Page 9 of Losing My Siren Luna

This time, though, her eyes are trained on the ground, her face blank and uncaring. When she does look up, her eyes don’t go to mine. They are staring straight ahead, cold and distant.

The hold she has on her uncle seems forced. His smile is cruel and calculated, as it usually is, but hers is much different from what I expected. When I remembered this moment the first time it happened, I had always longed for a redo; to go back and accept her from this moment, to change the course of everything.

There is no emotion to connect with this time. She looks as if she is marching to her death, dreading the marriage and everything about it.

She doesn’t want this. I can see it on her face. She doesn’t want me so much, to the point she won’t even look at me.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!”Killian roars in my head.

“NOTHING!”I exclaimed, “I haven’t even seen her yet. The last I saw her was the day she rejected me, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

Killian was silent for a moment, and so was I as we raced through what could have changed this time around. This should be a fresh start. This should be exactly like it was in the….

“Wait. Would she still have her memories from before like us?”Killian asked.

Could she?

She is directly in front of me now, and her uncle is ready to pass her off, but she still won’t meet my gaze.

My heart shatters, its shards stabbing straight through to my soul, Killian howling in pain, not knowing what to do.

We got our redo, just like he promised us, but the task of making our mate fall in love with us will be impossible if she remembers the mistakes of our past–of our future. To make matters worse, we can’t reveal anything to her.

When her eyes finally do lift, meeting mine only momentarily, I feel it. Her hatred and her rejection, like ice being thrown over the fire that was burning inside me.

~

Elelira POV

As Mimi and my escort walk me to the room where my uncle waits for me, I retreat into my shell of numbness, going on autopilot until this whole ordeal is over.

I suspect numbness will be a constant for me again, since the pains of myhusband’sbetrayal will begin tonight.

Val whimpers at the memory. She was locked inside my mind, enduring it with me, her heart shattering over and over along with mine. It was his human side having the affair. His lycan had no part, which was the hardest for Val. She could never extinguish that hope for her mate because she could never know if Lachlan’s lycan was in agreement with that action.

This marriage right now was entirely to his human side, so she was trying her best to retreat into the darkest corner of my mind and wait in sorrow until it was over.

When we entered the room, and my eyes landed on my uncle and his men, I tried to maintain my numbness and not outwardly show my disgust and discomfort.

Some of the very men that tortured and ravaged my body in my last days were standing around the room, their sickening stares making Val snarl in my mind.

“About time,” Uncle growls. “Bad enough I had to wait to use you for this till the day you turned 18. Let’s get this over with. I have ameetingin town right after this.”

“Meeting my ass. He and his filth should do the world a favor and fall off a cliff on their way out,”Val sneers before retreating back to her dark corner.

I agree, but this world has proven to be unfair over and over again. We would never be that lucky.

I somehow managed to rest my hand on my uncle’s elbow, hiding my disgust and scorn. Just 5 minutes. I can be near the monster for 5 minutes, and it will hopefully be the last 5 minutes I ever see him again in this life.

I will kill myself again before ever going back to the West.

He will only correspond with me through letters after this day, and send messengers to me when he wants more than a few lines on a page. 5 minutes. Just 5 minutes and he will disappear from my life.

I go into a trance, focusing on the floor as I let the numbness take over. I do not wish to see Lachlan and the resentment on his face as he looks upon me for the first time. I do not want to show my hurt and pain from his rejection. I will remain numb and try my hardest to not meet his eyes once during this entire ceremony.

The first year of our marriage he won’t seek me out once. Not once. I can hold onto my numb facade, then steer clear of him for at least a year. It won’t hurt me. It won't break me. I have already been broken beyond the limits. I will merely exist until the day my magic returns and I can seek freedom in the sea once again.

At the thought of the sea, I looked up, staring out the massive plane window in front of me, my eyes taking in the majesty of the stormy waters.