Too Late, Alpha. My Silence Was Goodbye Chapter 02

Too Late, Alpha. My Silence Was Goodbye Chapter 02

The clerk at the Lunar Registry recognized Mara and asked her to confirm her decision three separate times.
“Luna, once your blood touches the bond severance deed, the final seventy-two-hour countdown will begin,” the clerk explained. “Either party can withdraw during this period. When the countdown ends, the Lunar Mark will completely disappear, and you and Alpha Lucian will no longer be mates.”
Mara sliced her fingertip and pressed her blood over her printed name. “I know,” she said quietly.
When she returned to the hospital, Lucian was already waiting in her room.
“Where did you go?” he demanded.
His gaze fell on her bloodstained ankle, his voice thick with suppressed anger. Mara didn’t answer and merely leaned her crutches against the bed.
Lucian seemed ready to press the issue, but Selena’s guard arrived with a message. He reported that she had a poor appetite and only wanted to drink the laurel bone broth made personally by Mara.
Mara had just been in a car accident, and her leg was still in a cast.
Lucian fell silent for a few seconds before speaking. “Write the recipe down for me, and I’ll make it.”
That was a recipe Mara had spent 6 years perfecting just for him. Whenever Lucian’s inner wolf grew restless, ordinary food made him nauseous. Mara had scoured old medical texts and experimented dozens of times to brew the flavor that suited him best. In the past, whenever he asked for the recipe, she would always smile and say she would cook it for him for the rest of her life unless they were no longer mates.
This time, she wrote it down quickly and handed it to him.
Lucian stared at the piece of paper, hesitating for a long time before taking it. “That isn’t what you used to say,” he murmured.
“People change,” she replied simply.
He stared at her, as if finally sensing that something was slipping out of his control. However, a second urging from Selena soon arrived, and he left with the recipe in hand.
An hour later, the hospital room door was slammed open.
Lucian grabbed Mara’s wrist, nearly dragging her out of the bed. “Selena threw up blood after drinking the soup,” he snarled, his eyes having already shifted to those of a wolf from sheer fury. “What did you put in the recipe?”
Mara’s injured leg slammed against the edge of the bed, causing the silver shrapnel to flare up in her bones once again. She turned pale from the pain, but she didn’t struggle.
“Send the soup to the lab for testing,” she said.
“I’m asking you,” he growled.
“If it’s poisoned, have the physicians bring the evidence,” Mara said, looking up at him. “If you don’t care about the truth and just need someone to pay the price for Selena’s pain, then there’s no need to waste time.” She offered her other hand to him. “Just punish me.”
Lucian flinched at her words, and his fingers suddenly released her.
This wasn’t the first time Selena had framed her. She would throw herself down a flight of stairs and then cry that Mara didn’t do it on purpose, or she would cut herself at a banquet and plead for Mara. Every time, Lucian claimed he was merely acting on evidence, but he never actually investigated. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see through the lies. He simply refused to let Selena bear any pain, so he had to find someone else to take the fall, and that someone had always been Mara.
“I didn’t say it was definitely you,” Lucian said, his tone softening slightly. “I’m just asking for clarity.”
“You had already made up your mind the moment you walked through that door,” she pointed out.
Mara lay back down and closed her eyes.
Lucian stood by the bed for a long time, unable to bring himself to leave. The quieter she became, the more a sense of panic twisted in his chest. It felt as though a door that had once always been open to him was silently s******g shut, and he didn’t even know when he had lost the chance to stop it.
“Tomorrow is Theo’s funeral,” he finally said. “I’ll come pick you up myself. We can send him off on his final journey together.”
Mara didn’t answer.
The voice of a guard soon echoed from the hallway. “Alpha, Selena is awake. She keeps crying and asking for you.”
Lucian cast one last glance at Mara before finally turning to leave.
The test results for the soup arrived 10 minutes later. There was no poison in it. Selena threw up blood because she had swallowed a bloodthorn berry beforehand, which severely irritated her stomach lining.
Lucian didn’t come back to apologize.