Chapter 5: Broken Marriage

The silence that followed Darius’s words was heavier than anything Lyra had ever endured.

“I want to dissolve the Blood Oath.”

The sentence did not fade. It lingered in the air, embedding itself into her thoughts, repeating itself in an endless loop until it no longer felt like words but like a final judgment.

And strangely, she wasn’t surprised.

Not truly.

Some part of her had always known this moment was waiting at the edge of their story, ever since the night their marriage began under cold ceremony lights and heavier expectations. She had seen it even then—in the distant look in Darius Blackthorne’s eyes as he placed the ceremonial bond ring on her finger, a man fulfilling duty while his heart belonged elsewhere.

This marriage had never been love. It had been obligation wrapped in silence.

Duty toward the scandal that nearly destroyed two bloodlines. Duty toward the child that came from it. Duty toward the expectations of a Dominion that demanded order above all else.

And now Selene had returned.

The woman who had never truly left his heart.

Lyra’s fingers curled tightly at her sides, nails pressing into her palms as if pain could anchor her. Her chest tightened until breathing felt uneven, but she refused to let any of it show.

Not in front of him.

Not anymore.

“So that’s it?” she asked quietly.

Darius stood across the kitchen, motionless. Moonlight stretched across the marble floor between them like a frozen river neither of them had the strength to cross.

“This isn’t sudden, Lyra,” he said at last.

A hollow laugh almost escaped her throat, but she swallowed it down.

Of course it wasn’t sudden. She had lived ten years inside a slow ending. Every distant glance, every restrained touch, every moment he treated her like a responsibility instead of a wife had been a quiet preparation for this.

Knowing it didn’t soften the blow when it finally came.

Her voice remained steady, almost unnaturally calm.

“This is because Selene came back.”

Darius’s jaw tightened immediately.

“No.”

The word came too fast, too sharp, as though it had been pulled from instinct rather than truth.

Lyra studied him carefully.

For a brief moment, something flickered across his expression—frustration, guilt, something conflicted and raw—but not denial. Not the kind that holds certainty.

“She has nothing to do with this decision,” he said more carefully, as if correcting himself. “Regulus’s death made me realize something.”

Lyra crossed her arms, guarding herself without even thinking.

“And what did you realize?”

His gaze dropped briefly before lifting again.

“That we’ve wasted enough years already.”

The words landed with quiet violence.

Wasted years.

Not painful years. Not complicated years.

Wasted.

As though everything they had endured, everything they had built in silence and survival, meant nothing more than a mistake stretched too long.

Something inside Lyra cracked without sound.

And then she laughed.

It slipped out before she could stop it, sharp and uneven, startling even her.

Darius frowned slightly. “Lyra—”

“No,” she cut in quickly, still laughing under her breath. “It’s fine. Really, I just…” Her voice trembled, betraying her more than she intended. “I think it’s funny.”

Because what else was left?

Cry?

Beg?

Drag out what was already ending just to prove she still had the right to feel something?

Her eyes slowly lifted to him.

The man she had once loved without understanding what love even demanded in return. The boy she had watched from a distance during training ceremonies, pretending not to notice how the world bent toward him. The Alpha every noble woman had once dreamed of standing beside.

And the man who had spent ten years proving she was never the one he chose.

What a cruel, quiet joke life had written for her.

“I should have left years ago,” she said suddenly.

Darius’s brows tightened. “What?”

“The night everything happened,” she continued, gaze drifting toward the darkened window. “I should have disappeared before anyone discovered I was pregnant.”

The air in the room shifted.

Darius’s body stiffened instantly. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” she asked softly, turning back to him. “Wouldn’t your life have been easier?”

Silence answered her.

And that silence said more than anything else ever could.

A dull ache spread through her chest, slow and familiar, but she refused to bend under it again. Instead, she straightened slightly, forcing herself into stillness.

No more pleading. No more reaching for something that would never reach back.

“If this is ending,” she said carefully, “then I’m taking Elias with me.”

The change in him was immediate.

“No.”

One word. Final. Absolute.

Lyra’s pulse jumped.

“He is my son.”

“He is my heir,” Darius corrected coldly.

The words struck like a slap.

Something sharp and furious broke through her grief.

“He is not a title for your Dominion to inherit,” she snapped, voice rising. “He’s a child.”

“And he belongs here.”

“No.” She shook her head, refusing to accept it. “I won’t let him grow up in a house where his parents look at each other like strangers.”

Darius’s gaze narrowed slightly.

“I don’t hate you.”

The words came quietly.

Too quietly.

For a moment, Lyra froze.

Then she let out a short, broken laugh that held no humor at all.

“That might be the cruelest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Because hatred would have been easier to survive. Hatred still meant feeling something.

But what Darius gave her was worse.

A carefully maintained emptiness. A distance so controlled it never allowed room for hope or closure.

“