Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 83

POV: Damian

The gnawing emptiness in my chest was more than grief. It was a wound in my very soul, a constant, spiritual ache that no amount of wine or distraction could numb. It was a fundamental part of me, a piece of my own spirit, that was simply… gone. This was not a wound of the heart. It was a wound of magic. And there was only one person in my pack ancient enough to understand it.

I summoned Elder Maeve to my private study. She entered with her usual stiff disapproval, her old eyes taking in the disarray of the room, the empty bottles, the scattered, useless reports.

"You wished to see me, Alpha," she said, her voice devoid of its usual sharp edge, replaced by a weary, almost pitying tone.

I didn't offer her a seat. I couldn't bear the pleasantries. I went straight to the heart of my torment. I described what had happened at the altar. I described the feeling of the bond not just fading, but being violently ripped from me. I described the silence, the void, the feeling of a part of my soul being cauterized, leaving behind a dead, hollow space.

I watched her face as I spoke. Her stern, disapproving mask slowly dissolved, replaced by an expression of dawning, horrified understanding. By the time I finished, her face was ashen.

"By the ancestors," she whispered, her voice a dry, trembling rasp. She sank into a chair, her old bones suddenly unable to support her. "There is only one ritual in the old lore that could do such a thing."

"What is it?" I demanded, my voice raw with a desperate need for answers.

I finally understood. She hadn't just run away. She hadn't just fled. She had chosen an agony worse than death, a ritual that could have destroyed her forever, for the sole purpose of utterly and completely erasing me from her soul.

The thought was a weight so crushing it felt as if the very roof of the manor was collapsing in on me. I stumbled back, my hand flying to the hollow place in my chest. It wasn't a wound anymore. It was a judgment.

A glass of wine fell from my trembling hand and shattered on the floor.