Chapter 171 - 172

Chapter 171: Chapter 172

Lysander’s pov

The name hung in the heavy, perfumed air of the room like a drop of venom in clear water.

Julian. First love.

I stared at the pale hand wrapped around Drake’s arm, the long, manicured fingers digging into the dark silk of his robe with an easy, practiced familiarity that felt like a hot blade sliding beneath my ribs.

Julian’s smile was beautiful, and utterly merciless, his silver-tinted eyes tracking the frantic hitch of my chest with the slow, deliberate satisfaction of a predator that had just cornered its prey.

I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t bear the triumphant flash in his eyes. My gaze snapped back to Drake, searching the cold, carved marble of his face for a single crack, a single flicker of guilt, shame, or even the familiar, terrifying flare of his possessive rage.

There was nothing.

Drake stood there, towering over the quiet room, as still and unyielding as a monument carved from granite. He didn’t pull his arm away from Julian’s grip. He didn’t even blink. He just stared down at me with an icy, clinical detachment that froze the blood straight in my veins.

"Drake..." My voice came out as a broken, breathless rasp, tearing against my dry throat. "Say something. Please... look at me and tell me this isn’t what it looks like."

"It is precisely what it looks like, Lysander," Drake said smoothly.

His tone didn’t rise. He didn’t raise his voice or sneer. The words fell between us with a flat, terrifying weight that made the floorboards beneath my damp wool socks feel like they were giving way.

"You..." A harsh, bitter laugh choked in my chest, hot tears finally cutting through the dried salt on my cheeks. "You slept with him. While I was... while I was trying to come back to you. While I was sitting in my mother’s apartment, drowning in terror, trying to find a way to make you understand—"

"Understand what?" He interrupted softly.

He took a single, deliberate step forward, pulling his arm free from Julian’s light grip, though Julian remained standing close at his shoulder like a graceful, watching phantom.

Drake leaned down slightly, bringing his pale, handsome face into the amber light of the bedside candles. His crimson eyes weren’t glowing with heat; they were pale, frozen, and entirely dead.

"Tell me, Lysander," Drake murmured, his voice dropping into a low, lethal register that vibrated straight through my skull. "What was I supposed to understand? Was I supposed to sit in this empty house, watching the perimeter wards hum, waiting for my mate to slip out into the fog for the second time?"

"I didn’t—"

"Do not lie to me in front of my guest," Drake growled low in his chest. The sound was so dark, so heavy, that the flame on the wall sconces flickered violently, casting long, dancing shadows across the high ceiling.

"I smelled him on you. The moment I came

Home to you that day. You scrubbed your skin, you washed your hair, but you couldn’t erase him."

My jaw clamped shut, my chest heaving in short, panicked gasps. I instinctively reached up, my hand flying to cover the pulse point on my neck where Darius’s iron collar had sat, my fingers trembling so hard they were almost numb.

"You ran to him," Drake continued, his eyes narrowing to razor-thin slits as he took another slow step toward me, forcing me to back up until my heels hit the wooden frame of the doorway. "You used my own blood-token, the token I gave you for your protection to bypass my wards. You ran through the woods, stood in his compound, and let him put his hands on you. And then, when you were finished, you ran back to me, playing the fragile, broken victim."

"I went to get answers!" I screamed, my composure completely shattering as a fresh wave of agony tore through my chest. I pointed a shaking, bloody thumb at my own heart, my voice echoing off the paneled walls. "I went because he put a collar on me! Because my magic was spiking and my body was changing and I thought he poisoned me! I didn’t go to betray you!"

"And yet, you did," Drake replied instantly, his voice chillingly absolute.

Julian let out a soft, melodious chuckle behind him, resting his hand against the small of Drake’s back, his dark eyes sparkling with quiet amusement. "He always has an excuse, doesn’t he, Drake? So delicate. So full of tragic misunderstandings."

"Shut up!" I snarled at Julian, my wolf flaring beneath my skin, my energy snapping outward in a sharp, chaotic static that made the glass water pitcher on the side table crack. "Keep your mouth shut!"

Julian didn’t even flinch. He merely tilted his head, his smile widening as he stroked Drake’s back through the dark silk of his robe. "Manners, little hybrid. You’re in no position to bark."

I turned back to Drake, my hands clenching into tight, wet fists at my sides, my chest rising and falling in violent jerks. "You did this to get back at me? You brought your former lover into our home, into a private bed, just to punish me?!"

"What did you expect me to do, Lysander?" Drake asked, his tone dropping into a terrifyingly calm, logical register that made my soul shrivel inside my chest. "Did you expect me to sit here like a patient fool while you ran between two men? Did you expect me to remain faithful to a mate who sneaks off to his former captor in the dead of night, lying to my face every time he looks at me?"

"Drake, please—"

"I gave you everything," Drake said, stepping right into my personal space. He towered over me, his shadow completely swallowing my smaller frame, the scent of his sandalwood essence heavy, suffused with the strange, sweet perfume of Julian’s skin. "I built a sanctuary for you on this mountain. I protected you from the council, I shielded you from the war, and I gave you my mark. And you threw it back in my face the second Darius whistled from the logging road."

"I didn’t..." I choked out, my voice breaking into a ragged, pathetic sob as I looked up into his cold, unyielding face. "I came back to tell you... I came back to lay everything out..."

"It is too late for your confessions, Lysander," Drake murmured softly, leaning down until his lips were inches from my ear. His breath was cold against my skin, carrying no warmth, no affection, and no mercy. "You played your hand. Now I am playing mine."

He straightened up, turning his back on me as if I were nothing more than a ghost, and walked back toward the edge of the bed where Julian was waiting for him.

I stood frozen in the doorway, my hands clutching my sweater over my lower abdomen, staring at the back of the man I loved while the quiet, agonizing truth settled deep into my bones: the bond was dead, the sanctuary was gone, and I was completely, utterly alone.