Chapter 155: You were NEVER my freedom!

Malachi followed her.

He didn’t even remember leaving the castle. His feet simply kept moving, carrying him after the woman who had just walked away from him as though he were nothing more than another stranger standing in her path.

Della was already several yards ahead. She was moving slowly, and Lian was still in her arms, his frail body wrapped tightly against her chest.

One of Della’s arms supported him beneath his knees while the other remained around his back, holding him with a strange gentleness that didn’t seem to belong to the same woman whose eyes had looked at Malachi without a single flicker of emotion.

"Moonfire."

She didn’t stop.

"Please."

Nothing.

Malachi quickened his pace until he was walking beside her, his breathing uneven and his eyes burning with tears that refused to stop, "Please, just listen to me for one minute. You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t have to believe anything I say. Just...please let me say it."

Della continued walking.

"I’ll fix everything. I swear I will. Whatever you want, whatever you need, I’ll give it to you. I’ll tear down every law that was used against you. I’ll expose every person who lied about you. I’ll make sure everyone knows and pays immensely for what they did. I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure nobody ever touches you again."

Nothing.

Malachi swallowed painfully and hurried another step, "I love you, Della. Gods, I love you so much. I know those words don’t mean anything to you right now, but I need you to know that they were never a lie. Whatever I did, whatever I said, whatever I believed...my love for you was never fake. It was the only thing in me that was always real, and it was all my fault. I just kept... pushing you away because I was trying to get rid of it,"

Della’s expression didn’t change.

"I’ll change. I’ll become someone you can trust. I’ll never question you again. I’ll never let anyone hurt you again. I’ll never leave you alone again. I’ll—"

"You keep saying that."

Malachi stopped breathing, and Della finally stopped walking too. She didn’t turn around immediately, and her eyes remained lowered toward Lian, watching his chest as though she was waiting for some miracle to happen and his chest to start moving again.

Then she spoke, "You keep telling me what you’re going to do now, Malachi." Her voice was so quiet that he almost wished she had screamed instead, "You’re going to fix everything. You’re going to protect me. You’re going to love me. You’re going to spend the rest of your life proving that you’re sorry." She finally looked at him with those frighteningly still eyes, "And I don’t care."

Malachi dragged in a ragged, harsh breath

"I don’t care if you love me."

A tear slipped down Malachi’s cheek.

"I don’t care if you regret it. I don’t care if you spend every second from now until your death trying to make things right. I don’t care if you destroy every person who ever hurt me, because you should have done those things when I was standing in front of you begging you to believe me."

"I know." Malachi’s face crumpled even more, twisting into more agony.

"No." Della shook her head slowly. "You don’t." Then she looked away again, "You know what I think?"

Malachi couldn’t answer.

"I think some part of you always knew."

His lips trembled, and another tear rolled down.

Della continued before he could speak, "Not all of you. Not enough to save me. But somewhere inside that damaged heart of yours, there was always a little voice telling you that I wasn’t guilty."

Malachi’s eyes widened.

"You felt it every time I cried. Every time you looked at me, and something inside you told you that I couldn’t possibly have done those things. Every time you punished me and still couldn’t sleep afterwards. Forget about the mate bond...you didn’t need it to hear the little voice" Her voice remained eerily calm, "You knew."

"I—"

"You knew, Malachi."

He couldn’t breathe.

"You just didn’t want to listen." Della’s eyes finally met his again, "Because you needed me to be guilty."

"No..."

"You needed someone."

The word hung between them.

"After Katherine, you needed someone to hate. Someone you could look at and say, ’This is why I’m suffering’. Someone you could punish whenever the memories became too unbearable. Someone you could hurt without feeling like you were hurting an innocent person."

Malachi shook his head desperately, tears falling faster, "That’s not—"

"It is." Her voice never rose, "You wanted me to be guilty because if I wasn’t, then what did that make you?"

Malachi went completely still, but he was still vibrating with all his fears and regrets.

"Someone who destroyed an innocent woman because he was angry." She said, staring directly into his haunted eyes, "And even now..." Her voice softened until it was almost a whisper. "Some part of you is still hoping I’m guilty."

Malachi’s entire face collapsed, "No!! Please, Moonfire. That’s not—"

"You want me to be guilty."

"I don’t!"

"You need me to be guilty."

"Della, please—"

"Because if I’m guilty, then you can forgive yourself."

That broke him all over again, and Malachi stumbled backwards, one hand flying to his chest as though something had physically pierced straight through it.

Della watched him without an atom of feeling.

"And that’s why you keep begging me to stay. Because you need me to tell you that you’re not the monster you think you are."

He looked at her helplessly.

"I can’t carry your guilt for you, I will never carry anything else after this precious lost soul I’m holding right now," She then adjusted Lian against her chest and began walking again.

Malachi stared after her, and then he looked down at her body. She looked like she had crawled through hell, and had somehow healed and made it out alive.

He couldn’t imagine the pain, the suffering, the devastation she had gone through... after Annelise was killed...after...their baby was...

FUCK!!

"Della, please," He began running after her, but she didn’t stop.

He caught up to her, but this time he didn’t touch her.

He simply walked beside her, crying so hard that his words came broken, "Then hate me. Please. Hate me if that’s what you need. Curse me. Punish me. Take everything from me. Just...don’t disappear."

She paused again, and Malachi’s breath caught as she slowly lifted one hand toward her neck.

Her fingers slipped beneath the cold metal collar that had remained there for far too long, and for the first time since he’d seen her again, something almost resembling emotion crossed her face.

Not anger.

Not pain.

Something quieter. Something that made him rue the day he clicked it around her neck.

The collar resisted for a moment before the clasp finally snapped apart, and Della held it between her fingers, staring down at it. Then she dropped it onto the ground between them.

That collar had once been his answer to her.

Whenever she cried, whenever she pleaded, whenever she insisted she was innocent, he had looked at that piece of metal and convinced himself that she deserved to wear it.

Now it lay at his feet.

"You know what is strange about this?" She tilted her head a little, "I used to think the day you took this off me would be the day I finally became free." Her thumb brushed over the deep mark the collar had left around her neck, "I spent so many nights imagining it. I imagined you standing in front of me, looking at me with regret, finally realising that I never deserved it."

Her voice remained soft, "But I was wrong." Then she looked directly into his eyes, and he trembled again,

"The collar was never what kept me here. It was believing that one day you would take it off because you finally believed I was worth freeing," Her eyes dropped to the collar again, "And I think that’s one of the saddest things about me."

A tear slid down her cheek, "I waited for freedom from the same man I needed to be free from." She paused, "And now I don’t need you to unlock anything anymore, because whatever part of me was still waiting for you to save her..." Her voice almost disappeared, "She died along with her friend, along with her cub, along with her cousin, and along with everything you all made her go through...believing you would."

A strangled sob tore out of him as his knees hit the ground again, and Della simply continued to walk.

She’d said too much. Far too much.

"Please... please, don’t go," His voice slowly died, turning into dust.

Della kept walking.

*How annoying,* Asteria whispered inside of her.

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