The first thing that returned to Raquelle was the sharp smell of rubbing alcohol and sterile linen.
The second thing was a crushing, agonizing emptiness in the very center of her chest.
It felt as if a physical piece of her heart had been violently carved out with a rusted blade, leaving behind a cold, hollow cavity that throbbed with every slow pulse.
A miserable groan escaped her throat as she forced her heavy eyelids open.
The bright, fluorescent lights of the pack clinic slapped her in the eyes, instantly triggering a fierce, blinding migraine.
*Roxy?* Raquelle called out mentally, her inner voice trembling.
There was silence.
Deep inside her subconscious, her midnight black wolf was curled into a tight, unresponsive ball, completely checked out from the trauma.
The bond was gone.
The sweet, addictive scent of her mate was erased from the earth forever.
Raquelle felt physically nauseous, a cold sweat breaking out across her skin as the reality of what she had done settled into her bones.
She had executed her own fated mate.
“Look who’s finally back with us.” The low, sharp voice cut through the quiet room.
Raquelle turned her head stiffly on the pillow.
Dominic was leaning against the wall by the door, his arms crossed over his chest and his jaw set in a rigid line.
Both he and Jake had been waiting, their eyes dark with a mix of intense worry and deep suspicion.
“What happened?” Raquelle rasped, her throat feeling like sandpaper.
She tried to sit up, but a sudden wave of dizziness forced her to sink back down into the pillows.
“How long was I out?” “Six hours,” Dominic answered, his voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet register.
He walked right to the edge of her bed, looking down at her with a fierce, unyielding intensity.
“The doctors said your vitals completely crashed.
They said your body went into severe physical shock, Alpha.
But they couldn’t find a single injury on you.
When that bastard’s heart stopped, the entire dungeon filled with the smell of burning copper and rotting wood.
It was the scent of a broken fated bond, Raquelle.
We smelled it.
The whole people in the dungeon smelled it.” The room went dead silent.
The truth was out in the open, hanging between them like a ticking bomb.
“He was your mate, wasn’t he?” Dominic whispered, the realization finally cracking through his tough exterior, his eyes widening in pure shock.
“The monster who raped that nineteen-year-old girl…
he was your fated mate.
And you had him killed anyway.” “I did the right thing,” Raquelle said, her voice a sharp, brittle blade that cut through the sterile room.
Dominic shook his head, his eyes darkening with a raw, turbulent frustration.
“No.
No, you didn’t, Raquelle.
You found your mate just today, and now you’re mateless.
No matter what my mate did, I wouldn’t kill her for anything.” Raquelle’s jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked in her cheek.
She glared at him, the heavy weight of her position crashing down between them.
“You’re not Alpha, so you wouldn’t understand.
Just shut it.” Without waiting for his response, she reached up and began aggressively ripping the medical lines and sensors connected to her, swinging her bare legs over the edge of the mattress.
She completely ignored the physical ache, driven by the singular, desperate need to leave the clinic immediately.
“What are you doing, Raquelle?” Dominic stepped forward, his hands reaching out to stop her, panic bleeding into his tone.
“You’re not even alright yet!” She snapped her head around, leveling him with an icy, authoritative glare that radiated absolute, lethal dominance.
The sheer, terrifying force of her gaze made him freeze in his tracks and back off slowly, his hands raising in silent surrender.
Discharging herself without a care for the doctors or the fact that Dominic was watching her every move, she removed the medical gown she was wearing…not caring if they were watching her or not.
She grabbed her own clothes, which were neatly folded on a nearby chair, and changed into them.
She forced her feet into her shoes and turned toward the door to leave, but stopped right at the threshold.
Without turning back to look at him, her voice dropped into a flat, demanding whisper.
“Where is my phone and other stuff?” “In your room,” Dominic replied quietly, completely defeated.
Without wasting another second, she walked out.
*** The heavy oak doors of her penthouse closed with a solid, echoing thud.
The moment she was entirely alone, the tight string holding her together snapped.
Her hands began trembling violently, and her legs shook so badly she could barely stand upright on the polished floor.
Every single detail of the incident earlier kept replaying in her mind.
Her mate’s swollen, unrecognizable face.
The sound of his final scream.
The terrifying moment his heart stopped beating.
She was utterly consumed with a suffocating, drowning guilt, made a million times worse by the dead silence in her head.
Roxy still wasn’t talking to her.
Her midnight black wolf had completely abandoned her to her own thoughts.
Seeking to dull the sharp edges of the pain, she stumbled over to the bar with unsteady steps, grabbed a bottle of hard alcohol, and poured it into a glass.
Her hands were shaking so badly the ice clinked against the glass, but the cup wasn’t enough.
She slid down against the wall, sitting flat on the floor with the bottle in her hand.
Before she even knew it, she had consumed about three bottles.
But the alcohol didn’t bring peace.
The heavy drink only made her feel worse, stripping away her final defenses and exposing the raw, bleeding wound in her soul.
The dam broke.
Her loud, ragged sobs soon filled the empty air of the penthouse.
She curled her knees to her chest right there on the floor and cried uncontrollably for hours, mourning the future that had been stolen from her, until there were absolutely no tears left anymore.
***** Guys, do you think she did the right thing?