Chapter 254: Why still the same?
[ Old world - Towards Autumn’s Fortress ]
The night pressed thick around the fortress gates...the air still trembling faintly with echoes of chaos past.
Autumn’s arms were soaked, her grip iron around the unconscious body that bled heavily against her...her feet gliding over the earth, yet a little shaky somehow.
Every step closer to the fortress felt heavier...not because Kieran weighed her down, but because something inside her twisted painfully with each stagger forward.
The grand doors loomed ahead...invisible guards already pulling them wide open.
All guests had already been dismissed with generous gifts and heartfelt apologies...and a promise of explanation.
But there...just beyond the threshold...stood Lyla.
She was clearly waiting.
Her figure was pale in the fleeting light, as though she had been frozen to that very spot. When her eyes caught Autumn’s...she looked absolutely stunned...then relief flickered...just a fraction...
But then her gaze dipped lower.
And she saw him.
Bloodied. Broken. Barely breathing in Autumn’s arms.
Lyla’s whole body jolted. Her hand flew to her mouth before she stumbled forward, eyes wide with horror.
"Alpha Kieran!!!" Her voice cracked like glass splintering. "Oh my god... what happened... Alpha...what happened to him??"
Her trembling hands shot out, desperate to reach him, to check his wounds, to touch him if only to prove he was still alive.
But Autumn stopped her.
One sharp flick of her wrist, palm raised...an authority that needed no words.
Lyla froze mid-motion, her hand hovering in the air, fingers shaking.
Autumn’s voice cut through the silence between them...firm but eerily calm, like a blade hidden in silk.
"Lyla. Go back to your daughters. It’s quite late. They might be scared without you. I will get him treated and... send him back."
The words were clipped, precise...but there was no warmth in them.
Lyla faltered, her throat bobbing. "But... Alpha... he..." Her voice trailed, weak against that unwavering command pressing down on her.
Autumn shifted her hold on Kieran slightly, pressing down harder on his wounds to staunch the flow. She didn’t even look at Lyla any more as she drew a slow breath and added...softer, but still with finality.
"Even if I send him back with you in this condition, your healers won’t be able to treat him."
She paused.
Her eyes, red-rimmed from unshed tears, flickered to Lyla’s face just once.
"I promise you... I will send him back as soon as he wakes up. I am not keeping him."
The silence that followed, dropped like hail from the sky.
Lyla’s lips parted, as if to argue...or maybe beg...or to cling to some shred of control.
But Autumn didn’t give her any chance.
Her body shifted, floating forward in a glide, carrying Kieran past the threshold.
The towering doors boomed shut behind her...one singular heavy slam that echoed like thunder, cutting off Lyla’s gasp...her hesitation, her breaking heart.
Drowning the world outside into silence,the fortress swallowed Autumn whole.Its vast, lonely halls stretched dark and cold around her.
Autumn did not speak.
She simply kept moving, her arms tightening around the man bleeding against her chest.
Her glide carried her through a few chambers until, at the center...where she whispered an ancient word.
The stone beneath her feet answered.
A low groan stirred through the ground, and then...like a breath rising from the earth itself...a slab of pure, glowing ice emerged. Its bluish surface shimmered with ethereal light, the frost curling around it like mist.
Autumn lowered herself carefully, knees bending, until she laid Kieran down upon it.
The moment his blood met the ice, the transformation began.
First, a single drop touched the surface...dark crimson against the blue. It hissed, as though the ice rejected its heat, and then it crystallized. Tiny cracks spread outward, freezing the blood into a jagged bloom of ruby frost.
Another drop followed. Then another.
The flow that had soaked her arms now stiffened and stilled as the ice drank it in. Each stream hardened into fragile yet mesmerizing red rivers, glistening as though turned to glass.
The frost crawled higher, sealing the wounds from beneath, stalling the life that threatened to spill from him.
Autumn’s breath hitched.
She did not move.
Her hands hovered above him, her fingers trembling as though they longed to touch his face but no longer dared.
His chest rose faintly, unevenly, but it rose. Though the sight made her lips part in relief immediately...after a few moments it twisted...because relief was not what she wanted to feel.
Her throat cracked as words finally slipped free," I...I hate you...You stupid... stubborn wolf..."
Her vision blurred. She blinked hard, but the tears came anyway...finally falling freely one after another.
They struck his skin.Salt against frost.
She leaned closer, her voice breaking as it trembled down to him.
"Why do you still look at me like that? After everything you have done to me? What gives you the right? Huh? "
Her fingers brushed the air, so close to his cheek. She stopped herself, curling them into a fist.
"You were supposed to hate me too, Kieran." The words fell softer, broken into silence. "You were supposed to make this easier.What games are you trying to play here? How much more do you want me to suffer? "
Her tears slid faster now, pattering against the frozen slab, mingling with the faint mist rising around him.
For a long breath, she just stood there...staring at the man who had once been her mate. Now he was not. Yet why did it feel like nothing had changed?
His heart beat still made her want to press her ears against his chest... and listen with her eyes closed... And drift away to peaceful sleep.
Her lips trembled. She wiped at her tears, but another fell instantly."You know what...this is nothing.I am...I am just helping you because I am not done with you yet...I am not worried or anything...it’s just that I can’t grant you an easy death...not at all...you will pay for everything that you have done, Kieran Blackmoon. "
The ice pulsed faintly beneath him, its glow deepening, as though listening.
And still... Autumn stared.