Kael’s POV
My brothers almost moved to her, but my gaze warned them. It was between me and her, so they should stay out of it. They understood and stayed in their places.
I looked back at her; my heart hurt. All these years she had believed I was the one to order them to hurt her and sell her. How much she must have hated me with every breath she took.
I never told them to hurt her, but left her there to get the punishment every prisoner gets for their crimes. When I told them to carry out her punishment and not bother me with it, I meant she should be punished like any other prisoner for their crimes.
She would have been locked in dark, damned chambers with rotten prison cells, would have been given a meal and water only once a day, hurled some curses at by guards out of habit and hatred, and if the prisoner was not obedient they were subjected to whip lashes or kept starving for days.
I never thought she was being tortured this way. After I left the prison that night, I wiped her out of my mind as if she didn’t exist and I didn’t bother visiting that prison ever again, let alone wanting to know about her. All I had left was hate for her.
If only I had known what my anger, negligence, and careless words could cause her.
When she said I ruined her life that night, I sure did. I left her alone in prison that night after hurting her, after inflicting a painful wound on her soul, and left her to the wolves. I had indeed ruined her life that night.
But now she said what’s been in her mind all along; I had to take care of it. I couldn’t undo things, but I could be responsible for my irresponsible actions back then.
With much effort, finally I took a step forward and knelt in front of her. She was crying, cursing in a choked voice that was barely audible.
"I never ordered them to do anything of that sort," I said, my hands reaching out to hold her.
She slapped my hands away even before they could touch her. "Bloody liar," she glared at me, "I heard them saying you told them to punish me... they said you permitted them to do whatever they wanted to me... that you didn’t care and wouldn’t be bothered for a traitor... You dare lie to my face now? You pathetic bastard..."
I inhaled deeply to keep my calm as her pain had started to hurt me as well.
"I only told them to punish you like any other criminal. It didn’t involve hurting you that way. They were supposed to—"
"You left a young woman to those bastards! Did you believe they were saints? Did you truly believe they wouldn’t do anything to me? A free prey their Alpha left for them? Do you even hear yourself?" she interrupted me furiously.
I found myself unable to say a word. I was truly an ass to not care anymore.
She continued letting it all out. "But you can keep lying to yourself if that makes you feel better. You’re a saint, aren’t you? Fucking bastard, you deserved to be cheated on by that bitch Sophia. You truly deserved it. I shouldn’t have shot her, so she would be alive and making your life hell. You cuckold bastard."
It came as a shock. So Eira was aware that Sophia was involved with Keiren. How? No one of us knew until now. But it wasn’t the time to ask about her.
"Through the bond you can feel I’m not lying," I said, keeping my calm. "I accept my negligence caused you harm, but I never intended to do it. If I knew what was happening to you, I would have stopped it. I would have punished them instead—"
"Bond?" she let out a pained scoff. "I don’t believe you... and I don’t even believe this pathetic forced bond with you. You don’t know how much I hate it..."
"I know," I said calmly. "But you have to live with it—for your sake, and for Raven’s sake."
"Stop manipulating me by using Raven," she countered, though her voice low now.
"So you know you were being manipulated. You are so easy to...right?" I asked.
She looked at me, and I said, "That’s why I say you are not stable. I want you to accept your reality and not delude yourself in thinking otherwise."
"I am not deluding. It’s you who can’t see me happy, so keep taking away my son from me," she said.
"He is not your son," I told her, "Just because it’s written on official paper now, you are not his real mother. It can’t be enough to make a child to feel you are truly his mother. Kids don’t understand documents, they understand people and their feelings towards them.
"Always remember, he is not the son you gave birth to and lost, the one who you have been seeing in Raven. You can be his mother, but only when you accept the reality that he is not that child you had lost."
"You...."
She tried to speak. I knew my words clearly hurt her more now.
"You heartless bastard...it’s because of you I lost my son....It’s all because of you....Now you won’t let me have Raven..."
"I know," I remained the same. I was adamant on talking to her today. I wasn’t going to let my own guilt consume me, because it would do no good. Enough of this guilt factor now. We didn’t have much time left to deal with the enemies.
I kept my tone soft. "I accept everything that happened with you is my fault, and I am ready to accept whatever punishment you give. But at the same time, I want you to accept what you are. Stop creating your delusional world with Raven. Live in reality. Even if it hurts you, you have to bear that pain and accept it. Raven is a child who can’t be with an emotionally unstable woman."
She tried to speak, "I am not..."
"Why do you think he is close to me but not to you, even though he spends more time with you?" I asked. "Instead of feeling jealous when you see us close, why don’t you ask yourself why it’s this way? I am a stranger to him as well, just like you are. But he has already accepted me, and not you."
The woman who was angry turned emotional and confused now.