Violet

They looked at their companions’ crumpled forms in the sand. Then at me. Then at each other.

Slowly, they started to slink backward. They were not running yet, but some of their ears were flat, their tails low, and the aggression had drained from a lot of their postures entirely.

They paused at a distance, clearly unsure. Some looked toward Palisa, searching for an order.

What were they doing?

They had no right!

They were retreating now? After killing Bei?!

No, I would not—

A few glanced at Damon and my attention slowly drifted to him.

He stood apart from the others, his body tense, his face ashen. He was watching the carnage around him with the expression of a wolf who had just realized the ground beneath his feet was crumbling.

I stared at him, breathing hard.

My neck was still raw, still tender, but the wound had sealed. Blood soaked the front of my shirt and dried in streaks down my collarbone.

I wasn’t tired. Not even close.

But I was so angry it felt like my bones were vibrating.

Damon must have seen something in my face because he shifted. His wolf form dissolved, bones cracking and reshaping until he stood before me in his human skin, his hands raised.

"Stand down," he called out, his voice carrying across the clearing despite the slight tremor running through it. "We have no intention of killing you."

His eyes darted to the dead wolves at my feet, then back to my face. He swallowed hard.

"We just need you to come back with us. That’s all. No one else has to die."

I stared at him.

Then I laughed.

The painful sound tore out of me, raw and jagged. Damon flinched like I had hit him.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

"Come back with you?" I wiped the blood from my neck with the back of my hand, smearing it across my skin. "You show up here with them and kill my friend! And you want me to—" I shook my head with a groan, my eyes watering.

This bastard.

After all the pain he caused me, I was seeing his stupid face again.

I did not understand why, but something caused my chest to tighten.

Rejecting me would never be enough, would it?

He had sent his wolves to kill me. Not once, but twice! He had conspired with Palisa to rip me apart and frame me in that summit, and now he was here with this monster to drag me back like property?!

"How dare you?" I seethed, shaking.

"Vi—it—it doesn’t have to be like this, Violet." His voice was strained now, the careful composure cracking at the edges. "If you just cooperate—"

"Cooperate." I repeated the word like it tasted rotten. "You want me to cooperate. After everything you have done?!"

I took a step toward him.

He took a step back.

"Violet." His voice cracked. "Please. Listen to me."

I walked toward him.

"I never wanted this." He stumbled backward, his feet catching in the sand. "I didn’t know she would kill your friend. I swear to you, I didn’t know she would do that. I would never have—"

"You would never have what?"

My voice came out quiet. Flat. I barely recognised it as my own.

He flinched like I had struck him.

"I made mistakes," he continued, the words tumbling out faster now, tripping over each other in their haste to reach me. "I know that. What I did to you was wrong. I have been regretting it every single day since—"

"You liar," I hissed, stopping just as he collapsed to the sand on his ass.

"You rejected me." My voice was quiet now. Steady. "You sent your wolves to kill me."

His eyes bulged and confusion flashed across his face. "What?! No, I didn’t! You left and I had only sent—"

"Shut up."

His lips clamped shut at the sharp glower in my eyes.

"You did! In another life and this. You did. You allied yourself with that thing behind me." I didn’t turn to look at Palisa and Zephyr’s fight still raging, but I could feel the tremors of their battle through the sand beneath my feet. "To tear me down back in Fresna, and here. And you helped her kill my friend!"

"No! I didn’t know she would—"

"Shut up!"

"Violet, wait... I was afraid," he whispered. "She’s a Supreme Alpha. My Supreme Alpha. I couldn’t have stopped her even if I wanted to—"

"I said stop," I growled.

The fool was still running his mouth like the brainless idiot he was.

The silence stretched between us. His remaining wolves had gone completely still, watching. None of them moved to help him. None of them dared.

"You rotten bastard. You haven’t regretted anything," I gritted out. "I can hear the pitiful thrashing of your heart. I can feel it. You are just talking to save your skin. You regret nothing. You regret that I survived. You regret that I turned out to be something you couldn’t control. You regret that you’re standing here right now, realising that the weak omega you threw away is the last thing you’re ever going to see."

His face crumpled.

"That’s not true. Violet, please, I—" His knees hit the sand. He was kneeling now, his hands clasped together, looking up at me with wide, desperate eyes. "I loved you. I know you don’t believe me, but I did. In my own way, I—"

"Don’t."

The word was barely a whisper, but it silenced him completely.

Even now he was lying, but I couldn’t even get any angrier than I currently was.

He just looked pathetic.

I stood over him, looking down at the man who had once held my entire world in his hands and crushed it because he could. The man whose rejection had sent me running into the wilderness, terrified and alone. The man who had started every terrible thing that had happened to me since.

None of it mattered anymore.

I had imagined this moment so many times. In the early days after my rejection, when the wound was still fresh, I had fantasised about confronting him. About making him feel every ounce of the pain he had inflicted on me. About watching him break the way he had broken me. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

But standing here now, looking down at his tear-streaked face, I felt none of the satisfaction I had once imagined.

Just exhaustion. And a cold, settled certainty about what needed to happen.

I never wanted to see that face again.

"Goodbye, Damon."

His eyes widened.

"No—wait—"

My syzygy seized his heart and squeezed. It was a sudden, complete compression that ended everything he was in a single moment.

His body folded inward and hit the sand.

I stared at the crumpled form for one breath.

Then I turned to face the rest.

They needed to go.

Zephyr needed me.