Chapter 9: A Fragment of Memory

Merin’s body became an empty shell. Her mind shattered into tiny pieces that could never be put back together again. Lisena’s lesson under the candlelight had left an invisible wound, but one that was far deeper and more painful than Aries’s whip marks. It was the wound of betrayal. The fragile trust she had just begun to build had been crushed beyond repair.

After that night, Lisena resumed her role as the kind angel. She treated Merin with a gentleness that was even more seamless than before, as if the cruel events in the suite had never happened.

“Are you hurt anywhere, my love?” Lisena asked in a concerned voice the next morning, as she was applying expensive lotion to Merin’s skin. “I might have been a bit rough last night… but I just wanted you to know pleasure in all its forms.”

Merin didn’t answer. She just sat still, letting the female Alpha stroke her body. Her eyes stared past her reflection in the mirror into the emptiness behind. She didn’t believe… she didn’t believe anything anymore. But she had no strength to resist or defy. Submission became her only armor.

Her life became a grand play directed by two female Alphas. Lisena was the false light that offered a deceptive warmth, while Aries was the shadow that dragged her back to the harsh reality of the night.

The accumulated confusion and pain began to take a severe toll on Merin’s mental state. She couldn’t sleep… or whenever she managed to close her eyes, she would be awakened by recurring nightmares.

And one night… that nightmare took on a different form.

…The air was so cold it seeped into her bones. The hard concrete floor made her whole body ache. A seven-year-old Merin sat hugging her knees, tucked away in a corner of the dormitory in an orphanage. She was sobbing quietly, trying not to make a sound that would disturb the other children who were all asleep.

Her stomach growled with hunger. The last piece of bread she had saved had been snatched by an older kid that evening, who had also pushed her down, scraping her knee.

“This is what happens to weaklings.” The older kid’s voice still echoed in her ears.

The feeling of loneliness and worthlessness ate away at her little heart. No one loved her. No one wanted her. She was just a burden to this world…

Suddenly… she felt a shadow fall over her. When she looked up with teary eyes, she saw another girl standing in front of her. That girl had hair as bright silver as the moonlight streaming through the window. Her cold, gray eyes stared at her silently. In that girl’s hands were two pieces of bread… one was hers that had been snatched, and the other… was probably the girl’s own.

The silver-haired girl said nothing. She just squatted down in front of Merin and handed her both pieces of bread, before getting up and walking back to her own bed on the other side of the room, leaving Merin sitting there, stunned.

The next day, the older kid who had bullied Merin had a bruise at the corner of his mouth. And after that day… no one dared to bully her again.

That silver-haired girl never spoke to her, but she always appeared whenever Merin needed silent help. She was a nameless protector, a shadow that dispelled the darkness…

Merin jolted awake in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat. Her heart was pounding as if it would leap out of her chest. That memory… it was as clear as if it had happened yesterday.

Who was she? That silver-haired girl…

Merin tried to go back to sleep, but the image of that girl kept circling in her head, until the next morning. As she was spacing out in the living room, Aries came down from upstairs in her usual impeccably smart work attire.

And in that instant… everything stood still.

The morning sunlight streaming through the large window fell upon Aries’s silver hair, making it shine the same color as the hair of the girl in her dream… those cold, smoke-gray eyes… they were the same pair of eyes.

“It can’t be…” Merin murmured to herself faintly.

Her whole world spun. The missing memories began to piece themselves together into a hazy picture. Aries… the woman who violated her every night, the woman who had bought her as a toy, was the same person as the girl who had protected her in the past?

The thought made her nauseous. It was impossible… it had to be just a dream. Or her mind was playing tricks on her from the overwhelming pain she had endured.

Throughout the day, Merin secretly watched Aries from a distance. She tried to find a fragment of that girl in the cold Alpha, but found nothing… not even a trace. The Aries of today was a perfect demon, a raging, heartless blizzard. There was no sign of that knight in the shadows left.

A fierce conflict arose in Merin’s heart. If it was true… what had happened to her? Why had she changed so much? And why didn’t she remember Merin at all? Or did she remember… but was intentionally hurting her?

A million questions popped into her head, but there were no answers.

That night, when Aries entered her room as usual, Merin looked at her with different eyes. It was no longer just a look of fear, but a look filled with confusion, pain, and a silent question.

Aries noticed the change. She raised an eyebrow slightly in surprise, but said nothing. She continued to treat Merin as she did every night.

…Violent, raw, and merciless.

But while her body was being violated, Merin’s mind drifted back to the past. The image of the silver-haired girl superimposed on the figure of the Alpha above her. The physical pain was replaced by a deeper pain in her heart.

Why… why did it have to be you…

A single tear rolled silently from the corner of her eye… the first tear she had shed for Aries. Not because of physical pain, but because of the newly discovered fragment of memory… a memory that could hurt her more than any wound she had ever received in her life.