Chapter 114

Agnes

Watching Elijah and Thea run away felt like a knife twisting in my gut. I wanted to go to them, but I couldn’t. Not yet. I still had to deal with Mason.

I resisted the urge to slap him, although my hand twitched at my side. Instead, I took a step back, putting as much distance between us as possible. My cheeks still burned with anger, and my heart was still racing from the confrontation with the man who had been affected by the perfume.

But now, all of that fury was directed at Mason.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I hissed, my lip curling to reveal a hateful sneer. “You didn’t need to kiss me to get him to back off. You could’ve just told him to leave!”

“I was just trying to help, Agnes. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Help?” I repeated incredulously. “You didn’t need to kiss me to help me. You didn’t need to pull me into your arms and act like… like you still had some claim over me.”

Mason’s brow furrowed as if he were genuinely confused. “I thought you liked it. I thought you still had feelings for me.”

My eyes widened, rage and frustration coursing through me like fire in my veins. “Mason, what the hell makes you think that?”

He blinked, clearly taken aback by my reaction. “You’re not seriously telling me that you actually have feelings for Elijah,” he whispered, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard by any passersby who might recognize me—the goddamn Luna of Silvermoon. “I thought your marriage was just… I don’t know…” He threw his hands up in the air. “Happenstance.”

“Happenstance?” I could barely even believe the word.

Mason shrugged. “I heard you had fallen into… bad times when you entered the Mate Trial. That you just agreed to marry him because you needed money.”

I scoffed. “I’m assuming Ava told you that, too.”

His lack of a response was all the answer I needed.

I stared at him, my chest tightening as I resisted the urge to slap him once more. “Listen, you don’t know a damn thing about my marriage,” I growled, jabbing my finger into the center of his chest. “Elijah and I… it’s complicated, but I have feelings for him. Real feelings. And you just made everything worse because you’re a selfish fucking asshole.”

The words spilled out before I could stop them, and I realized too late that we were still in public. A few people nearby had stopped to stare, their curious gazes flicking between Mason’s shocked expression and my furious glare.

But I didn’t care. I was too angry, too hurt, to worry about what anyone else thought right now. Just as I had been that day at the resort, when I had approached Olivia and told her off in front of all those other women. Or like when I had slapped my stepmother.

“Elijah and Thea are the only real, loving family I’ve ever had,” I continued, taking a step closer to Mason. “And I’d do anything—anything—to keep them close to me. Anything. So don’t think for a second that I’m going to let you manipulate me just because we have a distant romantic history.”

Mason’s mouth opened, but no words came out. He looked stunned, his usual confidence faltering. For a moment, he just stood there, staring at me like he didn’t recognize the woman in front of him.

And maybe he didn’t. Because I wasn’t the same weak, heartbroken girl I had been all those years ago.

“Agnes,” he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t realize…”

“Of course you didn’t,” I snapped, cutting him off. “Because you never cared enough to find out. You broke my heart in college, Mason. You listened to my stepsister instead of me, left me without a word, without even giving me a chance to make things right. And when I was at my lowest—when I was searching for my daughter, living on minimum wage and desperate for help—you didn’t reach out. Not once.”

His face paled, and he took a step back, his hands dropping to his sides. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t know how bad things were for you.”

“You could have asked,” I shot back with a scoff. “And don’t act like you didn’t hear the news through the grapevine. The daughter of the esteemed Blake family, crazy and wolfless. You knew, Mason. You knew.”

Mason stared at me, but I went on, “You could’ve reached out. But you didn’t. And now you show up after nearly a decade, suddenly acting like you actually give a shit, like you want to be part of my life again? No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to waltz back in and pretend like nothing happened. Quit blaming Ava for what you did to me all those years ago. That was all you.”

Mason opened his mouth to respond, but I didn’t give him the chance. I turned on my heel and walked away without another word, my heart pounding in my chest. I didn’t look back, didn’t stop to see if he was following me. I just kept walking, my mind racing with everything I’d just said.

It felt good to finally say it out loud, to finally stand up for myself. But it also hurt. Because the truth was, I had loved Mason once. I had trusted him, believed in him. And he had let me down in the worst possible way.

And now he thought he could come back and flirt with me and invite me out for coffee and kiss me, and that I would come crawling back. All because he had heard I had moved on and got jealous.

Maybe once, I would have run back to him. Maybe in college, or when I first lost my daughter, he could have reached out and I would have leapt at the chance to be with him again.

But I wasn’t that girl anymore. I wasn’t the same person who had let him break her heart. I was stronger now, more resilient. And I wasn’t going to let him—or anyone else—hurt me like that again.

As I walked, I searched for Thea and Elijah, hoping to explain what had happened. But they were nowhere to be found. I checked the nearby park, the surrounding shops, even the library down the street, but there was no sign of them. Elijah wasn’t answering his phone, either, so I decided to just go home and see if they were there.

They would understand once I explained. They had to.

But when I finally got home, the house was quiet. Too quiet. My heart sank as I walked into the kitchen and saw the note on the counter.

“Agnes,

Thea and I are going camping for a couple of days. I’ll have my phone off, so don’t worry if you can’t reach me. We’ll be back soon.

Elijah”

I stared at the note, my hands trembling as I read it over and over again. They were gone. Elijah had taken Thea and left, and he hadn’t even given me a chance to explain or told me exactly where they were going.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I sank into a nearby chair, the note crumpling in my hand. Everything felt like it was falling apart. Thea was upset with me, Elijah was angry with me, and it was all my fault.

Bitterly, I thought about that damn perfume, about how I’d hoped it would bring Elijah closer to me. As if it would somehow blot out his bond with Olivia and make him want me instead. And of course, it had just attracted the wrong people and driven him away in the end.

I felt like a fool, like I’d ruined everything by trying too hard, by wanting too much too soon. I should have known better, but I hadn’t, and now I was truly alone.

Making a decision, I stood up, my legs shaking beneath me, and walked to the bathroom. The bottle of perfume was still sitting on the counter. I picked it up, staring at it for a moment before unscrewing the cap.

Without a second thought, I dumped the contents into the toilet then flushed, watching as the pink liquid swirled and disappeared down the drain.