Too Late, Alpha. My Silence Was Goodbye Chapter 08

Too Late, Alpha. My Silence Was Goodbye Chapter 08

The Northstar Hall fell completely silent at those words. Lucian acted as if he didn’t notice the gazes around them. He pulled a dark blue velvet box from his chest pocket and dropped to one knee in front of Mara. Inside the box wasn’t their old wedding ring, but rather a bond ring carved entirely from a single moonstone.

“I know I don’t have the right to ask you to forget,” he said. “But I’m willing to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Come back to me, and I’ll swear to the Moon Goddess again. From now on, I’ll choose you before anyone else.”

Three months ago, Mara might have cried upon hearing those words. Now, she only found them deeply ironic.

“You still don’t understand,” she replied.

“I do understand,” he insisted. “I shouldn’t have saved Selena, I shouldn’t have made you take the blame, and I shouldn’t have let my mother hurt you.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Mara interrupted him. “You think you merely made a few mistakes, and that as long as you lock Selena up, punish your mother, and kneel before me one more time, everything can go back to the way it was.”

She looked down at him.

“But I didn’t leave because Selena lied to you. I left because every time a choice had to be made, you were the one making the decision. When she said she was afraid of the thunderstorm, you left me alone in an empty room on our wedding night to sleep by her side until dawn. When she cut herself at the banquet, you punished me without any investigation. She clearly knew how to swim, yet you still saved her first. And after Theo died, you made the entire pack treat me like a murderer. She didn’t force you to do any of those things. Lucian, the person who truly destroyed everything between us has always been you.”

He remained kneeling there, his lips moving a few times, but he couldn’t form a single complete sentence. Mara walked past him.

Suddenly, a scream rang out from the entrance of the hall. Two guards collapsed in a cloud of silver dust as Selena burst in, wearing Ophelia’s cloak. She had clearly just escaped from the Lunar Prison, with broken wolf-binding shackles still dangling from her wrists.

“Did you think you won just by leaving the Blackthorn territory?” she shrieked. Drawing a silver blade, she lunged straight at Mara.

Lucian jerked up, but he was too far away. Selena had already thrust the knife toward Mara’s

chest.

Mara sidestepped to avoid the sharp edge and grabbed her wrist. Three months of silver venom research had made her more acutely aware of how to avoid silver weapons than anyone else, and she also knew exactly where a werewolf was most vulnerable.

The two of them crashed into a lab table. Selena’s face was completely twisted with jealousy. “If Theo hadn’t died, you never would have left him. That’s why I slashed his life jacket and deliberately led him into the waves.”

Mara’s movements paused for a split second. Taking advantage of the opening, Selena shoved the silver blade toward her heart.

“I just didn’t expect that Lucian would abandon his own son, yet still fail to keep you!” she

sneered.

The moment the tip of the knife pierced her white robe, Mara locked her grip around Selena’s hand and violently reversed its direction. The silver blade plunged right into Selena’s heart. Her eyes widened in shock, as if she couldn’t believe she was actually going to die.

Mara leaned in close to her ear, her voice barely a whisper. “That was for Theo.”

The silver venom rapidly crawled across Selena’s skin. Her inner wolf only had time to let out a single whimper before her body crashed heavily to the floor.

Lucian stood a few steps away. There was no grief on his face, only a delayed, absolute breakdown. So that life jacket hadn’t been torn by the reef, and Theo never had a chance of making it back alive from the very beginning. Yet in those few critical seconds when his son could have been saved, he had still chosen the murderer.

The High Council quickly took over the scene. Because she had helped Selena break out of prison and attack the sanctuary, Ophelia was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Elder Council of the Blackthorn pack also officially removed Lucian from his position, electing Freya to become the new Alpha.

Lucian lost his pack, his power, and his family inheritance. Yet he still stood in front of Mara, stubbornly asking, “If I give you everything I have left, won’t you just look at me one more time?”

Mara looked past him at the corpse covered by a white cloth.

“When I return to the Blackthorn territory, I only want to take Theo’s burial urn with me,” she said coldly. “From now on, whatever you lose has nothing to do with me.”