Tainted Sorrow Novels & Stories

Brian asked me as he sat beside me while Owen stood on my other side. “I don’t think so,” I whispered. “You loved the baby, too. Just because it wasn’t yours doesn’t mean you can’t mourn for her or him.” Owen uttered. “This is the second time I have lost a child.” I closed my eyes tightly. “When my baby died in that accident that night, I drowned myself in alcohol, locked in my apartment, living at the mercy of the hard liquor. Tears didn’t stop coming as there was a burn all over my body. Mostly near my heart.” I pointed at my heart. “Today I am feeling the same thing. The burn this time is more severe than before, and that’s making it hard for me to breathe.”

The shadows of pain that danced across her expressive eyes were mirrored in my own remorseful gaze. In the fragile silence, her tears forged a path down her cheeks, each droplet carrying the burden of accumulated anguish. It was a poignant dance of sorrow, a symphony of vulnerability that resonated through the room. I felt an ache in my chest, an empathetic echo of her suffering. As the first tear spilled over the precipice of her lashes, I could no longer remain a passive observer. With a tenderness that matched the fragility of her emotional state, I enveloped her in my arms, creating a haven where vulnerability was not condemned but embraced.

So many nights I have wondered if anyone would shed a drop of tear, genuinely, at my depart and here I am, blessed with such a pure soul’ Zaden held Selena's shoulder, struggling to hold back his own tears. ‘I even had an opportunity to redeem myself for what I have done to Elisa by saving her rebirth, our own daughter. I feel complete. She will forgive me, I know it deep inside. Thank you, my dear angel’ with that, Ozrain's struggle came to an end. His writhing stopped. His eyes froze. He is still holding tight to Selena's hand. The vein has turned almost half of his face black.

DAMON'S POV The doctor’s voice was devoid of emotion, yet there was weight behind every word he spoke. His explanation came slowly, as though each syllable was a burden he hesitated to deliver. “They’re called taints,” he said, his gaze fixed but weary. “Marks of betrayal. Every time you share yourself with someone else, it stains the bond. And Velara—she’s your bond. That means every one of your encounters doesn’t just hurt her; it brands her. Deeply. Irreparably.”

My hands shake as I stare at what used to be my back, its now a ruined mess of angry red ridges and thick, ropey scars crisscrossing like a roadmap to hell. ‘I’m sorry, Z. Because it happened before I arrived, there’s only so much I could do. The silver and wolfsbane made it worse,’ Zanthe’s voice is quiet in my mind, filled with a sadness that mirrors my own. She feels guilty, but this isn’t her fault.

They dragged them backward out of the room, exposing their public disgrace to the entire fine-dining establishment. The heavy doors clicked shut, leaving the private suite wrapped in a beautiful, peaceful silence once more. Brooklyn looked deep into Jason’s eyes with profound sadness, the fire in her expression melting into pure softness, and she murmured, “I am so sorry for your loss, Jason.” At her gentle words, the lethal, suffocating aura Jason had been weaponizing against Preston and Vivica vanished instantly. A profound vulnerability softened his features, and his chest tightened with an emotion he hadn't felt in three long years.

His wolf’s heartbeat underneath, steadier now, reaching toward my touch the way roots reach toward water. I hadn’t considered this. Through all the hate and the deal-making and the cold eyes, I hadn’t once considered that Tarn was also grieving. That we were both orphans of the same war. That the conspiracy that killed my mother had also taken his father, and he’d been carrying that weight alone the same way I’d been carrying mine. “The people who killed your mother are the same people who are poisoning me,” he said. His gray eyes found mine. His father’s eyes. But not cold. Not this time. This time what I saw behind them was something I recognized because I’d been wearing it for five years.

“Protect you? I wanted you gone. Every time you smiled at dinner, every time you called my mother ‘Mom,’ it was like a knife. So I made sure you knew you didn’t belong.” The confession hung between them, raw and heavy. For the first time, Elena saw the broken boy beneath the arrogant man. The grief he had carried alone for so long. She reached out instinctively, touching his arm. “I’m sorry, Cassian. I never wanted to hurt you.”

He stopped trying to hold himself together. Tala pulled his body flush against hers in the warm, churning depth of the spring, her legs wrapping securely around his hips as she guided him into a slow, breathless union. The ripples of the pool slapped quietly against the dark stone walls, echoing the rhythmic, heavy cadence of their breathing. She met his desperate, fiercely passionate movements with an open, loving surrender, letting him take whatever he needed to drown out the echoes of his family's sins. Locked in the dark, steaming sanctuary of the depths, Soren finally let the tears fall, his grief completely washed away by the saving grace of her touch and the unyielding anchor of her e

I love him, and I am broken by him, and I no longer know where the boundary lies between love and destruction. An iron hand around my heart loosens, giving way to an acute, sharp pain that is simply sadness. An immense, oceanic sadness. For him. For me. For what we were. For what we have become: two ghosts washing each other in a tomb of white tile. A sob shakes me. Muffled, stifled by the water and the shame. Then another. AURACIO The sobs. They are not loud. They are silent shudders that run along her back beneath my hands. My queen is crying. Finally. Not rage, not disgust. Sadness. A pure, desperate sadness.