Shunned By An Alpha, Cherised By A Lycan

Chapter 275:

“Think about what you’re going to do,” I said over my shoulder. “Not just to her, but to yourself. To all of us.”

I stepped out into the hallway, the door closing behind me with a soft click. The sound felt final, like the closing of a chapter that had been years in the making.

As I walked down the corridor, the echoes of their fight followed me. Isabelle’s pain, Ryder’s fury, the fragments of love and betrayal tangled in a web too twisted to unravel.

Maybe there were no winners here. Maybe we were all just casualties of the choices we made long ago.

And maybe the hardest truth of all was that some wounds never truly heal—they just fester beneath the surface, waiting to explode.noveldrama

Ryder’s POV

When did it all come crashing down?

I paced the length of my office, the echoes of Isabelle’s and Kade’s words cutting deeper than any blade ever could. The walls of the room felt like they were closing in, suffocating me under the weight of truths I didn’t want to face. My fists clenched and unclenched at my sides, the frustration, the confusion, and the regret building like a storm inside me.

I was ready to kill her. I wanted to kill her. No one threatened my mate and lived to tell the tale. No one betrayed my pack and escaped justice. And Isabelle… she did both. My wolf, Ace, had been howling for vengeance, a primal, relentless call to tear her apart. But when her broken voice accused me—”You made me this way”—it felt like a punch to the gut, harder than any physical blow.

How the hell did we get here?

I stopped pacing, my eyes fixed on the window, though I wasn’t really seeing anything beyond it. My mind was dragged back to the past, to the moments I had locked away because they were easier to ignore than confront. The memories came rushing in, uninvited and relentless.

I remembered the nights when darkness threatened to swallow me whole. The grief, the hopelessness, the weight of being an Alpha far too young, with expectations I could never seem to meet. The nights I lay awake, my mind screaming with doubts and self-loathing. I had been ready to give up, to let the emptiness consume me.

ⓞⓡⓔ ⓤⓟⓓⓐⓣⓔⓢ ⓘⓝ ⓖⓐⓛⓝⓞⓥⓔⓛⓢ.ⓒⓞⓜ

But she was always there. Isabelle.

Her presence had been a steady, comforting thing—a balm for wounds I hadn’t even realized were there. She stayed when others drifted away. She listened when I couldn’t form coherent thoughts. She bore my pain, my anger, my fears, and somehow never faltered. When I wanted to throw everything away, she pulled me back with soft words and quiet strength.

I remembered her eyes, full of concern, brimming with unshed tears as she told me there was still a reason to fight. That I still had a purpose. That life was worth living.

“You’re stronger than this, Ryder.” Her voice from those memories echoed in my mind. “You can’t give up now. Your pack needs you. I need you.”

I hadn’t really heard her. Not the way I should have. At the time, all I saw in her was a tool—

Something to stabilize me, to ground me. I let her care for me, let her hold me up when I was too broken to stand on my own. And in return, I gave her nothing but empty promises and a cold heart.

While she looked at me with love, I saw her as a crutch, a temporary salve for wounds I thought would never heal.

I rubbed a hand down my face, shame pooling in my gut like acid. No female deserved that. No one deserved to be used, to have their hope raised only to be crushed when it became inconvenient. I hadn’t even realized what I was doing. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to. Maybe I liked the way she made me feel needed, like I was worth saving, worth something.

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