Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 29

POV: Seraphina

I watched the Matron's Brooch being pinned to Sylvie's chest, and I felt nothing. No tears, no surge of rage, not even the familiar, bitter sting of humiliation. There was only a vast, empty calm. The woman who would have been shattered by such an act was already dead, and he was merely decorating her tombstone. I met Damian's gaze across the table. He was watching me, waiting, practically vibrating with the need for a reaction. He wanted my tears. He craved my anger. My emotional response was the final proof of his dominance, and I was denying him his prize.

My utter stillness infuriated him. I saw a muscle jump in his jaw, a dark flash of frustration in his eyes. This wasn't the victory he had envisioned.

The next day was the last. The final twenty-four hours in my personal hell. The air in the manor was thick with a strange, tense energy. Damian was cold and brooding, his temper on a hair trigger, his displeasure rolling off him in palpable waves.

In the afternoon, Nico came to find me. He ran into the library, clutching a piece of paper, his face a confusing mixture of childish pride and learned malice.

"I made you something," he said, thrusting the drawing at me.

I took it. It was a child's crayon drawing of a happy family. A tall, broad-shouldered man, a woman with long, silvery-blonde hair, and a small boy standing between them, all holding hands under a smiling yellow sun. It was Damian, Sylvie, and Nico. In the far corner of the page, almost falling off the edge, was a small, stick-figure with a messy brown bun, its face a smear of black from where it had been furiously scribbled over and crossed out. Tears were drawn streaming from its erased face.

"Be happy, Nico," I whispered into his hair, the words a genuine, final farewell.

He squirmed out of my embrace and ran off without a backward glance. I watched him go. Then, my movements calm and deliberate, I reached into the hidden pocket of my dress where I'd been keeping it. It was a small, hand-stitched wolf plushie, its button eyes soft and worn. It had been his favorite, the one he couldn't sleep without until Sylvie had replaced it with a newer, more expensive toy.

I summoned my personal storage space, a small, shimmering portal only I could access, and gently placed the wolf inside.