Page 79 of Hunted to the Altar

Finally, I felt her hand brush against my hair.

Not a caress.Not forgiveness. Just contact.

A silent command.

Get up.

I pushed to my feet, dizzy from more than just the blood loss. I stood before her, broken and stripped bare.

She didn’t look away. "You can’t fix it," she said softly.

Each word carved into me like a blade.

"You can't undo it."

I nodded once. No arguments left in me. No defenses.

"I know," I said.

Her gaze drifted to my wrist, to the slow trickle of blood soaking into the cuff of my shirt.

"Good," she whispered.

She wheeled past me without another glance.

The sound of her departure—the soft whir of her chair against the marble floor—echoed louder than any scream.

I stayed there, alone in the moonlight, feeling every drop of blood that slid down my skin. Feeling, for the first time, the weight of what it truly meant to lose everything.

And somehow, in that moment of complete devastation?—

I found the first fragile thread of redemption. Not because she forgave me.

Not because she came back.

But because I was finally willing to bleed for.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Samuel

The silencein the penthouse isn’t peaceful. It’s oppressive.

It clings to the walls, to the air, to every inch of space between Nina and me like smoke after a fire. The kind that doesn't dissipate—it stains. I haven’t slept in three days. Not really. My body lies down, my eyes close, but rest doesn’t come. Not when I know what I’ve done. Not when I see the way she won’t look at me, like I’m a ghost she’s not ready to forgive for still haunting the room.

She doesn’t speak unless she has to. She doesn’t scream or cry or throw things. She’s just... distant. Professional. Like I’m a stranger she’s being polite to. She thanks me when I pass her a fork. She closes doors softly so I don’t hear. She avoids the mirrors and barely leaves her room. She used to like walking barefoot, but the wheelchair hinders her movements.

Now she floats through the rooms like she’s not tethered to this world at all.

I watch her now, from across the open floor plan. She’s curled up in the corner chair—her favorite, because it overlooks the city and gets the late-afternoon sun. There’s a blanket around her shoulders she hasn’t taken off in hours. A book rests on her lap, spine cracked, pages unmoving. She hasn’t turned one in over an hour. Her fingers just hold it like something to anchor her, because everything else is gone.

My chest aches. No, it implodes. Piece by jagged piece.

I did this.

I did this to her.

And no matter how many times I try to rewrite it in my head, the facts stay the same. I cornered her. Controlled her. Pushed her past her limits. Took everything she didn’t offer and called it love.