riley crying so full of heartbreak and helplessness–was like a blade driving deeper into his chest with each passing second:

His thoughts spiraled. He had mocked her before. Doubted her. Caught her with Kael when she was trying to escape her hellish family. And now, every cruel word, every condescending glance, came back to haunt him.

A wave of shame rolled through him.

He had been blind Willfully blind.

And Riley…she had suffered all of it in silence.

Without saying a word. Theo turned and left the sitting room. His steps were swift and unsteady, his throat dry, his heart pounding with a shame he couldn’t shake.

In the embroidery room, the light shifted as clouds slowly covered the sun. The once warm morning had turned grey, mirroring the storm within Riley’s heart.

She still clutched the fabric, tears now streaking freely down her cheeks. Her entire frame trembled as her sous softened into hoarse, broken gasps. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to scream. She wanted someone to come tell her that this–this entire nightmare–wasn’t real.

But no such relief came.

Only the warm, unmoving shadow of Lucien Duskgrave behind her. Silent. Resolute.

He could do nothing to erase the past.

But he would burn the future to the ground before letting anyone hurt her again.

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