Chapter 483: My fault!

Adrein.

The dust inside the abandoned ranger cabin hung heavy in the icy moonlight streaming through the shattered window.

I slumped back against the rotting wooden wall, dragging my knees up to my chest. Every breath felt like dragging broken glass through my lungs. The frayed thread of my mate- bond was pulsing violently, sending hot, agonizing friction straight into my ribs every time Maria’s shallow heart faltered.

Across the tiny room, Damien was kneeling beside the dusty leather cot, rubbing Maria’s freezing hands between his broad palms. Noah lay motionless on the floorboards between us, his chest rising and falling in faint, irregular hitches as the lingering wolfsbane locked his muscles in dark paralysis.

"Her hands are like ice, Adrein," Damien whispered, his voice cracking with fear as he carefully rubbed her cold fingers between his palms. He pulled the heavy fur blanket even tighter around her neck, trying desperately to keep what little warmth remained trapped around her. "I can’t get her warm..." he muttered, his voice filled with helplessness.

I stared at Maria’s hollow, pale face, watching the faint signs of her breathing with a growing sense of dread. Her skin looked almost lifeless against the thick blanket wrapped around her, and the sight made a sickening knot of guilt tighten in my throat until I could barely swallow.

This was my fault.

The thought settled heavily in my mind, impossible to push away. No matter how much I tried to deny it, the guilt remained, pressing down on my chest and making every breath feel heavier.

"We did this to her," I rasped out, my voice barely carrying over the cold wind whistling through the gaps in the cabin’s wooden wall slats. The words came out rough and broken, barely more than a confession.

Damien suddenly stopped rubbing her hands. His movements went still for a moment before he slowly glanced over his shoulder at me. His dark eyes looked tired, strained, and full of the same exhaustion that weighed heavily over all of us.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, his voice low and questioning. "Daniel did this... the Lycan prince did this..."

He shook his head slightly, his gaze remaining fixed on me.

"And this is also Noah’s fault," he added, his voice firm despite his exhaustion. "You can’t put all of this on yourself."

His words hung heavily in the cold air, but the guilt inside me refused to loosen its grip.

"No, Damien," I said, shaking my head as a bitter tear cut a path through the grime on my cheek. "Daniel put the poison in her medicine, but we’re the ones who trapped her here to drink it. We’re the ones who brought her into this hell."

Damien turned his whole body toward me, his jaw clenching. "Adrein, don’t do this right now... you are clearly aware we did what we had to do to protect our mate."

"Protect her?" A harsh, broken laugh escaped my chest, instantly morphing into a painful cough that made me clutch my ribs. "Look at her! Look at where our ’protection’ got her! She’s dying on a dusty cot in a rotting cabin in the middle of nowhere!"

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, forcing back the burning tears. The memories of the last few months crashed over me—the terror in her eyes when she first realized what we were, the way she used to flinch every time one of us stepped too close, the quiet, desperate tears she tried to hide in the dark.

"We should have let her go," I whispered into the quiet room.

Damien went dead still. "What?"

"We should have let her go the very first night she tried to leave with....Noah." I said, dropping my hands to look Damien dead in the eye. The truth was burning through me now, raw and unbearable. "She didn’t ask for any of this... she didn’t ask for four dominant, obsessive Alphas to claim her soul... she didn’t ask to be bound to a broken pack that was already falling apart... all she wanted was to leave with him!"

"She’s our mate, Adrein!" Damien growled softly, though there was no real aggression in his voice—just a hollow, bleeding desperation. "The moon Goddess chose her for us, and you know we couldn’t just walk away."

"The moon goddess didn’t force her, Damien! We did!" I shouted in a harsh, suffocating whisper, leaning forward as my chest heaved. "We cornered her! We used our aura, our power, our titles—we gave her no bloody choice! We convinced ourselves that if we held on tight enough, if we forced our bond onto her soul, she’d eventually learn to love us, and we called it protection, but it was just ownership."

Damien looked away, his eyes dropping to the floorboards. He couldn’t contradict me. The silence between us stretched long and heavy, filled only by the ragged sound of Noah’s labored breathing.

"I thought... I thought if I snapped my bond thread, it would save her," I rasped, staring down at my trembling hands. "I thought if I cut myself off from her, she’d be free of my dark wolf. But all I did was tear her spirit apart even faster. I ruined her, Damien. We all did."

"Stop it, Adrein," Damien muttered, though his voice sounded fragile, completely stripped of his usual Alpha authority. "We loved her and we still love her."

"If we loved her, we would have cared more about her freedom than our own selfish instincts!" I snapped back, my eyes burning. "If we had just given her a bag of gold and let her cross the border six months ago before meeting him, she’d be safe right now... she’d be living a normal, peaceful life somewhere far away from Daniel, far away from Vincent, and far away from our mess."

I looked over at Maria’s still form. She looked so tiny, so fragile against the dark leather of the cot.

"Instead," I choked out, a sob finally breaking through my throat, "she’s dying because four arrogant Alphas couldn’t bear the thought of living without her."

Damien slowly turned back to the cot. He reached out, his big, calloused hand gently cradling Maria’s pale cheek. A single tear slipped down his dark stubble, glinting in the faint moonlight.

"I just wanted to keep her safe," Damien whispered, his voice completely broken, each word trembling as though it took everything he had left to force it out. His eyes remained fixed on Maria, and the pain in his expression was impossible to hide. "That’s all I ever wanted."

"I know," I said softly, my voice barely above a murmur. I dragged myself a few inches closer along the cold floor until I was finally sitting near the foot of the cot. Even that small movement left my body feeling completely exhausted, as though I had nothing left to give. My muscles ached, my breathing was heavy, and my soul felt just as battered and worn as the wooden walls around us. "I know you did. We all did."

I swallowed hard, my eyes returning to Maria’s pale face beneath the heavy fur blanket. The sight of her lying there made the guilt inside me grow heavier.

"But look at where our love landed her," I whispered, the words carrying a painful bitterness that I could barely contain. "Look at what it has done to her."

Before I could say anything else, a sudden, sharp spasm tore through my chest. Maria’s pulse gave another weak, fluttering stutter, and the sensation shot through me with such intensity that I groaned.

I immediately pressed my palm flat against my sternum, my fingers trembling as I fought to steady myself. Every breath felt difficult, and I forced myself to breathe slowly, desperately trying not to collapse completely.

Damien looked over at me, his grief momentarily giving way to concern. His tired eyes searched my face as he noticed the pain I was struggling to hide.

"Adrein?" he asked quietly, his voice filled with worry. "Is it the bond?"

"It’s fine," I rasped through grit teeth, squeezing my eyes shut as the cold friction burned through my veins. "It’s just... her heart is so weak, Damien. The poison is suffocating her spirit, and my thread is so broken, I can’t even give her a drop of my strength to help her fight it."

Damien leaned over, resting his forehead lightly against Maria’s cold temple. "Hold on, Maria," he murmured, his voice trembling violently. "Please, sweetheart. Don’t leave us like this. Please."

I leaned my head back against the rough stone wall, staring up at the rotting rafters above.

There were no war horns blowing out here yet. No sound of boots crushing the brush outside. Just the terrifying, suffocating quiet of a dark forest, and the crushing weight of a regret I knew would haunt me for the rest of my life.

If we survived this night, if by some miracle Maria opened her eyes again, I swore to myself right then in the dark: I would never force her to stay again.