CHAPTER 429: VICTORY SHOULDN’T HURT THIS MUCH

DAEMON’S POV

What Zina’s mother should have long realized was that no spell in the world was enough to hold him back. Not even one that seemed to stop time and everything in it.

Especially not when he was like this; going through the one demon everyone knew as grief.

He was going to escape from this place.

Take Zina with him to somewhere only the both of them would live.

He was convinced that it was the crowd around them that kept her from opening her eyes.

That Zina was merely tired and was in search of respite hence why she closed her eyes.

Yet every second that passed while time froze and Zina remained immobile roused something in him. Awakening a monster.

Reality kept sinking deeper, and his desire to cause ruin only grew in a thousand folds.

Up until then he had been doing a good job pretending Rowan and his Master didn’t exist.

It wasn’t so much that he had no desire to rip them into shreds. Far from that; the plans he had for the duo would make the gods weep and the most seasoned torturer, vomit his stomach out.

But Daemon had been holding back precisely because he had been fueling his delusion. Believing that this was a nightmare. A terrible one indeed, but still a nightmare.

But exploding into the Supreme Wolf’s rage didn’t wake him.

Carrying Zina in his arms while her body got colder didn’t wake him from the nightmare either.

Speaking with her mother—the woman she desired to meet all her life didn’t wake him.

And that was when it sank in with a final clarity—this was no nightmare. For the second time in his life, he had been dealt a bad hand.

The first time was his mother, and the second time was his wife.

The love of his life.

The woman he vowed he would cherish in sickness and pain.

The woman he vowed to protect with everything in him.

So where had everything gone wrong? And why?

Just why?

Grief and disbelief receded, and in its place, hatred and bitterness engulfed him.

Not just hatred for Rowan and his Master, and about every other fucked up variable that led to this point, but also hatred for Zina.

Yes, he was realizing belatedly that the love he had for the woman who bled in his arms was taking another shape. The shape of something twisted in animosity.

Because only a wicked woman would steal his heart, and then stomp over it like it meant nothing.

Why did she have to play the hero? Why did she have to save the world? Why did she not just sit still and let the world burn?!

One dark thought after another piled up in his mind until he was certain he would combust from the emotions he was feeling.

Indeed, he was feeling too much and thinking too small. Never thought there would come a day when he would be like this. A mess so bad he was an explosion waiting to happen.

He always prided himself for being so put together. For always having his head in the game. For being one of the best strategists to walk the world.

But he couldn’t have been more wrong. The moment he let Zina into his heart, he long became a changed man. And he was realizing it only now that she had ruined him. In the best way, and yet, the wrongest way.

So he fought viciously against whatever it was that Ameneris cast over the atmosphere. The woman herself was lying on the floor—long crumbled from the very powers that she had unleashed from the Runes of the Screamers Pack.

He had a feeling as he struggled against the spell that the fact that he was even lucid at that point was nothing short of a hard-earned blessing. Even Alpha Kairos and Zelkov were completely still, not blinking for once.

Yet despite his hard-earned blessing of lucidity, he couldn’t break free. Not until a loud bang sounded in the air, causing Zina to slid from his motionless arms.

The spell shattered to pieces, and motion resumed like time hadn’t been stopped.

In fact, it was pretty apparent that none of the people around him witnessed what he just witnessed. Zelkov resumed tugging at the ropes that bound Rowan and his Master, Malik Zorch kept on walking to him like nothing happened.

Everything seemed fine—resuming from where time had frozen. Except one thing.

Ameneris was still lying on the ground—motionless. Daemon couldn’t hear her breathing—she was dead.

He didn’t react to that as he leaned down and picked Zina’s body up. If Ameneris decided to take her life to be with her daughter then so be it. He supposed she should be glad that Zina would have company even in death, but he felt nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Zorch fell on her knees before him. "Your Majesty," she said, mustering a boldness no one else would have dared to muster, "I would never understand your grief, but you must bear the large picture at mind. This is the ripe time to put an end to the Five Great Evils and proclaim yourself as the Great Beast Wolf before the West so the tyranny of the Seven Witch Seers and Master will end. Remember that this is what you’ve been fighting, it is also the reason why the Luna Queen has made this great sacrifice. Beta Marcus DireWolf has asked me to remind you...."

Daemon carried Zina back wordlessly. Her body had gotten even colder.

So cold.

Way too cold.

And her lips were beginning to lose their color. The usual lush red now a dull red.

"We shall assemble at the Great Square of the Iron Coast," he muttered defeatedly, resigning to his fate.

Because of all the things he would do, of all the dark places he was willing to go down to, even in death, he was unwilling to disappoint Zina.

The thought that he would put all her hard work to vain made his heart ache.

But he didn’t let go of her as he marched forward.

They followed behind silently. Alpha Kairos dragging Rowan and his Master with an expression set in hate. Zelkov, the infamous sighter who had never mustered an emotion, hovering over Ameneris’ lifeless body with an expression of confusion mixed with grief while he looked between Zina that he carried, and the woman that laid before him dead mysteriously.

They had won a war. Yet it didn’t feel like they had won. Because no victory hurts this much.

And yet, this one did.

But Ada cut in front of him abruptly. The old woman was shaking while tears rolled down her face. She was staring at Zina’s lifeless body with an eager expression, as if expecting something that was never coming to happen.

Before Daemon could command her to move, something moved on him.

More like something stirred.

Or someone.

His eyes shot down to Zina. But she was still motionless.

Still very much pale.

Still very much dead.

Now, he was feeling things. His madness was only beginning.

His lips twisted into a rabid smile, then he walked over Ada and continued to the Square.

He didn’t feel her stir again. Almost like she refused to feed his delusions anymore.