Chapter 58 The Room He Couldn’t Leave
Grayson:
Four days.
Four nights, I hadn’t been back to her rooms. I hadn’t let anyone else enter either.
The guards knew better than to ask.
I’d told myself it was temporary that I needed space. That stepping inside would make things real in a way I wasn’t ready for yet.
The truth was simpler.
I hadn’t been brave enough to cross the doorway.
Tonight, I did.
The lights were low, just as she always left them, never fully dark, nor too bright. Soft, glowing orbs lining the walls, casting soft shadows.
The room still smelled like her. Like moon flowers.
Fresh. Warm. Familiar.
A scent I had only started to notice properly when it was already slipping away from me.
Her books were stacked beside the window, spines bent where she’d reread the same pages.
A shawl lay draped over the back of the chair, forgotten in the rush of a morning she hadn’t known would be her last here.
The bed was neatly made. Untouched.
As if the room itself had been holding its breath for the return of its occupant.
I stood at the door longer than I meant to.
Then I crossed the threshold. The door closed behind me with a soft click that sounded too final.
I dropped my jacket onto the chair. Kicked off my boots beside the bed. I didn’t bother placing them properly. I wasn’t one to keep things in order. In the past few weeks, when I started sharing her room because I couldn't stay away, she was always cleaning up after my mess.
And that memory stabbed my heart like a spear.
For the past four nights, I hadn't been able to sleep at all. I was here because I couldn’t sleep anywhere else.
I opened the wardrobe.
Her dresses hung untouched. Simple ones. Soft fabrics. Nothing like the ceremonial armour the pack had expected her to wear.
I remembered her saying, once, quietly, I don’t want to feel like I’m wearing armour in my own home.
I hadn’t understood then.
But I understood now.
I went back to my own quarters and brought the rest of my clothes here. Shoved them into the empty half of the wardrobe. Folded them badly. And left some hanging.
My weapons went on the dresser. If I were going to keep vigil, it would be here.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
Memories rose whether I invited them or not.
Her standing by the window, refusing to look at me after a harsh word, not defiant, just tired.
The way she’d gone quiet in council, eyes sharp but mouth closed, choosing peace over confrontation.
And recently, her voice steady as she challenged me anyway.
The nights I’d stayed.
The conversations that hadn’t ended in silence anymore.
The way she’d looked at me like she was waiting to see if I would keep choosing her.
I had started to.
But too late.
“I should have done better,” I said to the room.
Not louder. Just honest.
The words sank deeper with the silence of the room.
I found the drawer she kept locked. I’d always known it was there. I’d just never opened it.
Inside were datapads. Notes. Council records. Messages she’d archived instead of deleting. Her handwriting marked carefully in the margins.
Observations.
Patterns.
Questions she hadn’t forced me to answer.
Ask Grayson when he’s calmer.
Something doesn’t add up here.
This feels wrong, not just grief.
One file was marked with my name.
I opened it.
Her voice filled the room. Calm. Controlled. Careful in the way someone is when they love you, but don’t trust your temper.
“I know you’re trying,” she said. “And I see it. But you’re still angry, and Isabelle is using that. If you don’t slow down, if you don’t look closer... You’re going to realise too late that you weren’t fighting the right enemy.”
The recording ended. I stared at the dark screen.
Too late.
A knock came softly at the door.
“Grayson,” Helena said. “May I come in?”
I nodded once.
She entered quietly, eyes moving over the room, the open wardrobe, the displaced order, the signs that I had finally crossed a line I’d been avoiding.
She didn’t comment. She never did when comments would only bruise.
She sat beside me.
“I wondered when you’d come back here,” she said.
“I couldn’t before.”
“I know.”
Her hand rested on my shoulder. Warm. Steady. Not corrective.
“She said things were changing,” Helena continued softly. “That you were listening. That you were trying.”
My throat tightened.
“I was,” I said. “I just thought I had more time.”
Helena nodded. “We all did.” Her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
She looked around the room. “She trusted that change. Trusted you and that matters.”
I bowed my head.
“What do I do now?” I asked.
Helena met my gaze without flinching. “You don’t let grief turn you back into the man she was afraid of losing. You become the one she believed you could be.”
“And if she comes back?”
Helena’s eyes shone, but she didn’t look away. “Then you will already be standing where she can find you.”
She rose.
“Rest here tonight,” she said. “But not as punishment.”
At the door, she paused.
“Regret is a wasted emotion when it stops you from becoming better.”
The door closed softly.
I lay back on the bed we had slept in, staring at the ceiling she had stared at so many nights beside me.
For the first time since she vanished, I didn’t fight the ache.
I let it sit with me. My wolf had receded so back into the crevices of my mind, only surfacing when someone spoke ill of her.
I had never felt this kind of loneliness, too consuming, too devastating.
I would stay here.
Not because she was gone, or because she wasn’t.
I would stay here until she came back
And when she returned, I would not be the man who almost lost her twice.
I would become the man who deserved her return.