---- Chapter 20 No.20 Silas POV: As | walked toward the exit, a bitter truth twisted in my gut. | wasn't innocent. My name wasn't in her videos because my manipulation had been far more subtle, far more damaging. | let them think | was a fool, but | had seen Lyra for the snake she was from the very beginning. And | had used her. | remembered the conversation, weeks ago, hidden in the shadows of the training grounds. | had found Lyra weeping after another one of Aria's rebuffs. "He'll never choose me," she'd sobbed. "He sees me as a sister. Once he marks Aria, I'll be nothing." | had knelt beside her, my voice a sympathetic poison. "You and Kaelen aren't blood," I'd whispered. "That bond is meaningless compared to the Fated Mate pull. Unless... unless you create a bond that is even more primal." I'd placed a small, dark vial in her hand. "A drop of this in his drink. It lowers inhibitions. It will make him see you as a woman. You have to use your body to tie him to you, Lyra. It's the only way." | had engineered their fall. | had tied Kaelen, my greatest rival, toa ticking time bomb, believing it would clear my path to Aria. | had helped create this monster, and now, | was being banished alongside him. The irony was a bitter pill. Kaelen's ---- tragedy was, in part, my creation. Kaelen POV: My mind was a chaotic storm. That night... that one night after the potion Silas's contact had given Lyra, it had all gone wrong. | woke up next to her, a sense of horror and self- loathing so profound it felt like drowning. | was conservative by nature, raised with a strict code of honor. The idea of being with my 'sister' was abhorrent. But | had done it. And in my rigid, black-and-white world, that meant | was now responsible for her. My duty to protect her became a twisted, unbreakable chain. + All the while, a deeper part of me, the wolf inside, yearned for Aria. Her fire, her laughter, her unwavering belief in me-it was like sunshine in the darkness of my past. But my guilt, my suffocating sense of responsibility for Lyra, forced me to push Aria away. | had convinced myself that Lyra was my world, my duty, because accepting that my heart truly belonged to Aria would have meant admitting my own monstrous failure. And now, my 'world' had betrayed me. The chains were broken, but it was too late. The sunshine was gone forever. | stumbled forward, my legs unsteady. | stopped before Aria, the wreckage of my life reflected in her cold, unforgiving eyes. My throat was tight, the words catching like shards of glass. "Is there..." | began, my voice cracking, "is there no chance left for me?" ---- | wanted to fall to my knees. | wanted to beg, to plead, to promise her the world, the moon, the stars-anything, if she would just give me one more chance to be the man she deserved. Aria POV: | looked at the broken man before me. The boy | had loved. The man who had shattered my heart. There was no pity left in me. Only a vast, cold emptiness where my love used to be. "No, Kaelen," | said, my voice clear and final. "There is no chance." | turned away from him, a deliberate, final dismissal. | walked to Damien's side and took his offered arm. His strength was a comfort, a solid reality in the midst of the chaos. | faced the remaining guests, my voice ringing with newfound power and conviction. "The Moon Goddess has seen my pain," | declared. "And she has blessed me. She has granted me a path away from betrayal and toward true loyalty. Damien is my Second Chance Mate! | will marry him, and | will be his Luna!" The moment the words left my mouth, | felt it. A faint, shimmering cord deep within my soul-the fated bond that had tied me to Kaelen-snapped. It was a clean break, a release. But for Kaelen, it was an execution. A violent, soul-tearing ---- agony. The power of a formal Rejection hit him with the force of a physical blow. He cried out, a raw, inhuman sound of torment, and collapsed to his knees, his hands clutching at his heart as if trying to hold his very soul inside his body.