Too Late, Alpha. My Silence Was Goodbye Chapter 10

Too Late, Alpha. My Silence Was Goodbye Chapter 10

Lucian didn’t immediately raise the gun.

“Sign a contract first,” Mara said. “Regardless of the outcome, your lawyer must hand over Theo’s burial urn. No one is allowed to move, withhold, or use his remains ever again.”

Lucian signed the document without hesitation. For the last bargain of his life, he finally returned their son to her. Afterward, he pressed the muzzle of the gun against his temple.

“Mara, the first time I saw you was at the Lunar Festival at the academy,” he murmured. “Everyone else was looking at me, but you were the only one crouching by the road to save an injured wolf pup.”

She didn’t answer him.

“I should have known right then that you were more precious than anyone I had ever met,” he added softly.

He pulled the trigger, and a sharp click echoed through the room. It was an empty chamber in the cylinder.

Lucian closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, a faint glimmer of hope had actually surfaced in his gaze.

“On the day we formed our bond, you asked me if I would always choose you first,” he recalled, his voice tinged with regret. “I promised I would, but I didn’t manage to do it even

once.”

He pulled the trigger a second time, but it was just another empty click. His hand began to tremble, knowing there was only one last chance remaining.

Mara suddenly remembered the day Theo fell into the water, a day when Lucian also had a single choice to make. Back then, their son had cried out for his father amid the crashing waves. Lucian knew perfectly well that Selena could save herself, yet he still swam toward her first. Now, no one was here to make the decision for him.

“Mara,” he said, looking at her with a voice as light as a sigh. “If there’s a next time, I promise I will choose you and Theo first.”

“There isn’t going to be a next time,” she replied coldly.

Lucian offered a sad, resigned smile. “You’re right. There isn’t.”

He pulled the trigger for the final time, and the loud crack of a gunshot shattered the silence.

The pure silver bullet pierced his temple, killing him before his inner wolf even had the chance to let out a final howl. Lucian collapsed to the floor with his eyes wide open, as if he were still waiting in death for a forgiveness that would never come.

Mara didn’t shed a single tear.

Three days later, the lawyer handed over Theo’s burial urn in accordance with the contract. Lucian had hidden it beneath the laurel tree where they first met. He probably thought that since it was where their love began, it should also be the place where they started over.

Mara didn’t leave Theo buried there.

She took the ashes back to the Northern Reach and buried her son in the cedar forest behind the Northstar Sanctuary. There was no Blackthorn surname there, no glory of an Alpha, and no one to ever again demand that a dead child pay the price for an adult’s choices.

Only one sentence was carved onto the tombstone.

“Theo Vale, Mommy will always choose you first.”

When the first snow fell over the Northern Reach, Mara stepped back into her laboratory. Two years later, her silver venom research successfully cured thousands of injured werewolves. People respectfully called her the chief physician of Northstar, and some even invited her to serve as the Luna of their own packs.

She politely declined them all, as she no longer needed to stand beside any Alpha to prove

her own worth.

Many years later, Freya asked her if she had ever thought about stopping Lucian, even for just a split second, at the moment of his death.

Mara thought about it for a long time before giving her answer. “No.”

She had once tried to make him stay with tears, arguments, and countless acts of forgiveness. But when she finally grew quiet, Lucian foolishly believed it was just a temper tantrum that would end sooner or later. It took him the loss of a son, a mate, a pack, and his very own life to finally understand a simple truth. A woman doesn’t always leave with screams and slammed doors, because sometimes, silence itself was the final goodbye.