“I am the monster in Alex’s eyes. I don’t know how to describe his attitude towards me. It’s like looking at a clean cup of tea with a glaring grain of sand – he never liked me. But I think he must have feelings for my mother. He still keeps many photos of her, and they’re all new; you can tell he cherishes them.”
Grace looked at him. “If he loves your mother, then he must love you too.”
Ethan shook his head. “You don’t understand Alex. He’s extremely paranoid. I heard it from elsewhere; he didn’t have the qualifications to be the alpha initially. Even when my grandfather, who was the alpha at the time, didn’t know he had a son. My grandmother was a florist without status, and my grandfather only slept with her once and never called her again. But she unexpectedly got pregnant and gave birth to Alex, raising him herself.”
As he spoke, the pain began to well up in him again. If only his mother hadn’t fallen for Alex. Maybe Alex would have inherited his mother’s florist business, and his mother could have realized her ambitious dreams. As for him, he shouldn’t have come into this world in the first place. His birth brought about so many mistakes. He himself never found any joy in his existence.
“It was my mother who helped him secure his position as the alpha now belongs to him. So, he harbors resentment towards her. He’s afraid that one day she’ll kick him out and support a new alpha, as long as she no longer likes him. He knows my mother has that ability, so he’s been secretly balancing my mother’s power.”
This was what he was told by the few remaining supporters of his mother when he became the crown prince.
Peirene soon discovered what Alex was doing, but she never believed that Alex would betray her, nor did she think he had the capability to do so. So, she remained oblivious to the man beside her bed until Alex sent her to the Moonlight Forest. It was there that she finally doubted the loyalty of her bedside companion.
Whether blinded by love or overconfident, Peirene’s ambitious history came to an abrupt end. Only Alexander’s history as the alpha of the Frost Moon Pack remained.
“As my mother’s child, I naturally received his suspicion. On one hand, he thinks I don’t have my mother’s excellence, and on the other hand, he fears I inherited my mother’s ambition. He never once thought about loving me.”
A sigh drifted away into the forest, accompanied only by trees, the passing wind, and Grace, holding him. No one else could hear it.
But this sigh weighed heavily on Grace’s heart.
“You should pull yourself together, inherit your mother’s legacy. Go back and develop the Frost Moon Pack, don’t obsess over being the wolf king, but prioritize the interests of the tribe, let your father see your abilities.”
Ethan still didn’t open his eyes. “You’re too idealistic, Grace. Do you know why I reached out to you in the first place? Because from the moment I saw you, I knew we were the same kind of people, those not accepted by the world. But your eyes are so beautiful, more radiant than the most dazzling gem I’ve ever seen.”
Grace lowered her head, Ethan had never praised her before, and no one had ever complimented her eyes so directly. “I thought you were only interested in me because I used to be Aldrich’s partner.”
“By the gods,” he opened his eyes, locking onto Grace’s, “I genuinely didn’t know about that at first. I just liked your eyes, like the sea shimmering in the dark night. No one around me has eyes like yours. At that time, I was only thinking, it would be great if the owner of these eyes could like me.”
“But you still used me.”
Ethan sighed, “Because I soon realized you not only wouldn’t belong to me but were once the partner of the person I despised the most. After realizing this, a malicious idea grew in my mind. I thought, since it’s already like this, why not sever your ties completely and make sure you never go back to him?”
The seed of an idea became the root cause of all the malignant events. He and Grace reached this point today, and he couldn’t separate himself from it.
“I watched as I dragged you into the abyss, making you suffer, as if that would offset the torment I’ve endured. Gradually, I realized it wasn’t true. Watching you get hurt, seeing the deepening weariness on your face, watching your star-like eyes darken, I realized I was just unwilling. I didn’t really want to hurt you. I’m sorry, Grace. Saying this now might be too late; I killed the Grand Elder and still have the audacity to ask for your forgiveness.”
Grace cradled his face, “But you didn’t really kill him. If the Grand Elder were here, he would be willing to give you another chance. We all want you to start over.”
To start over, such a weighty yet hopeful phrase.
But could he really start over? From the beginning, he had been desperately fighting with the mentality of a ‘kill or be killed’ against Aldrich. He wouldn’t think that Aldrich would shake hands and make peace with him. Even if he was willing… it would only be for Grace’s sake. Asking for reconciliation under Grace’s plea meant his defeat.
He didn’t want to beg someone he considered a rival for mercy at this point.
“Kill me,” he said to Grace.
Grace didn’t expect him not to have heard anything, still insisting on seeking death. She refused, “I won’t do that. You know, even after all this time, between us, it’s not about mutual use and hatred anymore. Whatever you’ve done, the final result is not irredeemable. Though it might sound like a fairy tale, high and mighty fairy godmother, I genuinely want to forgive you. If you want, you can return from the darkness to the light anytime. Without your mother, you can still have others – your people. You won’t be alone forever. Come back with us. For your mother’s wish, you should pull yourself together.”
She never said the sentence Ethan most wanted to hear. He wanted to ask, “And you? Are you willing to be with them beside me? I can give up on everything; I just hope you can be one of those people. Even if it’s just you.”
But saying that would be too shameless.
He didn’t have the right to ask that, nor did he deserve to bring Grace back into the darkness. He decided to give her a gift, something he should have done from the beginning: push her back into the sunlight. Let her eyes shine brightly in the sunlight again.