Chapter 7. Broken Bonds

Xerina’s POV

I had waited years, months, days, hours, minutes, and in that very minute, I had longed for his touch every second. And I died that very second he rejected me. I shattered that minute he walked away from me, each step he took splintering my heart into a thousand irreparable pieces.

That hour I spent crying in the forest alone was the longest of my life. The trees stood as silent witnesses to my misery. My sobs echoed in the stillness, but my mate didn’t hear them.

Months passed in a haze of sorrow, each day blending into the next. I waited for a sign, a call, a word, anything to indicate that he had looked back or remembered me. But he never did. His silence was more cruel than his ignorance.

And now, years later, the wound had scarred over but never truly healed. He was standing in front of me, with the same coldness in his eyes he had when he broke my heart. His gaze was like ice, piercing through the fragile armor I had built around my