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Home / Werewolf / After I Died, I Became The Alpha's Greatest Regret / Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

All Chapters of After I Died, I Became The Alpha's Greatest Regret: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

100 Chapters

71

Chapter 71Darius POVRylan showed up at my bedroom door at seven in the morning. I hadn't slept. I was sitting on the edge of my bed in the same pants from last night‚ no shirt‚ my eyes burning from staring at the ceiling for four hours straight."He agreed‚" Rylan said from the doorway.I looked up."Theo Stone. He'll meet you today. Noon. There's a restaurant on neutral ground‚ halfway between your territory and his. Private back room." Rylan paused‚ studying my face with the careful look of a man who knew his Alpha was barely holding it together. "You sure about this?""Give me the address."He did. Then he left. I got dressed‚ put on a suit because meeting Theo Stone in anything less would feel like showing up to a war without armor‚ and I drove myself. ---The restaurant was expensive and empty. Theo had rented out the entire back room‚ which meant he didn't want witnesses either. Good. That made two of us.I walked in and he was already there‚ sitting at a table near the windo

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Chapter 72Darius povHe looked at me for a long time. Long enough that the silence started pressing against my eardrums. Long enough that my wolf started growling low and steady in my chest‚ agitated by the lack of answer‚ agitated by the calm in this man's eyes when everything inside me was on fire."Let me ask you something‚" Theo said finally. "If — hypothetically — a woman had been tortured for years by the man who was supposed to protect her. If that woman had been raped. Had her blood drained from her body over and over until she was barely alive. Had her child taken from her arms and been told she wasn't fit to be a mother. Had been left to bleed out on an operating table while the man she loved ordered for her death." He paused‚ letting every word land like a blade between my ribs. "If that woman somehow survived all of that... what exactly would you offer her?"I opened my mouth. Nothing came out."More pain?" Theo continued‚ his voice dropping lower‚ quieter‚ more dangerous

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Chapter 73Celeste POVI was halfway past the pack border when Aurora's face hit me like a punch to the chest.Her small hands gripping my shirt.“Promise you won't leave again‚ Mama. Promise on the moon."And I had promised‚ but now I was breaking that promise again."Stop the car‚" I told the driver.He glanced at me through the rearview mirror. "Ma'am?""I said stop the car."He pulled over to the side of the road and I sat there in the backseat with my hands shaking in my lap while a single tear slid down my cheek. I wiped it away fast with the back of my hand because showing emotion now was still something I couldn't afford.I had heard him. Darius talking to Rylan‚ his voice low and serious as if he was planning something that couldn't wait. "Set a meeting with Theo Stone. Tomorrow. Make it happen."And just like that‚ panic had swallowed me whole.Because Theo wasn't just my ally. Theo was my everything. My protector. My ride or die. The man who had pulled me off that operating

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Chapter 74CELESTE'S POVHis mouth crushed mine and my brain went blank.I stopped thinking. I stopped fighting. My fingers fisted his shirt and I pulled him closer instead of pushing him away and a sound left my throat that I didn't recognize. He kissed me like he was angry and starving and desperate all at once‚ his tongue pushing past my lips while his hand tightened on my neck just enough to remind me who was in control.He pulled back and his eyes were gold. Full gold. His wolf was right there at the surface staring down at me."You tried to leave me‚" he said against my mouth. "You packed a bag and walked out of my house.""Darius—""No." His grip on my neck shifted to my jaw‚ tilting my face up. "You don't get to run from me. Not anymore‚ Celeste."He kissed me again before I could respond. Harder this time. His other arm wrapped around my waist and lifted me off the ground like I weighed nothing and my legs wrapped around him on instinct. He carried me down the hallway with hi

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Chapter 75Celeste POVThe room smelled like us. Like sex.I lay there staring at the ceiling while his breathing slowed beside me. His warmth radiated from his side of the bed and I could still feel him on my skin‚ inside me‚ everywhere‚ as if he had seeped into my pores and I would never be clean again.This was not supposed to happen.I was Sienna. I was the contract Luna. I was not supposed to end up back in this man's bed with my walls in pieces on the floor and my body still humming from what he did to it.I waited until his breathing was deep and even. Then I slid out from under the sheets as quietly as I could‚ my legs still shaking as my feet touched the cold floor. My sleep shirt was in ruins on the ground where he'd ripped it so I grabbed his shirt from the floor and pulled it on with trembling hands. My underwear was somewhere across the room and I wasn't going to crawl around looking for it. I just needed to get out.I padded to the door and wrapped my fingers around the

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Chapter 76Darius POVI stayed on the floor long after she ran out.Her crying carried down the hallway and every sound she made was gutting me from the inside out. My wolf was clawing at my chest‚ howling in a way that had nothing to do with anger. Mate is hurting. We did this. We did this to her.I got up eventually and walked to her door. I didn't knock. I didn't demand anything. I just sat down on the floor beside it and leaned my head back against the wall."I'm here‚" I said. "I'm not leaving. You don't have to open the door and you don't have to talk to me. But I'm not going anywhere."She didn't respond. I could still hear her crying on the other side‚ muffled now as if she was trying to hold it in‚ and that was somehow worse than when she let it out.I sat there for what felt like an hour. Maybe longer. My back was stiff and the floor was cold and I didn't care about any of it because the only thing that mattered was behind that door.Then the lock clicked.The door opened ju

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Chapter 77Celeste POV"You can't‚ Darius."His fingers twitched around mine but he didn't let go. He was looking at me with those wrecked eyes as if holding my hand was the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely."You can't earn it back‚" I said. I pulled my hand from his because I needed him to hear this without the comfort of touching me. "Trust isn't even the right word for what you broke. I don't even know if forgiveness exists for what you did to me." A hollow laugh escaped my throat before I could stop it. "You talk about earning it back as if this is something that can be fixed. As if there's some version of the future where I look at you and don't remember the sound of your voice sentencing me to death."I couldn't stop talking.Once the first word came out‚ the rest followed like something inside me had split open and everything I'd held in for three years was pouring out whether I wanted it to or not. I wasn't even looking at him anymore. I was looking at the

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Chapter 78Darius POV"I'm not going to justify any of it‚" I said. My voice was wrecked and I didn't try to fix it. "There's nothing I can say that makes any of it okay. But you told me your side and I need you to hear mine. Not to excuse it. Just so you know what happened after."She didn't tell me to stop so I kept going."I found out it was you three hours after the extraction order." I wiped my face with the back of my hand but the tears kept coming. "A nurse came out of the operating room and she said your name on a chart and I didn't understand at first. I just stood there staring at her like she was speaking a different language. That was when I realised what I had done.”She was watching me now. "They told me you didn't make it. That the extraction took too much and your body gave out on the table." I pressed my palms against my thighs. "I drove to Theo's territory for the funeral. His entire pack was there and they knew what I did. They surrounded me the second I stepped ou

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Chapter 79Celeste POVThe pendant was warm in my palm.I closed my fingers around it and felt the smooth surface‚ the tiny engraving of our names on the back‚ and I thought about what was inside it.Ashes. Whoever's ashes they were because they certainly weren't mine. Theo must have fabricated them or used remains from somewhere else to make the urn convincing. I was alive and breathing and sitting right next to the man who had worn a dead woman around his neck for three years and talked to her every night and warmed her with his own body heat as if love could reach through death.It should have disturbed me. It should have made me pull back and question his sanity and maybe my own for sitting here listening to all of this. But instead something broke loose inside my chest. Something I had been keeping wired shut with sheer willpower for three years‚ and I felt it give way and I couldn't stop it.I wasn't crying. I was past crying. This was something else entirely. A surrender of som

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Chapter 80Celeste POVI woke up before him.The room was filled with early morning light and for a moment I forgot where I was and who was behind me. Then I felt the weight on the other side of the mattress and everything from last night came rushing back.I turned slowly‚ careful not to shift the bed too much.Darius was still on his side‚ curled in a way that seemed uncomfortable‚ as if he had been afraid to make himself too comfortable in a space that wasn't fully offered to him. One hand was stretched across the gap between us‚ his fingers reaching toward my side of the bed as if he had tried to touch me in his sleep but stopped himself before making contact.I looked at his face. The dark circles under his eyes were deep‚ almost bruised looking. Lines sat around his mouth and forehead that weren't there three years ago. His brow was furrowed even now‚ as if whatever he was dreaming about wasn't giving him any peace either. This was not the same Darius who had coldly ordered a bl

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