13 Chapter 13 The Dark Call
She had smashed the phone I’d given her. I discovered it near the garage where she fled from her family. So this must be an older one. I felt a flicker of
respect.
I followed, bewildered but alert. He began searching frantically through
Seraphina’s meager possessions.
Every instinct screamed at me to reject such vulnerability. My Alpha pride, my carefully maintained distance, rebelled against admitting such tender feelings. But in a moment of brutal honesty, I acknowledged what I had known for months. Long before she vanished, long before her absence became an unbearable ache, I knew. And I have no idea why I never told her. Perhaps all of this anguish, all the separation, all the fear, could have been prevented. Perhaps if I had simply spoken, opened my heart, she wouldn’t have felt so completely abandoned.
The guilt sliced through me like a blade. Neither of us earned this fate, but she especially didn’t deserve her life before me, or the cruelty I showed her afterward.
He still remains silent today by continuing to allow Sybil inside.
I needed her to return to me.
Part of me wanted to pity him. The part that remembered family connections tried to. But I couldn’t. Seraphina might have forgiven him, or simply stopped feeling the pain he caused, but I will never forgive what he did, or more accurately, what he failed to do. He didn’t protect her adequately. He allowed his wife to abuse her emotionally and physically while remaining silent.
She probably hated this marriage as much as I did. She wanted her freedom too, her own choices, her own path. Instead, she found herself locked in this gilded prison alongside me. But rather than reaching out to her, rather than trying to find common ground or offer comfort, I had retreated behind walls
of ice.
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13 Chapter 13 The Dark Call
He nodded, struggling with the small buttons to display the number. But as he worked, a different plan, cold and ruthless, began forming in my mind. Something that might bring her back faster than pleading, faster than any apology I could make. It was a terrible idea, one that violated everything I believed was honorable, but my wolf, desperate and single-minded, didn’t
care.
I grabbed the phone from his shaking hands, already dialing as Arthur watched in confusion.
I shut my eyes and inhaled deeply. Her fragrance, delicate yet pervasive, flooded my senses. All I wanted was to hold her, to whisper apologies for every harsh word, every cold glance, every moment of my stupid, selfish
rage.
“No, but it’s for the best because now you can finally be with your true preference and destined mate, which is Roxanne.” She declared, and while I wasn’t surprised, I was thoroughly revolted. “How dare you speak to me that way?” I snarled, feeling my wolf surge forward before I forced him back. I would make this woman pay for everything she inflicted on the woman I loved, but this wasn’t the time or place.
My voice came out as a hoarse whisper, thick with shame. “How did I miss all
of this?”
When my father commanded us to complete the marking ceremony, there was no smile on her face. No trace of joy, no excitement to match our families’ elaborate celebrations.
She bowed the moment she spotted me, but rage consumed me.
“Her phone!” He exclaimed, leaping up with surprising vigor and rushing toward the attic.
He held up an old device triumphantly. “She took her phone, so you can reach her!”
“Where might she have gone?” My voice was flat, emotionless. “Does she have
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“Greetings, Alpha. Forgive my absence when you arrived, but I lose my
patience with that worthless girl.” Sybil spoke, meeting my gaze while I stared back with icy contempt. “I cannot believe she abandoned you and
embarrassed you before everyone.”
Just as frustration began to overwhelm me, his eyes suddenly brightened with hope.
I turned to Arthur, who appeared ashamed of her behavior.
“Seraphina,” I said, my voice dark and threatening. I hoped my words would cut deep enough to bring her running. “I have your father. If you want him to remain breathing…”
‘She belongs to us! You have to find her!’ My wolf demanded.
“I-I-I was only-” She glanced between Arthur and me, mortified, before making excuses and fleeing like something was hunting her.
–
I could still picture our first meeting. She was breathtaking – the most stunning woman I had ever laid eyes on. Her hair cascaded in gentle waves around a face that seemed to hold a thousand untold stories. When the mate bond sparked between us, her happiness was radiant. Her eyes, luminous with hope and adoration, tracked my every movement. Yet I responded to that warmth with arctic indifference.
“Do you have her number?” I asked.
“Do you know her location?” I asked, though strangling the life from her throat was all I really wanted to do.
This was the moment.
“Hello?”
They destroyed her entire childhood. And you can never recover that. But I will compensate her for it.
Julian’s POV
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13 Chapter 13 The Dark Call
I built barriers between us, stone by stone. I told myself they protected me, but they only imprisoned us both.
The darkest part of me had blamed her for everything. I fed my resentment, nurtured my coldness, made sure she felt every ounce of my displeasure. But she was doing exactly what I was doing – trying to please our families. Trying to survive an impossible situation.
–
The realization hit me like a freight train. Fragments of memory collided with fresh understanding. I had been so consumed with my own resentment about this arranged marriage, so furious about how it disrupted my carefully planned future, that I never once considered she might feel the same way.
Standing in what Arthur generously called Seraphina’s “bedroom” in the attic, I felt sick to my stomach. This wasn’t a bedroom at all – just a cramped, depressing corner. A thin mattress that looked like it belonged in a shelter, a battered wooden chest, and a handful of dog-eared books. That was it. That was everything she owned. This wasn’t a place to live – it was barely a place to survive. And I, in my arrogance and selfishness, had made her suffering
even worse.
Unlike Arthur, she had clearly been speaking with Roxanne or whoever was feeding her information.
I didn’t need an introduction to recognize the woman – she was simply an aged version of Roxanne.
He was supposed to be Seraphina’s protector, her father, her shield. I don’t care how powerless he felt against his vicious wife. His weakness enabled her torment. I don’t care if he divorced Sybil after Seraphina left. It was too late by then. He couldn’t do it while she was trapped in that nightmare.
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