Chapter 221 - 211

Chapter 221: Chapter 211

Lysander

The dust from the shattered door frame hung thick in the air, drifting through the warm light of the master suite.

I scrambled back across the mattress, my hands shaking violently as I pulled the wool quilt up to my chest. My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird. I stared at the doorway, my eyes wide with sheer terror as Drake stepped through the ruin.

He looked like a stranger, a terrifying, freezing shadow that made the air in the room plunge to absolute zero.His dark coat was soaked with rain, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, his posture rigid and lethal. The sheer weight of his aura pressed down on my chest, making it nearly impossible to draw a full breath.

"Drake..." I rasped out, my voice trembling, raw with confusion. "Drake, what’s wrong? What happened?"

He didn’t answer. He took three slow, deliberate steps toward the foot of the bed, his dark eyes burning with a cold, terrifying light that stripped away every ounce of warmth we had shared over the past weeks.

"Get up," Drake commanded, his voice a flat, freezing whisper that cut through the room like razor wire.

"Drake, please," I sobbed, my tears spilling fast over my cheeks as I slid my legs over the edge of the bed, my bare feet touching the cold floorboards. My hand went straight to my stomach, instinctively covering my rounded waist to shield our baby from the icy storm radiating off his body. "Tell me what I did wrong. Please,just tell me!"

"You stood in the outer parlor," Drake said, stepping right up to the edge of the mattress. His hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides, his jaw locked so hard the muscle ached along his face. "You stood in the dark with Gideon. I saw you, Lysander. I saw you in his arms. I saw you touch him."

My breath hitched in my throat, a cold, sickening shock washing through my blood.

"What?" I choked out, shaking my head frantically, my fingers clutching at my linen shirt. "No! No, Drake, that’s impossible! I haven’t left this room all night! You locked the door yourself! I’ve been sitting right here on this bed since you left!"

"Do not lie to me!" Drake roared, the sound shaking the glass window panes, the pureblood static flaring around his shoulders so violently that the lamps on the nightstands flickered and died. "I saw you with my own eyes! I heard you! You waited until my back was turned, slipped out of this wing, and gave yourself to him right under my roof!"

"I didn’t!" I screamed, my voice cracking into a ragged, desperate plea as I dropped to my knees on the cold floorboards before him. I reached out, trying to grab the hem of his damp coat, but he took an immediate step back, shunning my touch as if I were poison. "Drake, look at me! Please look at me! I swear on our baby’s life,I never left this room! Someone is tricking you! It wasn’t me!"

Drake looked down at me as I knelt in the dust, his face carved from impenetrable, unyielding marble. There was no doubt in his eyes. There was no hesitation. The lie had taken complete, absolute root inside his mind,and nothing I said could pierce the wall of ice he had built around his heart.

"I am done," Drake declared softly, every word dropping into the quiet room like a heavy stone falling into a deep well. "I am completely finished listening to your excuses, Lysander."

"Drake, no..." I whimpered, dragging myself forward on my hands and knees, my tears dripping onto the dark wood beneath us. "Don’t say that... please..."

"I tore down walls for you," Drake rasped out, his voice dropping into a bitter, hollow register that shredded my soul to pieces. "I kept a traitor alive in my home to protect your core. I gave you my sanctuary, my name, and my heart. And you threw it all back in my face the second an old shadow walked through the door."

He took two steps back toward the ruined doorway, turning his shoulder to me, refusing to look at my weeping,shivering frame on the floor.

"You are no longer the consort of this estate," Drake said flatly, his decree falling cold and absolute through the ruined room. "You will not step foot outside this wing. You will not attend council, you will not speak to my guards, and you will never stand at my side again. The moment this pregnancy is over, I will find a proper mate, someone who understands loyalty."

"Drake!" I shrieked, a broken, hysterical sound that tore from the deepest part of my chest.

I threw myself forward, reaching out with both hands, but he didn’t even turn around. He walked straight through the splintered door frame, stepping over the broken wood without a single pause, without a second glance, and without a drop of mercy left in his chest.

"Lock the wing," Drake commanded the guards waiting in the outer hallway, his voice fading into the distance."No one enters. No one leaves."

The doors slammed shut, and the metallic chime of the master security lock engaged with a final,absolute click.

Silence crashed back over the room.

I stayed on my hands and knees in the dust, my fingers pressed flat against the cold floorboards, my body shivering violently under the lingering ice of his aura. My breathing came in short, jagged gasps, my chest heaving so hard I thought my heart would burst right out of my ribs.

Stripped. Disgraced. Abandoned.

Every word he had spoken echoed through the empty suite, beating against my brain until I couldn’t breathe.He believed I had betrayed him. He believed I had given myself to Gideon. After everything we had built, after every promise whispered in the morning light, he had looked at me with pure disgust and thrown me away like trash.

A broken, breathless sob tore from my throat.

I collapsed sideways onto the floorboards, curling my body into a tight, shivering ball, pulling my knees up toward my chest. I wrapped my arms tightly around my lower middle, holding my stomach as if my small frame could protect my baby from the crushing, hopeless dark flooding my soul.

"I didn’t do it..." I whimpered into the cold floorboards, my voice barely a whisper, drowned out by the quiet dripping of rain from the broken terrace door. "I didn’t do it... I promise you... I didn’t do it..."

Deep within my core, our child gave a faint, troubled flutter—sensing the terrifying storm of grief and agony washing through my blood.

I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my forehead into the cold wood, sobbing until I had no breath left, until my throat was dry, until the quiet night swallowed me whole in total, absolute isolation.