Page 84 of Bound By Crimson

Chapter Eighty-Four

Hopeless and Hollow

She didn’t move for hours.

She lay curled on the bed, her throat raw, her ears ringing from the scream that had torn itself out of her.

Her body ached—not from injury, but from something deeper. Something that had unraveled at the seams.

Her face was wet. She didn’t remember crying.

The room felt different.

Not darker. Not quieter.

Just… heavier.

Like grief had seeped into the floorboards and was holding her down by the ribs.

She stared at the ceiling, unblinking.

“Why?”

The whisper wasn’t for him.

It wasn’t even for herself.

It was for the girl who’d loved him. The girl who’d trusted his voice, his hands, his promises.

The girl who left her whole life behind to be with him.

The one who thought she was chosen.

She hated that girl.

And she mourned her like she’d been buried alive.

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She didn’t go to the nursery that night.

Not because she didn’t want to.

Because she couldn’t.

She sat up once. Even stood.

But when she reached the hallway, she froze.

She imagined Noah’s eyes, his breath against her neck, the weight of his body tucked into hers.

And then she imagined him looking up at her, sensing something broken. Something cold.

And she knew she couldn’t bring that into the room with him.

She backed away. Returned to her bed like she was walking back into a coffin—only this time she climbed in willingly.

Noah was innocent.

Pure.

Her son.

She loved him with something bigger than her own body.

But tonight, that body wasn’t hers.

It belonged to the scream. To the betrayal. To the bloodline.

So she stayed.

Laid there in the dark.

Let her limbs go numb.

Let her mouth stay shut.

Let her chest rise and fall like she wasn’t really there.

“He deserves better than this version of me,” she whispered.

Not because she believed it.

But because grief speaks louder than love when you’re empty.

And tonight, she was hollow all the way through.