I reached for the stack of portraits on the bedside table. Each one was hand-drawn by him, each one a memory he’d preserved.
The first showed me tending to him when we were stranded on a desert hunt, his leg broken, and I had stayed with him for days and nights.
The third showed him scaling a cliff in the middle of a snowstorm to bring me a rare mountain herb, panting, bleeding, just so I’d see he’d come for me.
Another showed him bringing an entire pack of wolves from the northern clans just to perform for me under the full moon, because I loved the moonlit dances of our kind. One of the last portraits even showed the glass house he’d designed, warm and safe, made for a blind mate, everything perfect for me.
And in every one, his eyes glowed with something I wanted once. Something I had believed in. Something I now hated.
He knelt in one painting, whispering, “Mate, from now on, I’ll be your eyes. You will be the only one in my heart. Only you, Chloe.”
I stared at them all, the lies, the fakes, the love poisoned by secrets, by Chiara, by his lies. My hands shook, and I forced a smile that felt bitter in my chest.