Chapter 49 The Last Entry
Grayson:
The journal was still open on my lap.
Chloe’s handwriting curved across the page in obsessive loops, frantic strokes that blurred from the heat behind my eyes.
The last entry from the night she died stared up at me like it was mocking every part of my life I thought I understood.
“Mother says tonight, Evangeline must go.”
My hands went cold. The words felt heavy and final. They had planned to end her that night. Evie. My mate. The girl I was supposed to protect. Fate, whatever force it was, had intervened. Chloe drank the poison meant for Evie. She had made herself the victim of her own scheme.
I pressed my palms over my eyes. I didn’t know if I wanted to scream or tear this room apart. The guilt was a living thing inside me, steady and relentless.
I remembered every cruel thing I’d ever said to Evie. Every moment, I’d let suspicion sharpen inside me until it became a blade. I remembered accusing her of manipulation and lies while she stood in front of me with truths I refused to hear. I remembered how desperately I wanted to believe Chloe, how much easier her version of the world had been for me to accept.
She fed me what I wanted to hear, and I let her. I built affection around a ghost. I clung to a girl who did not exist, who had needed my anger to survive in my mind.
I let Chloe stand in the light that should have been Evie’s. I didn’t know how little of that light had ever belonged to Chloe at all.
When Richard died, I had left her alone.
Evie stood in front of the council hours after his body cooled. She handled paperwork, inheritance, legal battles, and the press. She stood with trembling hands and a stoic face while her world collapsed.
And I…
I wasn’t there.
I didn’t even ask how she was coping.
I let people whisper about her.
I let those whispers settle into my bones until they became “truth.”
She carried the family name when I refused to carry even a fraction of the truth.
After Chloe’s death, I thought Evie caused it. I married her, believing it was justice. Like a fool, I used vows as weapons. I promised protection and then shattered her on our wedding night.
I had told myself that night was justice.
Punishment.
Balance.
I remember the way her eyes looked at me, wide and confused and afraid, and I still walked out. I remembered the bruises I had left on her body. I remembered how she had tried to reach for me for comfort, and I had given her venom wrapped in cruelty. I remember the sound of the door closing behind me and how the silence after felt triumphantly cold. I thought it was a victory. I thought I had done something noble by putting fear and doubt in Evie, by destroying her trsut.
Now I see it for what it was.
Cowardice.
Blindness.
Cruelty dressed as righteousness.
I destroyed her on the one night she should have been safe with me. And she had carried that pain alone.
My wolf had cried inside me that night. He knew. But I ignored him too.
I failed her as a friend. As a husband. As a mate. Every title I owned became proof of how deeply I had betrayed her.
The anger I used to justify everything now tasted like shame. Heavy. Bitter. Honest. And none of it excused me. There was no undoing this.
I rubbed my forehead with shaking fingers. My wolf prowled in circles inside me, uneasy and restless. He wanted to fix this with his teeth. I had to fix it with my hands.
Evie wasn’t here when I finally stood. She should have been. She should have been in my arms while I begged for forgiveness. I should have dropped to my knees in front of her and said every apology I owed her.
I reached for my phone and found it dead, the screen black. I had left it in the study last night. I’d meant to charge it. I forgot.
Of course, I forgot.
The weight of the journal pressed against my ribs as I slipped it beneath my coat and headed into the hallway.
Every step hit the floor like a strike I didn’t deserve to recover from. I needed to find her. To speak before silence turned into another wound I couldn’t repair.
At the doorway to the study, I paused only long enough to confirm the phone was truly dead. The cable wasn’t even plugged in. A stupid mistake, but today even small failures felt enormous.
I couldn’t message her. I couldn’t warn her. I couldn’t tell her what I had learned. At least not on text.
I needed to see her.
I held the journal tighter. My breath came quick and sharp.
I left the study and ran.
My footsteps echoed through the estate. Past the training yards. Past the gardens that glowed softly under the afternoon light. Past the windows that had seen so much of our history. My voice cracked as I called her name.
“Evie!”
No answer.
I ran faster. My lungs burned. My wolf pushed against my skin, frantic.
At the Luna Wing, I slammed the door open.
“Evie!” I shouted.
Mara turned, startled, worry already tightening her face. “Grayson?”
“Where is Evie?”
Mara blinked at the urgency in my voice, then her expression softened with something like sympathy.
“She left for her mother’s this morning,” she said quietly. “She said she texted you.”
My heart dropped with trepidation. I didn’t know why, but something inside me twisted hard, a warning I couldn’t shake. My wolf went still, ears pricked, sensing the same wrongness. I stepped back from Mara, breath tight.
“She texted me,” I repeated, barely recognizing my own voice. “But I never saw it.”
I was already turning toward the gates.
I had to find her.