Chapter 55 Chapter 55. Zephyr’s Bond Starts Cracking
When Evander walked into the hospital room, he saw half of Zoria’s body teetering at the edge of the bed, her lifeless eyes fixed on the floor. His heart clenched painfully as he rushed forward and pulled her into his arms.
“Zoria.”
There was no expression left on her face, her eyes hollow and empty. It was the first time Evander had ever seen her like this. She looked like a doll that had lost its soul.
Zoria slowly came back to herself, her voice trembling. “Evander… I want to see my father.”
Evander’s eyes reddened. He held Zoria’s fragile body tightly. She had lost her baby, and now she had lost her father too. The pillar that had been holding her up seemed to have completely collapsed. Evander didn’t know how to comfort her, how to give her the courage to keep living.
Zoria spoke softly, “Does my father hate me? If he didn’t… then why did he die?”
“No,” Evander said, as he always had, lifting his hand to stroke her hair.
Zoria remained stubborn. “He must hate me. He hates that I stayed with Zephyr. He hates that I never went to see him. Otherwise… how could he leave without saying a single word?”
"Zoria, Uncle Kieran did not hate you. He only wanted you to go on living properly. He was afraid of becoming a burden, afraid of dragging you down into hell with him."
Zoria raised both hands to cover her face. Her eye sockets burned with a sharp, searing pain, and her slender shoulders shook uncontrollably.
"That first baby… it was all my fault. If I had not lied during the bone marrow donation surgery, if I had not deceived Zephyr into thinking the baby had miscarried… then it would not have died. I killed it… I killed it myself…"
"Zoria!" Evander could not bear it any longer. He did not need to think to know that those words had been planted in her head by Zephyr. He had once believed that telling Zephyr the truth might awaken a shred of conscience in him, but that beast had never possessed one to begin with.
"Zoria, that baby was not killed by you. Zephyr was spouting nonsense. This has nothing to do with you."
Zoria slipped back into mental chaos. The image of the baby being pulled from her womb replayed in her mind over and over like a nightmare with no end. She pressed her hands tightly over her eyes, squeezing as if she wanted to tear them out herself.
Evander pulled her into his arms, gripping her thin wrists to stop her. "Zoria, the baby's death was not your fault. It had nothing to do with you. You wanted to give that baby the best life. You tried your hardest to carry it for a full ten months. Back then, when you were pregnant, you did not even care about your own life. How could you possibly have killed it?"
Zoria buried her face in Evander's chest, then lifted her head and broke down sobbing. Her cries caught in her throat before bursting out, echoing through the empty hospital room and hooking straight into Evander's heart.
Evander patted her shoulder. "Cry. It's okay. Let it all out."
Zoria had not yet recovered from the pain of losing her baby when she lost her father as well, and then miscarried again. Both her mind and body had been pushed to their limits, torn apart until there was nothing left intact.
She clung tightly to Evander, crying until her voice turned hoarse, her tears soaking the fabric over his chest. It was as if months of tears she had been unable to shed all poured out at once.
"Evander… it hurts so much…" Zoria's lips trembled as she spoke. Her soft sobbing suddenly broke into loud cries, then, at the deepest point of grief, abruptly fell silent, leaving only broken sniffles.
She cried without sound, tears streaming endlessly. Grievance, heartbreak, regret—all of it pressed down on her chest until she could barely breathe.
"They would not let me keep my baby. Zephyr said my baby was a bastard, that it did not deserve to exist in this world."
Evander's hand, which had been rubbing her back, stiffened. Zoria's crying was like a blade of icy wind, slicing through his ears and carrying a sharp pain straight into his chest.
"It hurts so much… it really hurts…"
Evander cradled the back of her neck, his own body trembling despite himself. The anger inside him thickened into bitter grief. Earlier, he had imagined all kinds of scenarios about Zoria's miscarriage, but he had never expected the truth to be this cruel, this utterly despairing.
Zoria was Kieran's only daughter. She had been cherished and spoiled since childhood. And yet now she was forced to live a life filled with such suffering.
Zoria lifted her head, her eyes blurred with tears as she looked at him, her voice hoarse. "Evander… I saw my dad… he was covered in blood, lying right in front of me… there was a hole in his chest. No matter how much I called him, he would not wake up… I want to go with him…"
Evander lifted her face and wiped away her tears. "Zoria, when Uncle Kieran was alive, what he wanted was for you to live properly. He did not want you to die with him."
Zoria gasped for breath, then fell silent. Her chin rested on Evander's shoulder, her darkened eyes staring blankly at the empty ceiling. After a while, she let out a faint laugh, a sound as if it had been strangled.
Evander said hoarsely, "Zoria, survive."
Those words wrapped around her heart like a golden thread, slipping into her ears and tightening around her chest.
"Zoria, survive."
But what if she could not survive? Her eyelids slowly closed, and the last tear slipped quietly from her lashes.
Evander said, "Cut the bond with Zephyr. I will help you file a petition with the Lycan court."
Could she really break free from Zephyr’s control—truly sever the bond between them? Would Zephyr actually let her go? One question piled on top of another, crowding her mind until her head felt like it was about to split open.
Her forehead rested against Evander’s shoulder, and Zoria suddenly remembered the day she had been thrown into prison months ago. Back then, her father had said to her, “An Everhart is never meant to be bullied. Zoria, live on—for me.”