Chapter 22 Fractured Logic
Grayson:
The door closed behind me, and for a long moment I just stood there… staring at the wood like it might give me answers I’d spent years pretending I already had.
My hands were shaking.
I didn’t want to look at them. Didn’t want to remember the way they’d held Evie. The way they’d left marks on her.
Bruises. On my mate.
My wolf snarled inside me, a deep, guttural, agonized sound.
Mine, he growled.
You hurt what’s ours.
I shut my eyes.
“Shut up,” I whispered.
But he didn’t. He pushed memories into me, her flinch when I stepped too close, the way she looked away from me with fear instead of love, the way her breath hitched when my shadow touched her.
The marks on her skin seared themselves behind my eyelids.
Fingers.
Teeth.
Claws.
My hands trembled harder. I pressed them against my thighs as if I could quiet the guilt through sheer force.
I’d done that.
Me.
No one else.
And I couldn’t even explain why without sounding like a monster.
Because Chloe said she was dangerous.
Because Chloe said Evie bullied her.
Because Chloe wrote that she feared Evie.
Because Chloe said Evie wanted me for herself.
Because Chloe was all I had left of innocence.
And now… now everything tasted like ash.
The truth I’d seen today clawed at my throat.
Evie hadn’t killed Chloe.
Evie hadn’t poisoned her.
Evie hadn’t pushed her.
Evie had…Tried. To. Save. Her.
My wolf whimpered, low and wounded.
Mate was trying to protect us. You believed lies. You hurt her. You hurt her.
I dragged a hand down my face.
I didn’t want to be this man.
I didn’t want to be the villain in her story.
But I had built my life around the framework of grief, and today someone ripped the foundation out from under me.
“Grayson.”
Isabelle’s voice slithered through the hall like ice water down my spine.
I didn’t turn. I didn’t trust my face.
She stepped into view, graceful as a viper in silk. Her eyes shimmered with something sharp and wet, the emotion of a grieving mother simmering beneath polished control.
“You’re shaking,” she murmured.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Her gaze flicked to my hands, then back to my eyes.
“You saw those bruises, didn’t you?”
My teeth clenched. I didn’t answer.
Isabelle stepped closer, her voice quiet enough that it wrapped around me like smoke.
“She knows how to provoke guilt, Grayson. She’s always been cunning like that.”
“She wasn’t provoking anything.”
She tilted her head. “You think those bruises weren’t placed where you’d see them?”
A snarl tore from my wolf.
Lies. She lies.
But my throat tightened.
“I left those,” I whispered.
Saying it aloud hurt more than I expected.
Isabelle’s face softened with a mother’s grief, her grief, not mine.
“Do you think Chloe didn’t come home crying about bruises?” she whispered. “Do you know how many times she told me Evie shoved her? Hurt her? Mocked her?”
My heart stuttered.
Images of Chloe’s tears flooded my mind, the night she hid her face in my shirt, shaking, telling me Evie hated her, wanted to ruin everything between us.
“She told you everything,” Isabelle breathed. “She trusted you. She died because she trusted the wrong people.”
The guilt slammed into me again.
My wolf growled in my chest, clawing at me, furious.
Mate is innocent. Mate is hurting. We did this.
But Isabelle’s voice threaded between the guilt like a needle pulling poison into a vein.
“You punished the girl who tormented my daughter,” she whispered. “You fell in love with Chloe because she was gentle. Loving. Loyal. And now? You’re letting Evie twist your emotions again.”
I swallowed hard. Everything inside me felt like broken glass.
“She didn’t torment Chloe. The footage…”
“The footage showed one night.” Isabelle’s eyes flashed cold. “Not years of cruelty. Years of jealousy. Years of undermining my daughter.”
“It’s not true…”
“She wanted you, Grayson. Anyone could see it. She’s always wanted you.”
My breath stalled.
Because… yes.
Evie always looked at me like I hung the moon.
And I loved it. Maybe too much. Maybe enough that Chloe saw it and feared it.
Isabelle stepped closer until her perfume became the air I breathed.
“This is what Chloe feared,” she whispered. “That when she was gone, Evie would finally have you. And you would forget the girl who loved you first.”
A sharp pain twisted behind my ribs.
Chloe.
My Chloe.
Her laugh. Her trembling voice.
Her confession: Evie hates me, Grayson. She wants to take you from me.
A lie. The arena proved it.
But lies built on grief behave like truths.
My wolf scratched inside my chest.
Mate. Mate is true. Mate is suffering. Mate is ours.
But my mind, my broken, grief-warped mind, couldn’t let go of the story I’d clung to for so long.
“If you want to honor Chloe,” Isabelle said softly, “you cannot forgive Evie so easily. She must earn it. She must prove she’s not dangerous. You cannot let her manipulate your guilt.”
I exhaled shakily.
“And the marriage?” I asked hoarsely. “Was that… part of your plan?”
Isabelle didn’t blink.
“It was necessary.”
Her voice was pure ice. “She needed binding. Control. Your alliance was the only way to keep the pack stable… and keep Chloe from being overshadowed.”
My stomach turned.
“We used Evie,” I whispered.
“We protected Chloe's memory,” she corrected.
A long silence. Finally, I said:
“I won’t… hurt her again.”
Isabelle’s eyes softened with calculated relief.
“That’s fine,” she said. “You don’t need to touch her to make your point. She just needs to understand her place.”
My wolf roared in agony.
NO. Mate’s place is at our side. Mate’s place is protected. Mate is ours. Ours.
I clenched my skull between my palms.
“I just… need time,” I whispered.
“To see clearly.”
Isabelle leaned in. Her whisper was a knife in velvet:
“Then listen to your mind, not your wolf.”
I inhaled sharply. My wolf howled.
She. Is. Wrong.
But grief is a more powerful master than instinct.
I nodded. Once.
A single, fatal surrender.
And I felt the fracture inside me widen just a little more.