Moonfire Bride: The One they all betrayed...till she awakened

Della’s eyes were cloudy. Was it tears again? It must be.

She never thought she would cry for this man again. She never thought staring into his eyes would elicit these emotions in her that were supposed to be dead, but after learning what he had done for her…

Her knees felt weak.

“Moonfire,” He breathed.

His lips quivered as she fought to hold back the tears back, “Why?” She asked.

Malachi didn’t answer. He walked closer to him and reached up to take her face in his large hands, then he gently pulled her into his arms.

“Why?” She whispered again, “Why would you…?”

His reply was simple, “You gave me options, and I made my choice,”

The tears finally streamed down her eyes, and her knees gave out.

He caught her.

“If giving up on everything is what it takes to be with you, then I was stupid for not doing it the moment you asked,” He said, stroking her back, “I have been fighting myself for years. Fighting my feelings for you, too. It made me blind to the truth and it caused you unimaginable pain. You lost so much because I refused to see anything else but the pain of my past, when I should have realised that you are my present and future,” She felt him tremble, like he was finally where he always wanted to be, “And from now on, I will do anything you ask of me. Anything, Della. I love you so much,”

Sacrificing everything…was a big deal. It was, in fact…the biggest. The man had just thrown away everything that made him who he was to the wolf realm.

Giving up such tremendous power for someone like her…fuck! That was huge. No one has ever let go of anything like that…for any reason! No Supreme can give up on their crown and authority even if it meant his whole family would get slaughtered.

And the funny thing about all this was that…she didn’t expect it. To be sincere, she had been joking when she’d asked him to give it all up. She just wanted to give him an impossible task – something she knew he would never be able to do in a thousand years – just so he would leave her alone.

‘Give it all up!’ — a means to push him away. Words that would torture him.

But he had actually…

Fuck, this man was going to make it impossible for her to keep pushing him away, to not forgive him and wrap her arms around his back because right now she was badly itching to do so.

“You shouldn’t have…,” She cried even harder, a small fist hitting his chest, “You shouldn’t have…you shouldn’t have…”

Malachi didn’t stop her.

He simply held her tighter, letting every hit land against his chest as though he deserved every single one of them, “I know,” he whispered.

“No, you don’t!” Della’s voice broke. She pushed against him, but there was no strength behind it anymore. “You don’t understand what you’ve done.”

“I do.”

“You gave up everything! Your crown, your territory, your people…you gave up all of it!” Her fingers curled into his clothes, gripping them so tightly that her knuckles turned pale. “You were the Supreme Alpha, Malachi. You had everything!”

“I don’t need it anymore.”

Della looked up at him through tear-filled eyes, “Don’t say that.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Her voice trembled. “Because you’re making this harder.”

His expression softened, and God…she hated how calm he was. How certain. How there wasn’t even the slightest trace of regret in his eyes.

“You’re supposed to regret it,” she whispered. “You’re supposed to realise that I was being cruel when I asked you to leave everything.”

“I did realise something.”

“What?”

“That I was already losing everything that mattered to me.”

Della stared at him.

Malachi gently wiped one of her tears with his thumb “I had a crown, but I couldn’t sleep at night because the woman I loved hated me. I had an entire territory beneath my command, but I couldn’t protect the one person I had hurt the most. I had power, yet I couldn’t undo a single thing I did to you.” His voice grew quieter, “So tell me, Della…what exactly was I supposed to keep fighting for?”

Her lips trembled again.

She wanted to tell him he was wrong.

She wanted to tell him that he should go back, take his crown and leave her alone.

But the words refused to come.

Because beneath all the anger, all the pain, all the hatred she had carried for him, there was still that stupid heart that had loved him long before she ever learned how to hate him.

And now he had thrown away the entire world to stand beside her.

He had shifted his entire axis, walked away from everything he knew and everything he had grown up and achieved…for her.

Della buried her face against his chest again, and then her hands finally stopped hitting him. Instead, they slowly curled into the back of his shirt.

She listened to his pounding heart. It was so powerful and fast that she was pretty sure his ribs were cracking up under all the heat and energy. And every beat reverberated into her own ear and went straight to her chest.

And in that moment, all the monsters in her head settled. Every whisper of hate, every call to the dark, every dead cell, every thought to do something horrible, all the memories that plagued her mind day after day, all the things that haunted her, all the deaths… everything… simply vanished.

Peace.

This was peace.

Peace in the arms of the man…she might just be giving a second chance.

Malachi held her even tighter as though he had been waiting years for her to do exactly that.

“You’re an idiot,” she whispered, “You’re an absolute idiot.”

“I know.” He said, a faint smile touching his lips.

“I hate you.” She added.

Then, Malachi asked a question he had been horrified to ask, “Is…this enough?”

He felt her freeze, but she didn’t let go of him. His heart was hammering even harder than ever now.

“I feel like it isn’t,” He continued, his voice low with regret, “There’s nothing I can actually do…that would erase everything that happened to you. There is nothing. Not a single one.” He swallowed, and his arms slowly loosened around her shoulders, “And I’ve come to realise how…selfish I have been to you. Wanting you back…when you would genuinely like to stay away from me.”

Della pulled back a little and looked up at his face. She could hear the sound of blood rushing through his veins, hear his breath getting heavier, and the anger he had for himself ready to explode through his eyes.

“So tell me what you want right now, and I will obey you. Ask him to kill me, and I will do so without question. Ask me to jump into Moonfire, and I will do so, and as I burn, I will still not think the pain is enough. Ask me to stay away…and I promise you’ll never see my face again. Anything you want, Moonfire.”