True Alpha's Chosen Mate-Chapter 277: Final Act I: Darkest Hour

In the upper wing of the imperial palace of Ronmin...

Tonight’s air was loud.

Filled with everyone’s hearts, beating so intensely anyone could hear it. Just like in the northern wing of the imperial palace, despite the lack of life, as everyone lifelessly lay on the ground, the silent hum of a lone wolf kneeling in the middle sounded overly loud in his ears.

Staring at his pair of bloodstained hands, Edge’s eyes flickered with bitterness and confusion. His eyes veered to the figure lying within his reach, breath hitching, seeing Ida’s pale face.

"You..." he called under his breath, almost choking as blood pooled underneath her body. "Hey..."

Edge moved his trembling knees and hands, crawling towards her to wake her up. "Ida," he called with a shaking voice, tugging her shoulder.

It hadn’t sunk into him yet what just happened and how things ended up like this.

Why were the northern team who were supposed to guard the gates in this area were wiped out?

He looked around and his heart sank deeper and deeper until he could barely feel his own pulse. Memories of minutes ago surged in his head uncontrollably, leaving him in a daze, body frozen on the spot.

He heard her voice calling out to him with desperation, "Edge! What the hell are you doing?! Have you gone mad?!" with her eyes burning with anger and worry at the same time.

Edge slowly set his eyes back to Ida once again and his face crumpled in pain. Tears swam in his eyes, but it wasn’t enough to flood his face. Not because he wasn’t hurt, but rather, it was too painful. He couldn’t shed tears. It was ironic.

"Ida," he called once again, grabbing her shoulder and cradling her in his bloodstained arms. "I’m sorry... I’ll fix it. Wait, you’ll be fine."

He rubbed her back, rocking his body as he thought of ways to save her. She was still warm, he thought, albeit with no more pulse.

How could she have a pulse if he hollowed out her chest? But he ignored that fact.

"I just need a moment to calm down. I need to think!" His breath hitched as his palm felt the hole in her back, leaving his head blank. Edge embraced her tighter, burying his lips on top of her head, and finally, a tear leaked out of his eyes.

One tear was followed by an ocean of brine flooding his face.

"I... didn’t mean to," came out a muffled and shaking voice.

Ida scared her. She had harassed him the second their eyes met and even when they returned to Ronmin Empire, she never gave him a second of rest. Since they forbid Edge to approach Rinnie under Hugo’s orders, he was stationed in the northern wing of the imperial palace.

It was a good thing since Edge couldn’t keep harboring feelings for their Luna. Although his feelings for Rinnie were more of a deep concern for her happiness, he didn’t want to develop it with something deeper.

Ida distracted him during his time here, although their relationship was more like a mouse hiding from the cat. She somehow made her presence known to him subconsciously.

She had been verbal about her feelings to him and even proposed to him multiple times. The last time she proposed was... just minutes ago.

’Will you marry me?’ were Ida’s last words, and recalling them now brought inexplicable pain in his heart.

Those same words were also the words that brought Edge back from a feral state.

He was the one who killed everyone.

He was the culprit of her death.

These hands that were holding her were the same hands that took her life.

"Ah..." was the only noise Edge could make, unable to close his mouth. His every breath caused his lungs to squeeze as if he didn’t deserve it.

How did things turn out this way?

Until that red pour came, everything was normal. Actually, he was simply lazing around with Ida. Just hours ago, he was looking at her while she sat down on the landscape while looking at the moon.

Just hours ago, he told himself, Ida wasn’t so bad and he might end up liking her. Even though that crossed his mind, Edge was already aware he already liked Ida.

He hadn’t confessed or admitted it. He was planning to when the time was right... but how?

Would she even hear him now? His heart? His words? His sincerity?

"Yes," came out of his mouth, albeit faint. "Yes... let’s get married."

Edge embraced her body tighter as his muffled cries grew louder by the second. Her silence... he wasn’t used to it.

"I said yes... please, please, please... I said yes..." He shook her body once again, hoping she would wake up and grin at him like usual. That Ida would gasp dramatically and drag him to the nearest church to speak their vows and mate; she always told him what she would do once they become official.

"I’m sorry... Ida... I’m really... really... so --" He choked on his words, knowing everything he was saying and doing was futile. He killed her and he made sure she would die, but despite that, Ida made sure he would wake up to his senses.

Until the end, Edge remained on the receiving end.

"You shouldn’t have loved me." — because those who loved deeper... were always the ones who fall to ruin.

There was a long silence after Edge howled painfully, yet it faded in the sound of other grieving and frightened howls across the imperial palace. He knelt there for as long as he could remember, embracing her body with blank eyes.

"Let’s go," he whispered after some time, carrying her lifeless body close to him, feeling how her warmth slowly slip away from her. "You said... you don’t care which church, right?"

Edge didn’t care anymore about the state of the imperial palace. All he could think of was... marrying her, the woman who loved him till death, and the woman whom he planned to declare his vows;

’Even death will not separate us.’