Chapter 21%
Third Person’s POV
Ethan stood on the cliff’s edge, his heart a raw, bleeding wound. He had planned this, meticulously. He had stolen Ivy away, brought her here, to this isolated spot, convinced that if he could just make her see, just make her remember, she would stay. But she was in Vincent arms, clinging to him, her tears a testament to his failure. He was furious. A cold, burning rage consumed him. Why couldn’t Ivy just stay with him? Why was fate so cruel, snatching her away just when he finally understood what he had lost?
His eyes scanned the gathering crowd. Nightshade Pack wamiors, their faces grim, their wolves bristling. Snowland Pack, Ivy’s family. their Alpha–her father–a formidable presence radiating fury. And even his own pack, Foreland, their gazes filled with a mixture of confusion and horror at their Alpha’s public meltdown.
He took another step closer to the precipice, the loose earth crumbling beneath his boots. “Give her back!” he roared, his voice cracking with a desperate plea that twisted into a threat. “If you don’t give her back to me, I swear, Ill jump! Ill end it right here!” His gaze, manic and piercing, locked onto Ivy. “You’ll remember your wedding day forever, Ivy! As the day of my death!”
Ivy cried, her sobs wracking her slender frame. Vincent held her tighter, his own wolf vibrating with a protective snarl, his eyes fixed on Ethan, a mixture of rage and alarm.
Then, Farah stepped forward, her face pale, her hands clasped over her belly. She had been standing frozen, a silent witness to Ethan’s spiraling madness, but his threat, his desperate gamble, seemed to snap her out of her stupor.!!
“Alphal” Farah’s voice was a desperate cry, tinged with accusation. “What about me? What about our pup? You claimed you loved me! You claimed you would marry me! What about all of that?” Her plea, though driven by fear, carried the weight of her own desperate cling to the future he had promised.
Ethan’s eyes snapped to Farah, and a bitter, hollow laugh ripped from his throat, devoid of all humor. It was a harsh, hysterical sound that sent shivers down the spines of the onlookers. “Our pup?” he scoffed, the words laced with a venomous disbelief. “There is no ‘our pup.” Farah.
Farah’s eyes widened, a flicker of raw panic crossing her face.
Ethan’s voice dropped, laced with a chilling, self–mocking despair. “I found out yesterday. The second opinion came in. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but it’s true. I’m infertile.” He spat the word as if it burned his tongue. “Completely. Infertile.”
A gasp rippled through the gathered packs. The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the wind whistling past the cliff. Ethan’s gaze, cold and accusing, drilled into Farah. “So tell me, Farah. If I can’t have children… how the hell are you pregnant?“8
Farah’s face, already pale, tumed a sickly shade of white. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed onto the ground, a strangled sob escaping her lips. Tears streamed down her face, not of hurt, but of raw, agonizing guilt. Her secret, her lie, had been uncovered. Exposed. Right before the eyes of wolves, including her own pack members. The hushed whispers started, a disgusted murmur that spread through the crowd liks wildfire.
Ethan’s wolf roared, a furious, cheated sound. “You deceiving bitch!” he bellowed, his voice echoing across the clearing. “You lied to me! You manipulated me! All this time, you were just using me! Playing me for a fool!” His rage, momentarily diverted from Ivy and Vincent now centered entirely on Farah, his accusations spitting like venom.
But then, Ivy stepped forward, breaking free from Vincent’s protective embrace. Her face was streaked with tears. She had seen enough of Ethan’s madress.
“You are the most cunning of all, Ethan,” Ivy’s voice, though soft, carried a chilling clarity that silenced the crowd. “You cheated on me with her, drove me away, then kidnapped me from my own wedding just because you couldn’t stand to see me happy.” Her gaze flickered to Fainh, then back to Ethan, unwavering. “And now, you blame her, call her names, and you’re even threatening to end your life to manipulate me. Even now, even at the very end, you are still the same manipulative, self–centered coward you always were.”
Her words were daggers, each one hitting its mark, stripping away his pathetic facade. Ethan reeled, his face contorted in a mix of fury and dawning horror
Ivy’s wolf had finally broken free of him. She no longer cared. She turned her back on him, on the chaos, on the cliff. She reached for Vincent’s hand, her fingers intertwining with his, a silent promise of unbreakable connection.
“Let’s go, Vincent,” she murmured, her voice steady, determined. She tugged at his hand, pulling him away from the cliff edge, away from Ethan, away from the toxic remnants of her past.
Death or not, she no longer cared. She was done
Vincent’s wolf, still vibrating with rage, paused, then acquiesced, allowing lvy to lead him away. The assembled packs began to shift, collective sense of purpose guiding them to follow their Lunas and Alphas, leaving Ethan standing alone on the precipice, his world crumbling around him.
They had only taken a few steps, the heavy silence of the forest broken only by the rustle of leaves and the faint, broken sobs of Farah on the ground, when it happened.
A loud, desperate, agonized shout ripped through the air. “NOMI
And then, a sickening sound. A deafening thud, followed by the terrifying, prolonged scramble of loose earth and falling rocks. As if something, or someone, had just plunged into the abyss below.
