Chapter 469: I had to!

ADREIN.

I slid my hands up to the sides of Maria’s face, my palms resting gently over her warm skin as I closed my eyes.

Every single Alpha instinct in my blood screamed out in horror, fighting against the blasphemous action I was about to commit. But I slammed a mental wall down against those instincts.

I forced my consciousness deep into the spiritual plain, locking onto the vibrant, golden thread connecting my soul to hers—the bond that was currently dragging her down into the dark abyss.

’I reject ...’ I spoke into the quiet depths of my mind, taking a shuddering breath as I prepared to force the agonizing words into the physical air. ’Maria, I reject our bond. I release you—’

A violent, electric flare of spiritual resistance exploded inside my chest, making my jaw lock tight as tears streamed down my face. The pain was immediate—a searing, white-hot blade slicing into my soul—but I pushed through it, focusing every ounce of my willpower onto snapping my connection to her.

"Adrein...?" Aidan’s raspy, uncertain voice suddenly broke through the suffocating quiet of the room.

I ignored him, tightening my grip on Maria’s face, my lips opening to speak the physical rejection. "I, Adrein, hereby reject—"

"What the hell are you doing?!" Davian roared.

Before the final word could leave my tongue, a massive, powerful hand slammed onto my shoulder, ripping me violently backward off my knees.

I hit the hardwood floor hard, my head snapping up just in time to see Davian looming over me like a rabid beast. His gold Alpha eyes were glowing with a terrifying, wild fury, his chest heaving as the scent of pure, unadulterated territorial panic exploded off his skin.

"Are you out of your mind?!" Davian screamed, his broad frame shaking as he pointed a trembling, accusation-filled finger at my face. "You were severing your bond! You were trying to reject her!"

"Adrein... no," Damien gasped from the edge of the bed, scrambling to his feet with bloodshot, horrified eyes. He stared at me as if I were a stranger, his hands hovering over Maria’s still form. "Tell me you weren’t... tell me Davian is wrong!"

"He’s not wrong!" Aidan yelled, stepping directly between me and the bed, his face pale with a mix of shock and pure rage. "I felt the bond shift! He was forcing a rejection! He was going to tear his soul thread right out of her!"

"I had to!" I sobbed, scrambling backward against the wall, pulling my knees to my chest as the lingering, agonizing shockwave of the half-broken ritual throbbed violently in my chest. "Didn’t you hear what the healer just said?! Her soul is unstable! Her spirit is rejecting the weight of our bond!"

"So your solution is to mutilate our bond?!" Davian barked, taking an aggressive step toward me, his heavy fists clenched so tight his knuckles were stark white. "To break her spirit even further by severing your claim while she’s unconscious?!"

"It was going to save her life!" I screamed back, my voice cracking in sheer desperation as tears rained down my face. "Look at her, Davian! Look at Maria! None of you are willing to give up your selfish pride! You’d rather watch her die in this bed than let a single piece of her go!"

"That is not your decision to make!" Aidan roared, his Alpha voice booming off the stone walls so hard the glass lamp on the nightstand rattled. He glared down at me, his eyes burning with an icy, dangerous possessiveness. "We are quadruplets, Adrein! The bond is four-fold! If one of us rejects her, the spiritual imbalance will shatter her wolf completely! You would have killed her right here on this mattress!"

"I was taking the pain onto myself!" I pleaded, pulling at my collar as if I were choking. "I was going to absorb the backlash!"

"You don’t do that!" Damien cried out, his voice cracking into a rough, heartbroken whisper. He dropped to his knees beside my sprawling form on the floor, grabbing the front of my shirt with trembling hands. "Adrein, please... don’t do this to us. Don’t do this to her. If you sever your thread, you break all of us. We survive this together, or we don’t survive at all."

I stared into Damien’s panicked, tear-streaked eyes, and something inside my chest shattered into a thousand jagged pieces. His eyes were wide with fear, his face wet with tears he could no longer hold back, and the sight of him only made the weight crushing down on me feel even heavier. I wanted to look away, to escape the pain reflected in his expression, but I couldn’t. I could only stare at him, helplessly absorbing the fear and anguish that I knew I had caused.

The heavy, suffocating silence returned to the room, settling over us like an unbearable weight. No one spoke. The only sounds were our ragged, uneven breathing and the faint, weak gasps coming from the bed.

Every breath seemed painfully loud in the stillness. Davian stood guard in front of Maria like a wall of iron, his entire body positioned between us, completely blocking me from ever touching her again. There was no hesitation in his stance, no room for negotiation.

Aidan, meanwhile, stared at me with deep, bitter betrayal written plainly across his face, and I could feel the weight of that accusation without him needing to say a single word.

I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to bear their stares any longer. My hands rose slowly to cover my face as my shoulders trembled, and a hollow, agonizing groan tore itself from my chest. The sound carried all the helplessness I could no longer contain.

They had stopped me.

The rejection had been halted midway, leaving the fragile thread between Maria and me frayed, bleeding, and raw inside my chest. I had tried to give up my own happiness to buy her freedom, willingly tearing myself apart so she could be free, but my brothers’ fierce, unyielding territorial grip had sealed that door shut.

We were locked inside this nightmare together.

And as I looked back toward Maria’s unmoving body, my heart sank even further.

I knew that if her wolf didn’t find a way to survive the four of us soon, there wouldn’t be anything left of her to save.