Chapter 167

Chapter 167: Chapter 167

Lysander’s pov

I shocked my mother into silence, so much that I tried to turn to look at her to make sure I didn’t kill her with my news.

The second I turned my head, I felt a sting on my left cheek.

My head was still turned to the side where the force of her hand had thrown it, my vision blurred by a fresh cascade of scalding tears. My mother’s palm had left a hot, raw imprint across my skin, a physical shock that cut straight through the cold, dead fog that had settled over my marrow.

I nodded, I deserved that anyway.

I slowly turned my face back toward her, my eyes wide, dark, and drowning in a silent, desperate plea for her to see past the filth I had just poured onto her living room floor.

"Mom... please..." I whimpered, my voice small, thin, and cracked like dry porcelain.

Elena wasn’t laughing anymore. The disbelief was gone, replaced by a terrible, shattering grief that transformed her face into something aged and broken.

Tears spilled over her lower lashes, dragging dark channels down her cheeks, but her eyes held a sharp, unbearable burn that made my soul shrivel inside my chest.

I expected her to slap me again and again but she didn’t raise her hand. She just looked at me, her chest heaving, and asked a single, quiet question that severed the last thread of strength holding my spine straight.

"Why?"

The word was a tiny, fragile whisper, but I could hear the hurt in her voice. I wished I could get inside her head and know what she was thinking, I wished I could change back the things I have done.

I wasn’t proud of any of them.

"Why, Lysander?" she repeated, her voice trembling violently as she leaned closer, her fingers digging into the fleece blanket around my knees. "Why would you do that? How could you... after everything he did to you? After the scars he left on your soul? After the nightmares? How could you sleep with Darius?!"

"You don’t understand!" I sobbed, shaking my head frantically, my hands flying up to cover my face as another violent shudder racked my body. "Mom, you don’t understand, please—"

"Then enlighten me!" Elena cried out, her voice breaking into a harsh, sorrowful pitch that echoed off the small apartment walls. "Help me understand how my son, the same son who ran away from home because he wanted to escape, walks back into that monster’s bed! Explain it to me, Lysander!"

"I didn’t mean to!" I screamed through my fingers, my voice tearing in my throat. I dropped my hands, looking at her through a veil of hot, blinding tears, my chest rising and falling in short, frantic gasps. "I didn’t mean for any of this to happen!"

The harsh, demanding fire in my mother’s eyes flickered, snapping under the weight of my total, unhinged devastation.

A choked, strangled sob tore from her own throat. The anger drained out of her all at once, leaving behind only the terrifying, raw grief of a mother watching her child burn alive in front of her.

She reached out, her arms wrapping around my shoulders, and pulled me hard against her chest. She held me so tight I could barely draw air into my lungs, burying her face into my wet hair, weeping openly into the crown of my head.

"I’m sorry," Elena wept, her voice muffled against my hair, her hand cradling the back of my neck with a desperate, crushing affection. "I’m sorry I hit you, baby... I’m so sorry. I’m just so scared... I’m so terrified for you. Please... please, Lysander, just tell me what happened. Tell me what he did to you."

I buried my face into her shoulder, my fingers clutching the fabric of her coat so tightly my knuckles throbbed. The warmth of her hug, the soft scent of her wild lavender perfume, it felt like a sanctuary I didn’t deserve, a safe place I had burned to the ground with my own hands.

"There’s nothing to tell," I rasped out, my voice flat, dead, and heavy with ash. "There’s no story, Mom. I went to his estate willingly."

Elena went rigid in my arms, her breath catching in her throat, but I couldn’t stop the poison from spilling out of my mouth now.

"I walked past the boundaries," I choked, fresh tears hot against her shoulder. "I used the token. I went to his study... and now... now there’s a life inside me. And I am so terrified, Mom... I am so, so terrified that this baby is going to be his. That I’m carrying his dark tainted blood..."

I gasped, the tears cutting me short, "I don’t know what Drake would do to me if he finds out. I don’t want to be in this situraton."

Elena pulled back, her hands coming up to frame my face, her thumbs wiping my wet cheeks with frantic, trembling pressure. Her eyes searched mine, fierce and stubborn, trying to force a lie into reality through willpower alone.

"No," she said, shaking her head firmly, her teeth set. "No, Lysander, that is not possible. You hear me? That is not going to happen. The universe is not that cruel. It’s Drake’s. It has to be Drake’s."

"I don’t know," I whimpered, a low, broken moan escaping my lips. "I don’t know..."

She stared at me for a long, heavy moment, the reality of the disaster sinking deep into her eyes. Then, her posture shifted, a sudden, desperate logic taking over her trembling frame.

"Have you told Drake?" she asked sharply.

I froze. The mere mention of his name brought a cold, paralyzing panic straight back to my throat, making my stomach roll with sudden, bitter nausea.

I don’t know when I started thinking he was the villian, how twisted was I? I hurt him and yet, I was playing the sick victim.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head violently. "No, no, no..."