Novel & Cerita Tainted Sorrow

“I’m tying up loose ends. That’s what family does, isn’t it? Protects its legacy. We’ve wiped every trace of your existence—no name, no records, no past. To the world, you don’t exist. Why keep you alive, when you are invisible to the world?” My blood turned cold, but I refused to let him see the fear creeping up my spine. I straightened my shoulders, keeping my gaze locked on his. “You’re a coward, Kirill,” I spat, “Hiding behind your poisons and chains. You couldn’t even finish me off face-to-face. You all are losers and always will be losers” I laughed bitterly.

Or maybe it was me. Lucas stood frozen, unmoving. I took a deep breath and wiped my tears away with trembling fingers. “Even if I were truly guilty, these five years have cost me everything—my parents, my brother, five unborn children, and the betrayal and torment from the man I loved! “No crime, no matter how grave, could demand greater penance! And the truth is, I didn’t kill Grandma!" The sobs tore through me before I forced myself to steady. "I’m exhausted. Now that you’ve seen the truth, just… leave."

His past escapades ran through his mind like a flash and he clutched hard at his heart. He could feel his wife's pain. The disrespect, the humiliation, the heartbreak and betrayal. "Lisa l am sorry, I am indeed not a worthy husband." He muttered. Sleep eluded him, his remorse lingered and his heart ached all through the night.

Just being this close to them made her body remember things that her mind forgot. “Sure, I guess. Lead the way.” She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up, the cold drink sat forgotten on the table. The twins turned and started walking. As Zira started to follow them she turned back toward Kady, whose face was beet red and covered in tears from crying. She held up both middle fingers and mouthed the words you’re an asshole. The twins led her over to the glass railing that overlooked the bottom floor of the library. Zira did her best not to make eye contact with Harper again. It was difficult when she was still down there staring daggers at her. Didn’t she have work to do?

"She was my soul." The profound regret in my veins didn't stay soft for long. As I turned my gaze back to the center of the pavilion, watching Rowan lean down to press a slow, deep kiss against Veda’s temple, the grief mutated. The sorrow curdled into a dark, toxic, and entirely unhinged obsession that flooded my system like a hot poison.

Frost crusted the edges of the reservoir, spreading in fractal patterns that had no business existing this far beneath the earth in early autumn. Thalassa knelt at the water's edge. She did not hesitate. She dipped her fingers into the black, brought them to her lips, and tasted. Her face contorted, not with disgust but with a grief so profound it had no human name. "Death." Her voice trembled, the tide-sound breaking against the cavern walls. "Not recent. Not only Perrin. There are older deaths here, layers of them. The water has been drinking sorrow for years, and something has been feeding on the dregs."

I sobbed, and hiccupped, my body wracked with an onslaught of sobs. My throat burned. My chest ached. I couldn't stop it. I didn’t want to stop it. “I’m sorry…” he whispered, voice hoarse. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, baby.” He leaned down, pressing kisses to my cheeks, my wet lashes, trying to kiss away the devastation he'd caused. His grip on my wrists loosened, almost tender now, as if he suddenly remembered I was something fragile. But I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel the warmth of his lips.

"Before today I could not choose because I did not know the door existed." "And Marcus Harmon," he said. "Is a man who made a cowardly decision at forty-two and has been carrying it with considerable guilt for thirty-two years," she said. "He is not my father in any way that requires me to restructure my history. He is a man who contributed to my existence and then contributed to a trust that my mother never touched and who has been watching me from a guilty distance for longer than I have known about it." She paused. "I think in time he may become something. I do not know what. I am not going to decide in advance."

ARTEMIS POV I banged the door shut behind me, my chest rising and falling as I rested against the door. The picture of Aiden and that woman tangled together in the guest room was burned into my mind, an unending cycle that wouldn’t stop. “Wow,” I murmured, my tone trembling and bitter. “Just… wow.” I walked around the room, my hands shaking as rage and sorrow battled for control. A part of me felt like shouting until my throat was sore, to storm around the house and demand explanations. Yet another part of me—the part that still mattered—was too shattered to act.

The following days blurred into a haze of despair. Castelle didn't leave her room. She lay in bed, the sheets growing damp with her tears, her body trembling with the weight of her grief. She didn't eat, didn't drink, didn't shower. The thought of Kane consumed her—his touch, his scent, the way he'd look at her with those piercing eyes that stripped her bare. "He owned me," she thought, over and over, the words a loop in her mind. She'd hurt him again and again, and yet he'd shown her mercy. She didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve him. The pain was relentless, a storm that raged inside her, leaving her exhausted and hollow.