Chapter 290: A Brother’s Bitterness

Zahliver’s POV

His expression gave away nothing, but I could sense it all the same: the subtle stiffness in his posture, the tight way his shoulders held themselves, the way his natural movements completely lost their ease. There was a dark, suffocating tension threading through him now that had not been there before we started speaking. He glanced off to the side for a brief, quiet second, like he was considering something silently in his own mind, and then he gave a small, barely visible nod to himself.

A quiet, alarming warning bell instantly went off in the back of my mind.

That nod... something about the calculation behind it simply was not right. It stirred a cold, red spark of unease deep in my gut that I could not easily ignore.

Something was fundamentally wrong here.

"I can say to you that I won’t repeat the same mistake again," he said, his voice dropping into an eerily calm, flat register. "Before, I didn’t question my choices. Maybe that’s the real problem here I didn’t see the bitterness growing inside me. But it is there. You didn’t die."

The stark truth of those words hit me far harder than I ever expected. My body visibly flinched before I could catch myself or stop the reaction from showing on my face.

"You thrived," he continued, his tone remaining quiet yet razor sharp. "And now look at you. Look at everything you have built out of nothing." His voice did not rise in anger, but the crushing weight behind every single syllable felt utterly suffocating in the dark room. "It is hard not to walk into a place every single day that constantly reminds me of what I lost, and exactly what you gained."

His painful words sliced clean through my chest, leaving a hollow ache behind.

All the logical arguments, all the stern reprimands I had come into this dark room fully prepared to make... completely vanished into thin air.

He was right.

I was the one who had taken away his chance at a normal human future, pulling him unwillingly into a brutal supernatural world that constantly reminded him of all the things that could never be undone. He was forced to live every single day surrounded by the living marks of my survival, my dominant power, and my endless progress. If I were standing in his shoes right now, I knew without a doubt that I would be carrying a bitter poison inside my heart too.

"Joshua," I rasped out softly, my throat suddenly tightening up so hard it was difficult to force the air out. "I am so sorry. I truly didn’t consider how deeply all of this would affect you emotionally."

It was not just simple regret I felt weighing on my soul in that heavy moment. It was something far deeper a raw, burning guilt, an embarrassing shame that scorched my chest, a deep sorrow for everything he had endured... and a faint, fragile hope that it was not entirely too late for us to fix things between brothers.

"Oh, it is fine, brother," he said, his tone dropping back into something flat, detached, and completely unreadable. "In time, everything will settle down. I’ll find what I need."

Something about the specific way he said those words made me pause in my tracks. His phrasing was vague, strangely slippery, and distant. They did not feel like a genuine reassurance offered to a brother at all.

I frowned slightly, but I gave him a slow, measured nod anyway, wanting desperately to believe he was making progress.

"I am sure you will," I said, choosing my next words with extreme care so as not to push him over the edge again. "And more than that you will find something much better."

I raked a heavy hand back through my dark hair, trying to find the right words to speak, trying to somehow reconnect with the brother I used to know. "I know I have been... distant lately. Unusually busy with pack affairs. That was probably the very last thing you needed from me right now. How about we spend some quality time together very soon? Just catch up like old times. Just the two of us."

I secretly hated how hesitant and uncertain I sounded in my own ears. I genuinely hoped he would say yes to the offer. But if he turned me down flat, I knew I could not truly blame him for wanting space from me.

He looked over at me, his blue-green eyes suddenly acting as a dark mirror to old memories I really did not want to relive. For a tense second, his sharp jaw tightened up hard, then slowly relaxed.

"Sure," he said after a long, drawn out beat. "I don’t see why not."

A small wave of relief trickled through my chest, loosening the tight knot in my gut. "Great. Tomorrow, then? I have a few pressing pack matters to handle today "

"It would be fine."

I pressed my lips together into a firm line at the abrupt way he cut me off mid sentence, but I decided to let it slide for the sake of keeping the peace.

"Well... alright then." I gave him one last nod and began turning around to leave the heavy room, but then I paused right at the threshold, suddenly remembering something incredibly important. Something he truly deserved to hear directly from my own mouth before anyone else could mention it to him.

"Oh... and before you happen to hear it from anyone else in the pack... I proposed to Vivian last night. She said yes. We are getting married."

Try as I might, I simply could not keep the immense pride and deep warmth entirely out of my voice as I spoke those words aloud.

His eyes widened instantly with what looked like genuine surprise, but just as quickly as it appeared, something else entirely slid in behind his expression something cold and strange that I could not quite place or name.

"You love her enough to actually go through with human traditions?" he asked, a touch of genuine curiosity laced in his tone.

"Yes," I answered him immediately. Zero hesitation in my heart.

He nodded his head slowly, taking in the answer. "Huh. Well... congratulations, Zahliver. May you both get the exact life you deserve."

The cold, precise way he uttered that final phrase made me pause once again. There was nothing outwardly wrong with his words on the surface, but something about his delivery so clipped, so formal, so strangely chilling made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.

Still, I deliberately shoved the creeping discomfort away into the back of my mind. Joshua had always possessed a somewhat stiff, formal way of speaking when he was stressed. That was just how he was.

"Thank you," I said, my voice much quieter now as I took in his shadowed form.

Without another word spoken between us, I stepped out of his dark room and pulled the door shut behind me, leaving him standing entirely alone over by the curtained window with the thick shadows clinging heavily to his frame. That strange, unsettling look was still resting on his face as the door clicked into place.

As I slowly made my way down the quiet hallway toward my own bedroom, I did not even realize the deep, troubled frown tugging down my brows.

We simply were not the same as we used to be in the old days. Not even close. Back when we were still normal humans living ordinary lives, he had always been the dominant one in control always giving the orders, always entirely certain of his next move. And me? I was reckless, wild, and the stubborn younger brother who never cared about the consequences of his actions.

But those old roles simply did not fit our reality anymore.

I was no longer that impulsive, careless boy. I was the Alpha now not just to our individual pack, but to all alphas across the lands. To all wolves everywhere.

Maybe that massive shift in our dynamic my necessary evolution as a leader was the exact thing that left him feeling so completely misplaced and hollow inside. I could only imagine how deeply jarring this whole new life must be for him to process. A whole new supernatural world, new people to answer to, new rules to follow... while he was still trapped in our old human mindsets.

I genuinely hoped that spending some real time together tomorrow would help bridge the widening gap between us. Maybe it would finally give him a true sense of belonging in this place again. Or at the very least, offer him a real chance to carve out a fresh path for himself.

For both of our sakes, I desperately needed to believe that was possible.