Chapter 215: The Breaking Heart

Vivian’s POV

He broke right in front of me.

He took one step toward me, and then another step away. His movements became completely erratic as he started pacing frantically back and forth across the floor, his large body trembling with a wave of raw emotion. A low, menacing growl vibrated heavily through the room, deep and frightening, followed instantly by a harsh snarl as his canines elongated his inner wolf fighting to surface beneath his completely unraveling composure.

"Work on it?" he snapped, his voice fraying badly at the edges. "Work on it?! There is nothing left to fix! You do not get it, Vivian. You do not know. You do not know... and she does not even know!" he roared suddenly, spinning around to face me directly, his eyes wild with terror, his voice falling into a string of broken muttering.

I reached my hand out for him instinctively, needing to calm him down.

But he recoiled.

He actually flinched hard away from my touch.

My hand froze completely midair. A sudden chill seeped straight into my bones, feeling so sharp and instantaneous that my entire chest felt hollowed out. Zahliver had never pulled away from me before. Not even in his darkest moments, not even when things were at their absolute worst. But now... now his pain lashed out like it had a mind and will of its own, and I could feel every single ounce of it crashing heavily through our shared bond like a violent hurricane. It was suffocating, making it feel like an invisible iron chain was wrapped tightly around my throat and chest, dragging me down into the dark abyss right along with him.

"Z-Zaliv..." My voice cracked under the pressure.

"I could not save you." His voice thundered through the small room, completely filled with agonizing despair. "I did not save you! I failed you entirely. I failed as your mate!"

He halted abruptly just a single breath away from me, his wild eyes locked downward onto his own hands, as if they were stained with something invisible something he could not scrub off no matter how hard he tried.

"All the medical tests... the careful safeguards... the stupid magical protections I put all around you they meant absolutely nothing. They could not stop it from happening. I could not stop it. It is all my fault. I let it happen to you."

A heavy sob caught tightly in my throat, ripping silently through my lips as my chest tightened painfully. My heart completely shattered at the sight of him my powerful mate, the mighty Lupus Deus, reduced to this trembling, broken shell of a man. Heavy guilt had him by the throat, and it refused to let go.

"No," I breathed out, my voice barely audible above the quiet hum of the room. "No, Zahliver... please do not do this to yourself. It was not your fault at all "

His head snapped violently upward. His eyes were almost completely black now, a dark void swallowing up any remaining light. His fierce wolf was right there on the surface, scratching to get out.

"Yes, it was," he whispered harshly.

"I was just standing out under a tree... and it was raining heavily," I tried desperately to explain, needing to pull him back from the edge.

"I let you walk away alone," he said hoarsely, each agonizing word punching the air right out of between us. "I should have gone with you. I knew the weather outside was bad, but I stayed behind."

"It was just a terrible coincidence," I whispered, tears welling in my eyes. "A horrible one, yes, but you cannot blame yourself for nature "

I moved forward toward him once more.

He stepped back again.

"You are not supposed to be attached to my hip every second of the day," I said, trying my absolute best to steady my trembling voice.

But it was not cold logic that he needed right now. It was undeniable proof. Proof that he had not failed me, proof that I was truly standing right here.

So I dropped straight down to my knees in front of him on the floor.

My hands found his strong shoulders and gripped them firmly, anchoring him to me so he could not run away again.

"You did save me," I said fiercely, looking straight into his tormented eyes. "I am right here. Look at me, Zahliver. I am alive."

His gaze lifted slowly, meeting mine.

And good grief, his face...

It was utterly shattered.

Hot tears tracked steadily down his cheeks like silent confessions of a broken heart. I had never seen him cry like this before in my entire life. I was not even sure I would ever feel anything more painful than watching him fall apart right before my eyes.

"You died, Vivian," he said softly, his voice trembling so much that it sounded like the words themselves broke something vital inside of him.

The breath caught completely in my lungs, stopping dead.

"W-What?" I managed to whisper out, terrified of the answer.

His broad shoulders sagged heavily as his hands slid down from his hair, shaking uncontrollably. Then he reached out and gently took my hands away from his shoulders, cradling them carefully in his own large palms. He brought them slowly up to his lips, closed his eyes tightly, and kissed them over and over again like they were his very last tether to sanity.

Then he pulled in one sharp, ragged breath and exhaled it shakily.

I did not move an inch. I did not dare speak. My body simply would not let me.

His eyes opened again, and there was something ancient and devastated looking back at me.

"I felt you die, Vivian."

My heartbeat stuttered wildly in my chest.

"But " I could not even finish the simple sentence. My lungs refused to work properly. The very idea was too horrific to comprehend.

"You died," he said again, his voice cracked, rough, and raw with pain. He pressed my hands firmly against his own chest, right over the steady, heavy thrum of his beating heart beneath his skin. "Right here. I felt your heartbeat completely vanish from our bond."

His throat worked hard as he tried desperately to hold back more tears, but they spilled over his eyelashes anyway. "I felt the exact moment it stopped beating," he whispered, leaning his forehead against mine. "And it... it completely destroyed me."