Free Web NovelChapter 414: Chapter 414
Aria’s POV
I looked at Nathan, at the man I had once loved with the whole, uncomplicated faith of someone who had not yet learned that love was not the same as safety. At the man who had stood and watched me be led away. At the man who had cried in the hallway outside my door and signed divorce papers with a shaking hand.
At the man who had helped me as much as he could in my quest to clear my name and make my father pay fof his crimes.
He was all of those men at once. People were not simple. I knew that, but I was done, completely done with the man standing in front of me.
"No, I can’t do that." I said.
He closed his eyes briefly.
"Nathan." My voice was not unkind. "It’s not that I don’t believe you. I think something in you has genuinely changed and will continue to change."
I held his gaze. "But change doesn’t erase what was. And I can’t unlearn what it felt like to be in that cell and know help wasn’t coming. I can’t undo what my wolf learned about what it felt like to need you and have nothing." I shook my head. "I have forgiven you. That’s real. But I am never coming back. And you need to build your life knowing that, instead of building it around hoping I’ll change my mind."
He stood very still.
"I mean that kindly," I said. "I genuinely do." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
"I know," he said. His voice was rough. "I know you do."
There was a sound behind me. Rowland had come to stand in the frame of the door. I saw Nathan’s eyes go to him, and something moved across his face. He breathed in through his nose and his hands came out of his pockets and clenched.
"Why do you keep hanging around her? Why can’t you just let her be?" he asked Raymond.
"Aria and I go way back, Uncle," Rowland said, his tone carefully controlled, "I am never leaving her side. A woman like her is many men’s dream. I know her worth. Which is something you know too. You just learned it too late."
Nathan’s jaw tightened. "You were my nephew before you were her—"
"I’m still your nephew," Rowland said. "That doesn’t change what I feel for her."
"Stay away from—"
"Nathan." My voice was flat and final. "Stop."
The punch came before I had finished the sentence.
I moved immediately. My wolf pushed me forward, fast, and I was between them before either of them fully knew it had happened. My hand was against Nathan’s chest, my voice cutting through the snarl that was rising from Rowland’s throat.
"Enough," I said.
Logan appeared in the doorway, having clearly been waiting for an excuse, and started toward Nathan.
"Logan, don’t," I said sharply.
He stopped.
I turned. I looked at all three of them. Nathan, breathing hard, his fist still half-raised. Rowland, coiled and ready, his eyes gold. Logan, barely contained.
"Look at this," I said quietly. "Look at what you’re doing."
None of them spoke.
"I am not a territory," I said. "I am not a decision that gets made by whoever throws the last punch. I am a person. My daughter is sleeping inside that house. And the three of you are standing on my step behaving like wolves who have never learned to walk upright."
There was silence.
"You will all go home," I said. "Tonight. Right now."
Nathan lowered his hand. Something in him deflated.
Rowland said nothing, which from him was more controlled than I had expected.
Logan raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and took a step back.
"Go," I said.
They all went.
I stood on the step and watched the night close around their retreating shapes. Then I went back inside, closed the door, leaned against it, and breathed.
Chloe handed me my wine glass.
"That," she said, "is why you are the most intimidating person I have ever met."
I took the glass. "The cake is excessive," I told Williams.
He beamed. "Thank you."
Nathan’s POV
I did not go home. I went to a bar instead.
The bar was quiet at that hour. I went to the private lounge, a place where Alphas went when they needed to be anonymous, where the staff understood that the first rule of service was not to remember faces. I took a booth and I drank.
Collins found me at the second hour. He had been worried, he said. He was always worried. Collins was a better man than I deserved as a witness to the worst versions of myself.
"Alpha Nathan—"
"Sit down," I said. He sat. "Don’t tell me to stop drinking. I’m not drunk. I’m just not sober."
He looked at the glass in my hand and then at my face and appeared to make a calculated decision.
"Alright," he said.
I looked at the wood grain of the table.
"She said no," I said.
Collins was quiet.
"She didn’t say it with anger," I said. "That would almost have been easier. She said it like hwr mind was completely made up and she was just making sure I knew." I turned the glass in my hands. "She’s right, Collins. I know she’s right. That’s the worst part. Every single thing she said to me tonight was right."
"She usually is," Collins said carefully.
I let out a short, humourless sound. "My grandmother tried to warn me. She asked me — if you were Aria, would you take yourself back? And I knew then. I knew what the answer was." I set the glass down. "I just couldn’t stop."
"It takes time," Collins said, "to stop wanting something you’ve wanted for years."
"I’m not going to stop wanting it," I said flatly. "That’s not what’s going to happen. I’m going to want it for the rest of my life and I’m going to have to figure out how to live in a way that doesn’t inflict that on her." I looked at him.
"She has built something real. She has a life. She has Lana. She has—" I stopped. Pushed the thought of Rowland aside, because that particular thought still made my wolf lunge. "She has people around her who actually deserve to be there."
Collins looked at me steadily.
"I wasted it," I said. "I had a woman who loved me from the beginning. She loved me for who I was not what I had and I punished her for it because I was afraid of needing someone." I shook my head slowly. "Don’t do that, Collins. If you have someone who looks at you the way Aria used to look at me, don’t waste that. Don’t make them earn what they already gave you freely."
"I know," Collins said quietly.
"Don’t take it for granted." I picked up the glass again. "Don’t wait until you’ve destroyed it to understand what it was."
Collins sat with me for a long time after that, saying nothing. It was, I thought, the most useful thing he had ever done.
