Chapter 236 - 0236

Kaelen POV

"Your trigger seems to have evolved," Darius said quietly.

I looked down at my hands, watching the warm blood pool in my palms before slipping between my fingers and dripping onto the dark leather seat beneath me. The sight was almost hypnotic, the slow, steady rhythm of crimson against black somehow keeping me grounded.

"Your curse... it used to be triggered only when you were around women. That was the pattern," he continued, pausing briefly before adding, "But now? Now it seems to be triggered by strong emotions. Rage. Fear. Stress. Anything that pushes you too far."

Evolved.

The word turned over in my mind like a slow-burning poison. I knew the curse was getting worse, but I had never considered that it could actually evolve. I had always believed it was a fixed thing, a constant burden I would have to carry for the rest of my life. It had rules. Patterns I had learned to recognize and control.

But now, those rules were changing.

I thought back to what had happened in the Council chamber. Not only had there not been a single female present, but the voices that had roared inside my head... they had sounded almost like my own. That was the strangest, most terrifying part.

Usually, the voice belonged to her.

My abuser. The woman who had cursed me.

But today?

Kill him. Kill them all. Tear them apart. Make them pay.

That hadn’t been her voice.

That had been mine.

My stomach twisted as the realization settled deeper. So what had changed? Was the curse truly evolving, or had it sunk so deeply into my soul that I could no longer tell where it ended and my own mind began?

Before I could let that thought consume me, my mind drifted straight to Jaxen.

My chest tightened painfully, and my hands curled into fists again. Fresh blood welled from the wounds in my palms as I clenched them harder, but I barely noticed the pain.

"They want to take Lorelei away from me," I muttered, mostly to myself, my voice strained as the words left my mouth. "I can’t let them take her away from me."

Darius stared at me through the mirror for a long moment without saying anything. His gray eyes were unreadable, but I knew him well enough to recognize what was hiding behind that silence. Exhaustion. Worry. And that quiet fear he had been trying not to show me for days.

He finally let out another heavy sigh before speaking. "I guess we should head back now. I’m sure Lorelei misses you terribly."

He meant it to reassure me. Usually, hearing Lorelei’s name would have been enough to pull me out of whatever darkness had settled over me. The thought of going home to her was usually the one thing that could make the weight in my chest feel a little lighter.

But this time, the moment he said her name, my entire body went rigid.

How was I supposed to face her?

I had relapsed again. Less than twenty-four hours after terrifying her, after hurting her, I had lost control all over again. The suppressants were becoming less effective, the triggers were changing, and the worst part was that I no longer trusted myself around the one person I wanted to protect more than anyone.

"No," I said, my voice coming out much harder than I intended. "Let’s step out for a drink first."

At that, Darius raised a brow, clearly caught off guard by the sudden request. "It’s barely afternoon. Isn’t it a little too early to be drinking?"

"I just want to stay away from the estate for a while." My gaze dropped to my hands, lingering on the traces of blood that had already started drying across my skin. "I need to clear my head."

***

"So, tell me what’s wrong," Darius asked after we had downed a couple of drinks.

We weren’t drunk yet, not even close, but the alcohol had already started loosening the tension in my shoulders. It dulled the sharp edge of my nerves just enough for me to breathe without feeling like my chest was being crushed from the inside.

We were sitting in a private lounge reserved exclusively for members of high-ranking bloodlines. Our booth was tucked away in a shadowed corner, completely isolated from the rest of the room. I had no patience for curious stares, pointless greetings, or anyone trying to make small talk with me when I was already barely holding myself together.

Not that I couldn’t have cleared the entire establishment with a single word if I wanted to.

I simply wasn’t in the mood to use my authority.

Darius knew that too. Which was probably why he had waited until we had a few drinks in us before finally asking the question I had been avoiding since we left the estate.

"Don’t tell me you two got into another fight?" he continued, reaching for the bottle and refilling my empty glass. "What did you do this time?"

At that, a soft, bitter laugh slipped out of me as I shook my head. "We didn’t fight." I watched the amber liquid swirl around the glass before slowly lifting my eyes to him. "She knows everything now. She knows I’ve been drugging her. She knows I’m the wolf she was locked up with in that cell. And even after finding out all of that... she still didn’t leave me."

"Love really is blind," Darius muttered, clicking his tongue in disbelief before taking a slow sip from his own glass. "I’d say you two are actually perfect for each other, but honestly, that just hurts my feelings. I’m still not over the fact that she picked a brute like you instead of me."

I scoffed, and despite the heaviness sitting in my chest, a faint smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth. "Well, you better get over it fast," I reminded him. "Because at the rate we have sex, she might end up pregnant soon. And I already know your fragile heart won’t survive seeing a mini version of me running around the estate."

Darius stared at me for a second before deadpanning, "Oh, the horror."

A short laugh escaped me, and before I could stop it, Darius was laughing too. For those few seconds, the tension between us disappeared completely, leaving behind something that felt almost normal.

Just two brothers sitting in a bar, drinking and talking shit like we always did.

But the moment the laughter faded, the weight in my chest came rushing back.

My fingers tightened around the glass until the crystal creaked beneath my grip. The shame I had been carrying since I left the estate crawled back up my throat until I could no longer keep the words trapped inside me.

"I strangled her."