Chapter 175: Breaking Point

Kaelen's POV

I forced myself to walk to the far corner of the medical room, putting as much distance between Vespera and myself as physically possible without leaving. My hands were shaking—not from weakness, but from the sheer effort it took to keep them from wrapping around her throat again. The beast inside me was clawing at my ribcage, howling for blood, demanding I finish what I'd started.

Ten minutes. Give Lucian ten minutes.

I leaned against the wall, arms crossed tight over my chest, every muscle in my body coiled like a spring ready to snap. I kept my eyes locked on Vespera's battered face, watching her chest rise and fall with each labored breath. The monitoring equipment beeped steadily, a rhythmic reminder that she was still alive when Orion wasn't, when Sera was god knows where suffering god knows what.

Lucian dragged a metal chair across the floor with a screech that made everyone flinch. He positioned it directly beside Vespera's bed, close enough that she couldn't avoid looking at him, and sat down with deliberate slowness. His movements were controlled, calculated—everything I wasn't capable of being right now.

"Now," he said, his voice eerily calm, "tell me why."

The silence that followed stretched out like a wire pulled taut. Vespera stared at the ceiling, her good eye unfocused, her split lips pressed into a thin line. I could see her mind working behind that blank expression, probably running through every possible lie she could tell, every excuse she could make.

Then something inside her seemed to break. Her face crumpled, and suddenly she was laughing—a high, brittle sound that had nothing to do with humor and everything to do with hysteria. The laugh turned into a cough that made her whole body convulse, fresh blood speckling her chin.

"Why?" she repeated, her voice cracking on the word. "You really don't understand? None of you?"

Lucian didn't move, didn't react. He just sat there, waiting with that infuriating patience that made him such an effective interrogator.

"I was with Kaelen for eight years! Eight fucking years!" Vespera's voice rose to a shriek, her hands clenching into fists against the sheets. "I did everything for him! I stayed by his side through the worst times!"

I felt my jaw tighten. Eight years. Eight years of companionship that I'd valued, that I'd thought meant friendship and partnership. Not this twisted obsession she was revealing now.

"I supported him through every challenge," Vespera continued, her words tumbling out in a rush now like a dam had burst. "Every late night when he needed someone to talk to, every decision he second-guessed, every moment of weakness—I was there. Always there."

She turned her head to look directly at me, and the naked hunger in her expression made my skin crawl. "I waited so long for you to notice me as more than just a pack member. I thought if I was patient enough, if I proved my loyalty enough, you'd eventually see me the way I saw you."

Fuck. I'd never—not once—given her any indication that I wanted more than friendship. Had I been blind? Or had she just been that good at hiding her obsession?

"Then that bitch showed up." The venom in Vespera's voice could have stripped paint off walls. "Three months. That's all it took. Three months and she had everything I'd spent eight years working for."

Lucian leaned forward slightly. "So this is about jealousy. You couldn't handle that Kaelen found his true mate."

"Found his mate?" Vespera's laugh was sharp enough to cut. "He became a completely different person! The Kaelen I knew—the one who was focused, controlled, dedicated to the pack—he disappeared the second she batted those innocent green eyes at him."

I wanted to tell her to shut up, that she didn't know what the fuck she was talking about, but I bit down on the words. Lucian needed her talking, not silent.

"The night of the bonfire ceremony," Vespera said, and her voice dropped to something low and poisonous. "When he stood up in front of everyone and announced her as Luna. Do you know how that felt? Standing there in the crowd, watching him look at her like she was the only person in the world?"

Her visible eye fixed on me with an intensity that made my skin crawl. "I could feel everyone's eyes on me. All those pitying looks, all those whispered conversations about 'poor Vespera, she must be devastated.' They all knew I loved you, and they all watched you publicly choose someone else."

"That's what this is about?" Cordelia's voice was sharp with disgust. "Your hurt feelings?"

"Hurt feelings?" Vespera's voice cracked on the words. "I saw them in the forest, you know. Fucking. I watched him touch her with a tenderness he never showed me—every gentle stroke, every whispered word I'd begged for and never received."

My stomach turned. The thought of Vespera watching Sera and me in our most intimate moments, spying on us like some twisted voyeur, made my skin feel like it was covered in insects.

"That's when I knew," Vespera continued, her voice dropping to something hollow and dead. "Nothing I did would ever be enough. Because I wasn't his true mate. I was just someone who was there, someone convenient, someone he'd never see as more than a friend."

"I just wanted her gone," Vespera whispered, and for a second she almost sounded pathetic. "I didn't think about wars or betrayals or any of that. I just wanted her to disappear so everything could go back to the way it was."

Lucian's voice cut through like a knife. "So you helped Damien plan an invasion. You gave him intelligence on our patrol routes. You assisted in kidnapping your Alpha's mate."

"I thought—" Vespera's voice broke. "I thought once she was gone, once Kaelen didn't have the bond making him crazy, he'd realize what he'd given up. He'd see that I was the one who'd been loyal all along."

"And Orion?" Cordelia's voice was ice. "What about him? Was he just collateral damage in your pathetic attempt to win Kaelen's attention?"

Vespera's face contorted. "That wasn't supposed to happen! Orion wasn't supposed to be there!"

"But he was," Lucian said flatly. "And when he discovered what you were doing—"

"It's all because of that bitch!" Vespera shrieked, her voice cracking with hysteria. "If she'd never come here, none of this would've happened! Orion would still be alive, Kaelen would still be mine, and I wouldn't be chained to this fucking bed!"

That was it. The last thread of my control snapped like a rotten rope. I was across the room before I even registered moving, my hands fisting in Vespera's hospital gown, hauling her half off the bed. Her scream of pain barely registered through the roar of blood in my ears.

"Where is she?" The words came out in that doubled voice, half-human and half-beast. My eyes burned gold, my canines already extending. "Where the fuck did Damien take Seraphine?"