It's Okay To Cry

The room froze. Maids near the walls retreated a step, unsure whether to help or disappear, their faces caught somewhere between pity and alarm.

Issac didn't reach for her. Instead, he let his own spoon slip deliberately from his fingers, letting it clatter against the floor beside hers.

The sound made Elena's head snap toward him.

He bent down slowly, and picked it up. "It's okay," he said, calm and even. "It's just a spoon. We can get another one."

She stared at him blankly, chest still heaving. "But I made it dirty," she mumbled, voice hollow. "A worthless trash like me doesn't deserve—"

He didn't let her finish. He crossed the space between them and pulled her gently into him. She flinched at first, bracing for impact but none came. Only warmth, the kind her body seemed to recognize even through the fog of everything broken inside her.

"You are not worthless, Elena." His voice was low, steady. "Neither are you trash." A pause. "You are my mate. Issac Hazelgrey's mate. Not trash."

 

The word mate detonated something inside her.

Damian's voice rose up first, warped and cruel, if you had given me an heir, then Marla's, then the sound of the whip, then laughter, layers of it, stacking over each other until she couldn't tell where memory ended and the present began.

"I'm not your mate!!" she screamed, thrashing against his hold. "I'm nothing but trash!!"

She had sworn, somewhere in that cage, never to accept that title again. It had never protected her before. Issac didn't fight her panic, instead, he let his Lycan presence unfold around them both, and the world shifted.

Suddenly there was grass beneath her knees, endless and soft, gold sunlight pouring over rolling fields. Butterflies drifted lazily between wildflowers. The dining hall was gone entirely — and to Elena, none of it felt like illusion, it was a beautiful reality.

She stared around her, stunned into stillness, as Issac knelt in front of her and took her hands.

"You are not worthless, Elena. And I am not the man who did this to you." His eyes held hers, unflinching. "I don't know everything you've survived, and I won't pretend I do. I can't promise you everything is fine. But I can promise you this — you are safe with me. I will protect you." He paused. "You are home, Elena."

Home.

The word settled somewhere so deep inside her that it reached a place she had forgotten still existed. She had been an orphan once, a lonely little girl who had spent every day wondering what it felt like to belong to someone. She had been beautiful enough to catch the attention of Alphas far above her station, but beauty had never given her a home. It had only made her easier to possess.

All she had ever wanted was one place where she could stop being afraid. One place where she didn't have to earn the right to exist.

Damian had given her that dream... only to destroy it with his own hands.

She wanted to reject Issac's words. She wanted to tell herself they couldn't be true.

She didn't have the strength left to fight them.

Issac stepped forward and wrapped both arms around her, holding her with a gentleness so careful it was as though he feared she might shatter beneath his touch.

"Let me be your home, Elena," he whispered, his voice trembling with emotion. "Let me be your safe place."

Something inside her finally gave way, years of fear, humiliation, loneliness, and silent suffering erupted all at once. A broken cry tore from her throat before she buried her face against his chest, clutching his shirt with desperate fingers until the fabric wrinkled beneath her grip.

Her entire body shook violently as sob after sob ripped through her, each one sounding more painful than the last, as though every tear carried another piece of the woman she had been forced to bury just to survive.

"Why..." she choked between gasps, barely able to breathe. "Why... why did they do this to me?"

Her voice cracked into a scream that echoed through the hall.

"What did I do wrong? Tell me... what did I do wrong? Why wasn't I enough? Why... why did they hate me so much?"

 

The illusion around them quietly dissolved, the peaceful meadow fading until only the dining hall remained.

No one spoke.

The maids stood frozen where they were. Issac held her tighter, one hand gently cradling the back of her head as she cried against him.

"It's okay, Elena," he whispered, his own eyes burning. "Let it out. You were never the one who was broken. You were never the one who deserved any of it. They were."

She cried until her voice became hoarse, until her tears soaked through his shirt, until exhaustion stole the strength even to sob.

Hours passed.

One by one, Victoria quietly ushered the maids from the room, closing the doors behind them. Elena slept for over a day straight.

Worried, Issac summoned the royal physician, Doctor Alfred Blackwood. After a long examination, Alfred sighed. "She's fine, my lord. Sleep is the body's remedy for trauma this severe."

 

"Twenty-four hours isn't normal, Alfred."

"Bring in another expert, they'll tell you the same," Alfred said patiently. "She's retreating to heal. It takes time."

"And her scars?" Issac pressed. "She's a wolf. It's been four days — shouldn't they be healing faster?"

Alfred's expression sobered. "Because she's lost her connection to her wolf nature."

"Impossible."

"Wolves aren't Lycans, my lord. Female wolves only access their nature through a bond with their companion. If that bond breaks—" he hesitated, "—they lose the connection. They become, essentially, human. And humans in her condition don't live long."

 

Fury rolled off Issac in a wave that pressed the air flat. "Are you telling me my mate will die?"

 

"There's a solution," Alfred said quickly. "Mark her. Your bond may restore the connection." He paused, adjusting his coat. "But you are a rare Lycan, my lord — the highest tier that exists. She is only a wolf. I cannot promise she'll survive a bond with someone of your strength."