Ashley’s POV
The world seemed to sway beneath me as I stared at Caleb’s retreating, his words still echoing in my ears. The air was thick with the scent of earth and blooming flowers, but all I could smell was the metallic tang of blood from my nightmare, the suffocating memory of what I’d allowed to happen.
I felt as if I were drowning, my wolf howling in anguish within me.
“No!” The word ripped out of my throat, raw and desperate. I stumbled forward, my knees buckling as I tried to follow him. “Caleb, please, don’t do this. Please…”
But he kept walking, his shoulders rigid, his pace steady, as if my words meant nothing. As if I meant nothing. The realization struck me like a blow to the chest, and I doubled over, clutching at my heart as if I could somehow hold the pieces together.
“Please,” I begged, my voice cracking as I fell to my knees. “Please, Caleb. I’ll do anything. Just… just don’t leave me like this.”
He paused for a moment, and hope flared in my chest, wild and foolish. But when he turned to look at me, the coldness in his eyes doused that hope like a bucket of ice water. There was no warmth there, no love, only a void where everything he had once offered me had been.
“You think you can just beg for forgiveness, and everything will go back to the way it was?” His voice was as sharp as a knife, cutting through the fragile threads of my sanity.
“Do you really think that after everything, after you chose a woman who you knew would not hesitate to choose other people over you, instead of me, that I could ever look at you the same way again?”
“I didn’t…” The words stuck in my throat, my mind a jumbled mess of guilt and regret. “I didn’t mean to… I tried my best to make sure that I curtailed her, I swear-”
“But you didn’t.” His words were a final blow, the truth I had been trying so desperately to avoid. “You couldn’t stop her. You just stood there and watched.”
“I was scared!” I cried, the words tumbling out in a frantic rush. “I was scared, Caleb! I didn’t know what to do, it happened so fast that I didn’t know how to save you!”
He shook his head, his expression hardening. “And that’s precisely why I can’t forgive you. You were supposed to be my mate, Ashley. My partner, my equal. But when I needed you the most, you failed me.”
The pain in my chest intensified, a searing heat that threatened to consume me. My wolf was whimpering, clawing at my insides, begging me to make this right. But how could I fix something so irrevocably broken? How could I heal a wound that I had caused?
“I can’t lose you,” I whispered, my voice barely audible as I crawled toward him, my hands shaking. “Please, Caleb, don’t do this. Don’t reject me. I’ll do anything… anything you want. Just give me a chance to make it up to you.”
His eyes flickered, just for a moment, and I thought I saw a hint of the man I once knew, the man who had held me close and promised me the world. But then the mask slipped back into place, and he was once again a stranger, cold and distant.
“You killed my love for you the day you stepped over me as I bled out from a bullet your mother had shot.” His words were like daggers, each one sinking deep into my heart. “Whatever we had, whatever I felt for you, it died that day. There’s nothing left to save, Ashley. Nothing.”
“No, please…” I reached out, my fingers brushing against the fabric of his pants as I threw myself at his feet. “Please, Caleb, don’t say that. I can’t live without you. I won’t survive the rejection-my wolf… she…”
But he wasn’t listening. His eyes had hardened into flint, unyielding and merciless. He bent down, his hand gripping my wrist as he pulled me off him with a force that sent me sprawling onto the ground.
“Get up, Ashley,” he said, his voice devoid of any emotion. “Get up and move on. There’s nothing for you here.”
I looked up at him through tear-blurred eyes, my heart shattering into a million pieces. The man I loved, the man I would have done anything for, was gone. In his place was a man who wanted nothing to do with me, who saw me as nothing more than the source of his pain.
“Caleb…” His name was a broken whisper on my lips as I reached out to him one last time, desperate to hold on to something that was already slipping away.
But he just shook his head, his expression cold and unforgiving. “This is the end, Ashley. Accept it.”
He turned away, and this time, I knew he wouldn’t look back. I watched him go, my heart fracturing with each step he took. My wolf was wailing inside me, the bond between us tearing apart with a pain so intense, it left me gasping for air.
“No…” I whispered, my fingers digging into the earth as I tried to ground myself, trying to hold on to something solid as the world crumbled around me. “No, please…”
But there was no one left to hear my pleas. Caleb was gone, and with him, the last remnants of the life I had once dreamed of. I was alone, my body trembling as the rejection settled deep into my bones, a cold, hollow ache that I knew would never fully go away.
Tears streamed down my face, hot and relentless, as I lay there on the ground, my heart bleeding out in the garden where we had once kissed. The storm inside me had finally broken, leaving nothing but devastation in its wake.
And as I lay there, broken and defeated, I knew that nothing would ever be the same again.