Chapter 25
I lay there, trembling and sobbing, the taste of blood and tears bitter on my tongue. Then darkness swallowed everything.
Until—cold air. A slam. Hands, lifting me. Familiar arms. Shouting. A growl. Rage.
And a name, broken from my lips like a prayer I didn’t know I still had. “Pierce.”
For one second, I thought I was safe. His scent hit me like a wave, smoke, pine, and that sharp alpha thing that made my chest ache. But then, he froze. I felt his whole body stiffen under me.
His nose brushed against my neck and just like that, the shift happened. The way his grip changed and his breath caught. The growl that was low and lethal.
He turned me in his arms, stared at my face like he was searching for a lie. His hand slid to my jaw, rough. “What the fuck is this?” he asked.
I couldn’t answer. I tried, but my throat wouldn’t work. My brain was still catching up to reality. He yanked at my collar, pulling it down. Then, he saw it. The mark. Wrong side, not his.
And just like that… he lost it.
“Who the fuck touched you?” he shouted. My lips moved, but no sound. “Do you really let someone fucking mark you?”
His eyes were wild now. I shook my head, barely. He didn’t wait—the slap came fast, my cheek stung after my head snapped sideways.
“You fucking whore,” he hissed. “You said you chose me. You said you are mine. Was that just part of the act?”
“No—” I gasped. “Please—” Then he slammed me against the nearest wall, hand closing around my throat.
“Who was it, huh?” he said again, quieter this time. Scarier. “Tell me who fucked you.”
Tears blurred my vision while my nails scraped weakly at his arms.
“Pierre,” I whispered, but it came out broken. Incomplete. He didn’t hear it, or maybe he didn’t want to.
Because all he saw was the mark. All he smelled was someone else’s scent. He didn’t see me.
He didn’t see the bruises, the pain, the part of me that was already hanging by a thread. He let go of me and I collapsed, hitting the floor like a rag doll.
Pierce stood over me, chest heaving, fists clenched.
He didn’t say a word. He just grabbed my arm and yanked me up like I was garbage he was done looking at. My feet dragged behind me, I couldn’t hold myself up. My knees buckled every few steps.
“Pierce… Please…” I begged. He didn’t care.
The hallway blurred around us. I caught flashes—the painting on the wall, the light in the mirror, my reflection looking back like a ghost. Then the bedroom door flew open.
He shoved me onto the mattress like I weighed nothing. I landed with a thud, and it felt like my ribs cracked under the pressure.
“You’re a disgusting drunk bitch,” he muttered.
He didn’t even look at me. Not really. Just… past me.
Like I was some pathetic stain he couldn’t scrub out. I tried to speak, but my mouth was still dry, my voice—gone. He stood by the door, hand on the knob, jaw locked.
“Clean yourself up,” he said. “And when you can finally open your mouth for something other than taking other men’s dick, maybe I’ll listen.” Then he was gone. Just like that.
No chance to explain and space to breathe. Just the door slamming, and me lying there, completely broken.
The next morning, sunlight hit my face like a punch. Everything hurts—my legs, my arms, my back, my empty damned head. Even breathing made my ribs burn.
I sat up slowly, every inch of my body screamed, and then the memories hit.
Not all at once. Just… flashes. Pierre’s psychotic face. His dirty hands that crawl into my body. The mark. Then Pierce’s voice, his loud slap and the wall.
I swallowed bile. I feel so much worse.
A knock came and the door creaked open. A maid stepped in like she was walking through a graveyard. She set a tray down—toast and tea. Completely pointless.
“Mr. Leneghan is waiting for you in the living room,” she said quietly before leaving. She didn’t even make eye contact.
I walked like a zombie. Down the stairs, through the hallway, and each step dragging me closer to the last person I wanted to see.
Pierce stood in the room like a statue. Arms crossed, eyes locked on me like I was already guilty. He didn’t say ‘hi’, didn’t ask if I was okay, just stared.
“You took your time,” he said.
I tried to speak. “Pierce, I—”
He moved so fast, I didn’t even see his hand until it was around my throat. He slammed me against the wall. The impact stole the air from my lungs.
His presence hit the room like a storm—violent, uncontained. His eyes locked on me, glowing with rage, betrayal, something deeper… something breaking.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Pierce growled, his voice venom, his grip unrelenting.
I gasped, clawing at his wrist. “Pierce—”
“While I gave you space,” he seethed, pressing harder, “while I trusted you to breathe without me smothering you—what were you doing, Lyra?”
His eyes burned, wild and raw. “Getting wasted and wrapping yourself around someone else’s cock? That’s how you spend your freedom? On your knees for another Alpha?”
My vision blurred. “That’s not what—”
He cut me off with another squeeze on my throat, his lips twisted into something brutal.
“If I made you that needy, that desperate to be fucked, you should’ve called me. Not crawled to some other Alpha for a little cunt stretching!”
My breath caught, but not from the pressure on my neck. It was his words that kept sticking into my gut like they were knives.
My mouth opened. Closed. Useless.
“I gave you space because I was trying,” he growled. “Trying not to fuck this up, not to be the monster you were always afraid I was.”
His other hand curled into fists and hit the wall near my head, shaking. “And what did you do with that trust? You crawled to another man.”
“That’s not what—” I tried to whisper.
“Then what?” His eyes were wild. “Tell me. Tell me why there’s another mark on your neck. Tell me why you smell like you don’t belong to me anymore.”
I was crying now. Silent, wrecked. “I didn’t let him,” I choked. “He— He forced—”
But he didn’t hear it. Or didn’t want to.
“You betrayed me,” he said, voice hollow. “You lied to me.”
“I didn’t—” I gasped, but it was hopeless. I could see it—he’d already decided what to believe. And then, for a split second, I saw it. A tear. Just one.
He blinked fast, looked away like even that was too much weakness to show. “I gave you everything. My loyalty. My restraint. My fucking wrecked soul and you threw it in my face!”
Tears streamed down my face as I shook my head, lips trembling. “I didn’t…” I whispered, voice cracking. Quiet. Shattered. Then, I finally admitted that, “I love you,”
It stopped him.
For a second, he just stared—like the words hit him in a place even his rage couldn’t reach. His jaw slackened, chest stilled. Like he couldn’t believe I’d said it.
Like it was the last thing he ever expected to hear from me.
And something shattered behind his eyes. Then he blinked. Slowly. Like he was forcing the emotion out of his body. Locking it up behind steel again.
“No,” he said, voice low. “No, you don’t.”
He sounded broken now. Not angry, just… hollow. “Because if you did… you wouldn’t have destroyed me like this.”
He took a breath. Slow. Steady. Deadly. And then he said the words that crushed everything left inside me.
“I reject you.”
The air fled my lungs. “Pierce, don’t— Please—”
“I reject the bond. I reject you as my mate, Lyra Ashen.”
Something inside me screamed. Not my voice—my soul.
I felt it break. The cord that had tied us together—his scent in my lungs, his heartbeat echoing in mine—gone. Snapped. Like someone had reached in and ripped the center of me out.
I collapsed to my knees, barely breathing.
“Get her the fuck out of here,” he said to the guards. Then he walked away, leaving me with no apology, second glance and mercy.
The guards didn’t need to drag me, I couldn’t even stand. I let them carry me out. Because what was left to fight for? The person I loved just threw me away.
And the part of me that felt like his… died right there on that floor.
