Julian’s POV

My voice came out as a hoarse whisper, thick with shame. "How did I miss all of this?"

Standing in what Arthur generously called Seraphina’s "bedroom" in the attic, I felt sick to my stomach. This wasn’t a bedroom at all - just a cramped, depressing corner. A thin mattress that looked like it belonged in a shelter, a battered wooden chest, and a handful of dog-eared books. That was it. That was everything she owned. This wasn’t a place to live - it was barely a place to survive. And I, in my arrogance and selfishness, had made her suffering even worse.

The realization hit me like a freight train. Fragments of memory collided with fresh understanding. I had been so consumed with my own resentment about this arranged marriage, so furious about how it disrupted my carefully planned future, that I never once considered she might feel the same way.

She probably hated this marriage as much as I did. She wanted her freedom too, her own choices, her own path. Instead, she found herself locked in this gilded prison alongside me. But rather than reaching out to her, rather than trying to find common ground or offer comfort, I had retreated behind walls of ice.

I built barriers between us, stone by stone. I told myself they protected me, but they only imprisoned us both.

The darkest part of me had blamed her for everything. I fed my resentment, nurtured my coldness, made sure she felt every ounce of my displeasure. But she was doing exactly what I was doing - trying to please our families. Trying to survive an impossible situation.

I could still picture our first meeting. She was breathtaking - the most stunning woman I had ever laid eyes on. Her hair cascaded in gentle waves around a face that seemed to hold a thousand untold stories. When the mate bond sparked between us, her happiness was radiant. Her eyes, luminous with hope and adoration, tracked my every movement. Yet I responded to that warmth with arctic indifference.

Slowly but surely, her light dimmed.

When my father commanded us to complete the marking ceremony, there was no smile on her face. No trace of joy, no excitement to match our families’ elaborate celebrations.

She simply complied, like an obedient puppet following orders.

I despised her for not resisting like I had. My wolf raged inside me. It loathed the injustice, the archaic traditions, the concept of a mate selected for me instead of chosen by me. I snarled and fought against my father, against the entire council, searching desperately for an escape. But she... she surrendered. Like a sacrificial lamb accepting its fate, bearing a quiet sorrow I had mistaken for apathy.

She surrendered because she believed resistance was pointless.

She had discovered, long before I entered her world, that defiance only invited more suffering.

The guilt sliced through me like a blade. Neither of us earned this fate, but she especially didn’t deserve her life before me, or the cruelty I showed her afterward.

I shut my eyes and inhaled deeply. Her fragrance, delicate yet pervasive, flooded my senses. All I wanted was to hold her, to whisper apologies for every harsh word, every cold glance, every moment of my stupid, selfish rage.

I had convinced myself I only wanted her back because her absence at the Alpha ceremony humiliated me publicly, damaged my reputation, represented a challenge to my authority. But that was a convenient lie I used to protect my ego. The raw, agonizing truth was simpler - I missed her desperately.

’You love her, don’t you?’ My wolf’s voice, a deep, satisfied growl in my chest, voiced what I had been fighting to deny.

Every instinct screamed at me to reject such vulnerability. My Alpha pride, my carefully maintained distance, rebelled against admitting such tender feelings. But in a moment of brutal honesty, I acknowledged what I had known for months. Long before she vanished, long before her absence became an unbearable ache, I knew. And I have no idea why I never told her. Perhaps all of this anguish, all the separation, all the fear, could have been prevented. Perhaps if I had simply spoken, opened my heart, she wouldn’t have felt so completely abandoned.

’She belongs to us! You have to find her!’ My wolf demanded.

Voices drifted up from below, and hoping she had returned, I rushed downstairs. But it wasn’t Seraphina.

I didn’t need an introduction to recognize the woman - she was simply an aged version of Roxanne.

The woman who destroyed my mate’s existence. In that instant, she was the luckiest person alive, because her gender was the only thing preventing my wolf from ripping her apart.

She bowed the moment she spotted me, but rage consumed me.

"Greetings, Alpha. Forgive my absence when you arrived, but I lose my patience with that worthless girl." Sybil spoke, meeting my gaze while I stared back with icy contempt. "I cannot believe she abandoned you and embarrassed you before everyone."

Unlike Arthur, she had clearly been speaking with Roxanne or whoever was feeding her information.

"Do you know her location?" I asked, though strangling the life from her throat was all I really wanted to do.

"No, but it’s for the best because now you can finally be with your true preference and destined mate, which is Roxanne." She declared, and while I wasn’t surprised, I was thoroughly revolted. "How dare you speak to me that way?" I snarled, feeling my wolf surge forward before I forced him back. I would make this woman pay for everything she inflicted on the woman I loved, but this wasn’t the time or place.

"I-I-I was only-" She glanced between Arthur and me, mortified, before making excuses and fleeing like something was hunting her.

I turned to Arthur, who appeared ashamed of her behavior.

Part of me wanted to pity him. The part that remembered family connections tried to. But I couldn’t. Seraphina might have forgiven him, or simply stopped feeling the pain he caused, but I will never forgive what he did, or more accurately, what he failed to do. He didn’t protect her adequately. He allowed his wife to abuse her emotionally and physically while remaining silent.

He still remains silent today by continuing to allow Sybil inside.

He was supposed to be Seraphina’s protector, her father, her shield. I don’t care how powerless he felt against his vicious wife. His weakness enabled her torment. I don’t care if he divorced Sybil after Seraphina left. It was too late by then. He couldn’t do it while she was trapped in that nightmare.

They destroyed her entire childhood. And you can never recover that. But I will compensate her for it.

"Where might she have gone?" My voice was flat, emotionless. "Does she have friends? Close relationships? Relatives, perhaps?"

Arthur blinked slowly, looking lost. "She wasn’t close to anyone," he mumbled weakly. "And we have no remaining family."

Just as frustration began to overwhelm me, his eyes suddenly brightened with hope.

"Her phone!" He exclaimed, leaping up with surprising vigor and rushing toward the attic.

I followed, bewildered but alert. He began searching frantically through Seraphina’s meager possessions.

He held up an old device triumphantly. "She took her phone, so you can reach her!"

She had smashed the phone I’d given her. I discovered it near the garage where she fled from her family. So this must be an older one. I felt a flicker of respect.

"Do you have her number?" I asked.

He nodded, struggling with the small buttons to display the number. But as he worked, a different plan, cold and ruthless, began forming in my mind. Something that might bring her back faster than pleading, faster than any apology I could make. It was a terrible idea, one that violated everything I believed was honorable, but my wolf, desperate and single-minded, didn’t care.

I grabbed the phone from his shaking hands, already dialing as Arthur watched in confusion.

"Hello?"

The sound of her voice made my blood sing.

This was the moment.

No turning back now.

I needed her to return to me. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"Seraphina," I said, my voice dark and threatening. I hoped my words would cut deep enough to bring her running. "I have your father. If you want him to remain breathing..."