Chapter 45: Isolde
Seraphine's POV
I scrambled to the desk, still holding the photo, and yanked the lamp's chain. Light flooded across the surface.
The handwriting was messy. Faded in places like time or water damage had worn it away. Some words were completely illegible—just smudges of ink that could've been anything.
But I could make out fragments:
"...always remember..."
"...forgive me..."
"...no other choice..."
The letters were shaky, uneven. Like whoever wrote this had been upset. Or in pain.
But one word stood out from the rest.
One name.
Written darker than everything else. Pressed so deep into the paper that I could feel the grooves with my fingertips.
Isolde.
I traced the letters slowly.
The name had been gone over multiple times—each stroke making the impression deeper, darker, more permanent.
He wrote this. Over and over.
Like he needed to remember.
Or couldn't forget.
My chest tightened.
Isolde.
That had to be her name. The woman in the photos.
The one he lost.
Cordelia's voice echoed in my head, crystal clear:
"There was someone. A girl. Someone he—someone important to him."
"Something bad happened."
"She's gone now."
"It changed him. Broke him."
I looked at the photo again—really looked at it this time.
Flipped it over to see the front.
It was the same woman from before. Same smile, same happiness in her eyes. But this shot was different. Closer. More intimate.
Just her face, framed by brown hair, looking directly at the camera.
At Kaelen.
She was beautiful in that effortless way some people just are. The kind of beauty that didn't need makeup or perfect lighting.
That's her, I thought numbly. That's Isolde.
The girl Cordelia talked about.
The one who died.
The jealousy that had been burning in my chest earlier—that hot, vicious rage—suddenly went cold.
Like someone dumped ice water over it.
She's dead.
I stared at her face.
Can't be jealous of a dead woman.
But the jealousy fading didn't make me feel better.
It just left room for other questions. Bigger ones.
How did she die?
What was the "something bad" Cordelia wouldn't explain?
Why does Kaelen keep these photos locked away like they're fucking classified?
The bond in my chest pulsed. Once. Twice.
Not painful exactly. Just... present.
Reminding me it was there.
Fuck off, I told it.
I set the photo down carefully on the desk, face up this time.
Looked at the book I'd been clutching earlier—the one I'd grabbed in my panic to look normal when Rowan barged in.
It was still lying on the bed where I'd dropped it after she left.
The photos fell out of this.
I picked it up slowly.
The cover was worn leather, cracked along the spine from age or use. No title on the front. No author name.
Heavy though. Heavier than a normal book should be.
The kind of heavy that comes from thick paper. Art paper.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and opened it carefully.
The first page had elegant script across the center, two different handwritings intertwined:
"Our Forever Story"
Below that, in Kaelen's unmistakable sharp strokes:
To the love that saved me.
And beneath it, in softer, rounder letters—Isolde's writing:
To the man who taught me what forever means.
My stomach dropped.
What the fuck is this?
I turned the page.
And froze.
It wasn't a journal.
It was a sketchbook.
A storybook.
The left page had a drawing—charcoal or pencil, rough but skilled. A woman's silhouette standing in a doorway, backlit by sunlight. Her face wasn't visible, but something about the posture felt... hesitant. Curious.
On the right page, words in Kaelen's handwriting:
---
June 3rd, 2017
I saw her today in the library. She was looking at me like I was just another person, not the Alpha everyone fears.
She smiled. Actually smiled.
I don't remember the last time someone looked at me that way.
Like I was worth knowing.
---
My hands started shaking.
This belonged to both of them.
They made this together.
Drew. Wrote. Created something that was just theirs.
And somehow—somehow—it ended up hidden in a cabinet in this room. Wrapped in photos like they were too precious to separate.
I shouldn't read this.
This is private. Personal.
This is—
But I couldn't stop myself.
I turned to the next page.
This time the drawing was different. Watercolor, soft and gentle. Two hands reaching for each other, fingers almost touching. The paint had bled slightly at the edges, making the image look dreamlike.
Isolde's handwriting flowed across the opposite page:
---
June 10th, 2017
He kissed me today.
We were in the garden, talking about nothing and everything, and then his hand touched mine.
Just a brush of fingers.
But it felt like lightning.
And then he kissed me, and I forgot how to breathe.
Everyone warned me about him. Said he was dangerous.
But dangerous things can be beautiful too.
---
I slammed the book shut.
My heart was pounding too hard, too fast.
Stop.
Stop looking.
This isn't yours to know.
But the damage was done.
I'd already seen enough.
The drawings. The words. The intimacy in every stroke of the pencil and every line of text.
This wasn't just a record of their relationship.
This was their love story.
Created together. Page by page. Drawing by drawing.
And now I was stuck in this house, marked by him, bound to him by a bond I never wanted—
While her ghost lived in every locked cabinet and hidden sketchbook and photo he couldn't let go of.
Fuck.
I looked down at the book in my lap.
They made this together.
Took turns drawing and writing.
Immortalized their relationship in art and words.
It was beautiful.
And it made me sick.
Because I could see it now—the Kaelen she'd known. The one who drew gentle watercolors of hands almost touching. The one who wrote about someone looking at him like he was worth knowing.
That Kaelen was gone.
Dead and buried with Isolde.
What was left was the cold, ruthless Alpha who'd marked me against my will. Who kept me locked in this room like a prisoner.
That's the Kaelen I know.
Not this... not whoever he was in these pages.
The bond pulsed in my chest again. Stronger this time.
Almost like it was urging me to keep reading.
No, I told myself firmly. This is wrong.
This is—
But my hands were already opening the book again.
Turning to the next page.
Just one more, I lied to myself.