Shattered Bonds A Second Chance Mate (by Yui) novel Chapter 189

Chapter 189

Chapter 189

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Her smile faltered. And I didn’t rush into the silence that followed.

I stood there, breathing evenly, letting her own words curl back around her like smoke.

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When I finally spoke, my voice was quiet, but it carried weight. “You speak of power as if it is the only thing a heart can desire. But I did not fall in love with Francesco because of his name. Not because of Lycaon blood, not because of his crown. I loved him because he is him.”

Her eyes narrowed, but I pressed on, my words steady, my heart certain.

“I saw him when he thought no one did–when he carried burdens too heavy for one man. I saw his rage, yes, but I also saw his restraint. His strength, but also his quiet tenderness. The man who could snap a neck in one heartbeat is the same man who kissed the dirt from my hands when I came in from the garden. Do you understand that, Isolde? I do not love the Lycaon name. I love Francesco. My mate.”

The chains rattled as she shifted, her composure cracking.

Her lips trembled before she bit them to stillness, but not before I saw the sheen in her eyes.

And then, slowly, impossibly, she broke.

Tears slid down her cheeks.

She turned her face away as if ashamed to let me see her weakness, but her voice–raw and shaking–betrayed her. “You don’t know what it was like. I thought… I thought I had found love once.”

I held still, listening.

Her shoulders trembled, the silver clinking as her hands flexed against the chains. “There was a man,” she whispered. “A warrior from a neighboring pack. He swore to me there was no mate for him–that I was his choice, his heart, his future. And I believed him. Goddess help me, I believed him. For years, I gave him everything. And then…” Her voice cracked. “Then his mate appeared. His real mate. And he left me. Just like that. Left me with nothing but a broken promise.”

The bitterness I had always seen in her eyes now had roots. Deep, festering roots.

“I swore never again,” she continued, her tears falling freely now. “Never again would I be the weak one. Never again would I be the woman abandoned because fate gave someone else more claim than me. And then…” She looked up at me, eyes burning. “Then someone told me about Francesco. About the Lycaon prince turned king. A man so ruthless the world feared him. A man whose first mate was dead. I thought… I thought his Luna would be like me. Pretending. Surviving. Using him. Because how could anyone love a man like that?”

Her chest rose and fell with a sob, chains rattling with the force of it. “So I came. I told myself if I could not be loved, then I would have power. That would be enough. But it wasn’t. It was never enough.”

I stepped closer, my heart both aching and resolute. “You were wrong,” I said softly. “You looked at Francesco and saw only the Lycaon name, the crown, the terror of a ruthless Alpha. But I saw him. The man beneath it all. And I love him–not despite who he is, but because of everything he is. His darkness. His light. His scars. His strength. All of it.”

19:38 Wed, Sep 24

Chapter 189

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Isolde lifted her tear–streaked face to me, eyes wide, almost disbelieving. “You… truly love him?”

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I nodded, no hesitation in my chest. “With everything in me. With everything I am. He is not my throne. He is not my crown. He is my heart.”

Her lips trembled again, and for the first time since I had known her, she looked small. Fragile. Not the seductive threat she had once been, but simply a woman who had been broken and had built her armor from cruelty because it was all she had left.

Her head bowed, and the tears kept coming.

And in that moment, though I still despised the pain she had tried to bring me, I understood her. Not her choices, not her cruelty, but the wound beneath it.

And for the first time, Isolde had no venom left to throw.

Her head remained bowed, tears dripping onto her bound hands.

The sharp, bitter woman who once lunged at me with wolfsbane looked nothing like the one before me now. She was cracked open, her cruelty laid bare for what it truly was–pain wearing a mask.

I stood there for a long moment, watching her shoulders tremble.

For a fleeting heartbeat, I wanted to reach out, to tell her she didn’t need to choose venom. But then Mika stirred within me, reminding me of the truth: compassion does not mean forgetting the harm she tried to bring.

So I let silence be my answer.

I turned and walked toward the door.

Each step felt heavy, as though chains were bound to my own ankles. Not because of fear, not even because of anger. But because of the truth that lodged itself in my chest.

Francesco…

His love… always turned into mockery.

Isolde, who never wanted him, only his crown.

Anastasia, who bound him with magic, twisting what should have been bond into prison.

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