Blood flowed from the gash on his temple, pooling beneath his head as hey unconscious on my doorstep. His powerful frame looked suddenly vulnerable, his face pale against the crimson spreading around him.


    "He deserves to die! It would be better if he were dead!" The thought shed through my mind with startling rity.


    The scene before me mirrored another-Lily copsed at Moonlight Fair, blood trickling from her mouth as her small body gave out. I remembered the devastation that had torn through me then, the desperate need to save her.


    But now, looking at Ethan, I felt nothing. A chilling indifference had settled over me, numbing me to his suffering.


    I took a step back into my cottage, my fingers tightening around Lily''s urn. The pendant containing some of her ashes hung heavy around my neck, returned to me by the very man


    now bleeding on my doorstep.


    Without a word, I closed the door, shutting out the sight of Ethan''s unconscious form. I turned


    off the porch light, plunging the entrance into darkness.


    Let Maxwell find him. Let someone else care. I had given all the care I had to give, and Ethan


    had thrown it away-just as he had thrown away our daughter.


    (Maxwell''s POV)


    I waited by the car, my gaze fixed on the window of Olivia Winters'' cottage. The Alpha had


    been inside for nearly twenty minutes now, far longer than I''d anticipated.


    When the porch light went off, I assumed he''d left through another exit. But as minutes ticked


    by with no sign of my boss, an uneasy feeling settled in my stomach.


    Something was wrong. My instincts as Ethan Stone''s trusted special assistant rarely failed


    1. me.


    I raced up the path to the cottage, triggering the motion sensor light as I approached. What I


    saw made my blood run cold.


    < Chapter 102 Blood and Betra...


    +15 Poets)


    Alpha King Ethan Stoney motionless on the doorstep, surrounded by shattered fragments of


    what appeared to be a decorative vase. Blood pooled beneath his head, the crimson stain


    spreading across the wooden nks.


    "Alpha King!" I dropped to my knees beside him, checking for a pulse. It was there, but weak


    and erratic.


    I immediately pulled out my phone, calling for an ambnce while using my free hand to


    press my jacket against the wound, trying to stem the bleeding.


    "Ms. Winters!" I shouted toward the closed door. "Ms. Winters, your mate needs help!"


    No response came from inside the cottage. The realization hit me like a physical blow-she


    had seen him fall and had done nothing. She had turned off the light and left him to bleed out