Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 102

POV: Damian

I couldn't breathe. My entire world had narrowed to the impossible, devastating vision of her, gliding through the ballroom as if she owned the very air within it. At her side was a man I instantly knew could only be Killian Vance. He was tall, impeccably dressed in a suit that cost more than most wolves earned in a year, with dark hair and an easy, confident grace that made my own skin feel ill-fitting and coarse. He walked beside her, not as a superior leading his prize, but as a partner, a consort. His gaze rarely left her, a soft, protective focus in his eyes that was a physical blow to my gut, a quiet intimacy that was a thousand times more flaunting than any public kiss.

They moved as one, a seamless unit of power and elegance. He would murmur something in her ear, his head bent slightly toward hers, and a genuine, devastatingly beautiful smile would touch her lips—a smile I hadn't seen in years, a smile I had foolishly believed was my exclusive property, now given away so freely to another. She would respond, her voice too low for me to hear, and he would laugh, a low, pleasant sound of shared amusement. Their ease with each other, their quiet, unspoken intimacy, was a spectacle of torture designed just for me. The sight of it was a searing brand on my soul, a testament to the three years she had spent not just surviving without me, but thriving, building a new life, and finding a new man, who made her glow in a way I never could.

The hollow ache in my chest, my constant companion for a thousand nights, erupted into a raging inferno of pure, undiluted jealousy. It was a raw, primal, possessive rage that I hadn't felt since the night she had severed our bond. She was mine. How dare he stand where I should be standing? How dare she smile at him with my smile?

I couldn't stop myself. The rational part of my brain, the part that knew this was a public summit, that I was surrounded by rivals and allies, simply shut down. My wolf, the wounded, furious beast that lived in my soul, took control, screaming a single, silent word: Mine.

I pushed myself up from the table, my movements clumsy, a predator stripped of all its grace. I started across the floor, my eyes locked on her, a man walking through a dream, through a nightmare. People turned to stare, their polite conversations faltering as they saw the raw, desperate, and slightly unhinged look on the face of the infamous Alpha Blackwood. I didn't care. I just had to get to her. I had to… what? Yell? Beg? Demand? I didn't know. I just knew I had to close the distance that had felt infinite for three long years.

His words, his presence, brought me to a halt. And then came the final, killing blow.

Seraphina, who had been listening intently to a white-haired shipping magnate, finally seemed to notice the disturbance. Her gaze flickered over me, a slow, deliberate sweep from my shoes to my face. There was no shock. No anger. No hatred. There was nothing. It was the look one gives a piece of furniture, a minor, uninteresting obstacle in one's path that one must navigate around. She held my gaze for a single, devastating second, then turned back to the magnate, a charming, apologetic smile on her face, and continued her conversation as if I didn't exist.

She had not just dismissed me. She had erased me. And as Killian Vance placed the champagne flute into her waiting hand, his fingers brushing hers, the sight of that small, casual intimacy was a physical pain so profound I thought I might actually die of it right there on the ballroom floor.