Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 86

POV: Seraphina

I woke to the gentle, rhythmic rocking of the sea. For a moment, I was disoriented, my mind still mired in the dark, suffocating memories of the Blackwood manor. But the air here was different. It was cool and carried the clean, sharp tang of salt, a scent of vast, open spaces. The oppressive silence of my prison had been replaced by the soft, constant whisper of waves against a hull. I was on a ship. I was free.

I pushed myself up, my body aching with a profound, bone-deep exhaustion. The wound on my neck was a dull, throbbing pain, a physical reminder of the spiritual amputation I had endured. But the void in my soul, the gaping, raw chasm left by the severed mate bond, was no longer just a source of agony. Slowly, tentatively, a new sensation was beginning to fill it. It was a feeling so foreign I could barely name it: peace. A quiet, fragile peace that came from being utterly, completely alone in my own soul for the first time.

"You're awake."

Jax's voice, low and filled with a bone-weary relief, pulled me from my thoughts. He was sitting in a chair by my bedside, a dark, silent sentinel. He looked exhausted, his face bruised and gaunt, but his eyes, when they met mine, were clear and filled with a fierce, protective light. He must not have slept since the battle.

"How long?" I asked, my voice a hoarse whisper.

"Two days," he said. "We've been at sea since we left the coast. No one can track us here." He poured me a glass of water, his hand steady. "How do you feel?"

How did I feel? The question was a universe in itself. Broken. Hollow. Free. I didn't have the words. Instead of answering, I closed my eyes and turned inward, seeking the other presence that now shared my solitude.

My inner wolf.

Her vow was a covenant, a sacred promise made in the deepest, most broken part of my soul. I felt her strength pour into me, filling the hollow spaces, forging my fractured will into something new. Something hard. Something unbreakable.

I opened my eyes. The exhaustion was still there, but the despair was gone, replaced by a cold, clear, diamond-hard purpose.

Jax was watching me, a question in his eyes. He had felt the shift in my aura, the change in the very air around me.

"We're heading for a temporary port," he said, his voice quiet. "The core of our family's loyalists are waiting. Elias, the elders… and a vital ally."