[10]

Alaric’s voice was low and deep—yet to me, it cracked like a whip.

The world seemed to stop spinning.

I lowered my head slightly, trying to hide the trembling in my hands. Pain rose inside me, sharp and unrelenting. Every breath I took reminded me of how easily he’d thrown me away, as if I had never mattered. That wound had never truly healed—it had only been buried under silence and time. And now, standing before him again, it was wide open.

“GET HER OUT OF THIS PARTY!”

Lyra’s voice tore through the hall, shrill and furious. All eyes turned toward me.

My body went rigid. Not from fear—but from the familiar ache that crawled from the pit of my stomach to my chest. The remnants of a bond once severed, now pulsing again as if mocking me forever caring.

Once, they’d cast me out—bleeding, weak, and stripped of my child. And now, they were trying to do it again. In front of everyone. As if I were a curse they needed to banish.

“Ah,” Orion’s quiet chuckle broke through the tension, but it fa