Chapter 53 Fifty three
Chapter 53 Fifty three
Maren
The safe house was too quiet.
I had been pacing the kitchen for the last hour, coffee long gone cold on the counter. Every minute that passed without Isolde walking through the door made the knot in my stomach tighter. She had stormed out after our fight yesterday morning, slamming the door so hard the frame still vibrated in my memory. I had expected her to come back sooner. To apologize, to recommit, to remember why we were doing this.
Instead, the hours dragged on, and with every one that passed, my worry turned colder.
When the door finally opened, I knew immediately something was wrong.
Isolde stepped inside looking like a ghost of herself. Her dress was still torn from the gala and it looked like she had been into a fight, her hair was messy, eyes red-rimmed. There were fresh marks on her throat fingerprints. Probably Zander’s and the scent rolling off her was unmistakable sex, sweat, and him.
She didn’t even look at me at first. She just dropped her bag on the table and leaned against the wall like her legs might give out.
I didn’t greet her gently.
“You smell like him,” I said, voice flat and cold. “Again.”
Isolde closed her eyes for a second, then opened them. “Maren…”
“No.” I cut her off, stepping closer. “Don’t ‘Maren’ me like that. You stormed out of my house yesterday morning screaming at me, accusing me of every sin under the sun, and now you come back hours later reeking of Zander Ashveil’s cum. What the hell happened?”
She pushed off the wall, eyes flashing with exhaustion and defiance. “I went to his penthouse.”
I laughed once, sharp and bitter. “Of course you did. After everything I said. After I warned you after you accused me of betraying you... you ran straight to him and spread your legs again.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she snapped, voice rising. “I was angry and overwhelmed. I didn’t plan to sleep with him. I just… I needed to see him. To feel something real after our fight.”
“Real?” I stepped right up to her, close enough to see the faint tear tracks on her cheeks. “You think fucking the man who once called you disgusting is ‘real’? You think letting him fill you up while his fiancée is bleeding from the fight you just had with her is ‘real’? Yes I heard Islode. Wake up, you’re falling so hard and you’re going to destroy everything we’ve built because you can’t keep your legs closed and your heart locked.”
Isolde’s hands clenched into fists. “You don’t understand. He knows now not everything, but enough. He knows I’m the girl he rejected that night. He came to my apartment furious. He confronted me and asked if any of it was real...this morning, when I went to him, when I begged him to fuck me. He thinks the whole thing was revenge.”
“And was it?” I demanded. “Or did you actually start believing your own lies? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re the one who’s lost sight of the plan. You were supposed to shake him, make him doubt, make Aldric nervous. Not crawl to his bed and moan his name like a bitch in heat.”
Tears welled in her eyes again, but she blinked them back angrily.
“I hate what he did to me that night,” she said, voice cracking. “I hate him for calling me disgusting. I hate him for walking away while I stayed on my knees. But when he touches me… when he looks at me… I forget. I forget the plan. I forget the pain. I forget everything except how good it feels when he’s inside me. Is that so wrong? After everything I’ve been through, is wanting to feel something real so wrong?”
“Yes,” I said coldly. “It is. Because that ‘real’ feeling is going to get you killed. Aldric knows you’re back. He’s watching you. And if Zander keeps pulling at this thread, if he starts asking the right questions, he’ll figure out the rest. Then what? You think Zander will choose you over his father? Over the pack? Over the life he was raised for? He’ll turn on you the second he remembers what you really are to him the girl he once destroyed.”
Isolde shook her head, tears finally spilling over. “He looked at me like he was breaking. Like he wanted to believe me. Like maybe there was something more between us than revenge.”
Maren laughed bitterly. “And that’s exactly why you’re dangerous to yourself right now. You’re starting to believe your own fantasy. You went from wanting to destroy him to wanting him to love you. That’s not strength. That’s suicide.”
She stared at me for a long moment, chest heaving.
“I don’t know what I want anymore,” she whispered. “I know I should hate him. I know the plan. But every time he touches me, I feel… home and that terrifies me more than Aldric ever could.”
I stepped back, disappointment and anger mixing into something heavy in my chest.
“Then you need to decide,” I said quietly. “Right now are you still my weapon? Or have you already chosen to become his?”
Isolde didn’t answer.
She just stood there, tears streaming down her face, the scent of Zander still clinging to her skin like a brand.
In that silence, I realized the terrifying truth
The girl I had trained to destroy the Ashveils might have already been destroyed by one of them.
The plan was cracking and I wasn’t sure I could fix it before it shattered completely.