Chapter 0232

Athena

Isabella crawls into my bed beside me.

The twins were finally asleep.

I had been enjoying the quiet until she burst into my room.

“It’s good, right? That he’s dead?” she asks.

I shrug slightly.

“I don’t know.”

She eyes me with suspicion.

“Because Seraphina supposedly killed him?”

“Doesn’t it feel too easy for her?” I counter. “Zachary tracked him for a full month and still couldn’t finish him. When Gabriel was here, none of us could even touch him. Yet he destroyed so many lives.”

“Okay, you have a point,” she mutters.

I still don’t understand any of it.

Or what Seraphina truly wants.

Everyone seems to have a different theory.

Isabella opens a chocolate bar and nibbles on it.

She’s thinking hard, searching for the right words.

“Maybe she was helping Julian get revenge… but you’re right. It does seem too straightforward.”

“He’s definitely dead, Athena. I saw the color drain from Zachary’s face. He tried to act tough, but the pain was visible.”

“Could they have faked it? Maybe Gabriel is working with them, too.”

She shakes her head firmly.

“Gabriel killed Sophia. There’s no way Julian would ever work with him. And you can’t fake the pain of losing a sibling.”

“But no one expected him to work with a Lycan either. Not after he blamed Alexander for bringing Zachary and Brianna here.”

“Hmm.” She frowns and offers me a piece of chocolate.

I decline with a shake of my head.

“Zachary has a theory,” she says, popping the chocolate into her mouth.

I don’t know how she stays so slim—she’s always eating.

“Tell me.”

“He thinks it’s an attempt to get closer to you.”

I snort. “To me?”

“Like some twisted, messed-up plan. He doesn’t know the details, but he’s sure it’s something.”

“I think we all agree on that. I might not have seen through things when I was younger, but I’ve learned. Everyone has an agenda.”

“And she’s still with Julian. Knowing my brother, he’s probably told her everything about our pack—how it works, all our secrets. He wasn’t supposed to, but that was before he cut himself off from us.” Her shoulders slump.

She won’t admit it, but she misses him.

Even though he’s become a problem.

“I wish he could see that he’s lost his way,” she adds, staring down at her hands. “Alexander would forgive him. He’s family.”

I don’t tell her what Alexander really said about him.

Forgiveness is the last thing on my mate’s mind.

In fact, he’s mentioned multiple times that he’d let the others tear Julian apart for endangering the pack and our family.

“I don’t think he cares about that anymore, Isabella. It’s been months.”

“Maybe she has some kind of hold over him.” She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself.

Or maybe Midnight.

I keep my thoughts to myself, shrugging.

‘You should tell her,’ Nyx murmurs.

‘No. Deep down, she already knows,’ I snap back.

I watch Isabella’s shoulders sink even lower.

“We’ve lost him for good, haven’t we?”

“I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s been a long time since we heard anything from him. And the first news we get isn’t even from him—it’s from the Alpha of Crestwood City. He didn’t even acknowledge the death of his own children.”

She falls back against my pillows, staring up at the ceiling.

The remainder of her chocolate bar drops to the floor.

A single tear escapes the corner of her eye, tracing a path down to the pillow.