The finality in her tone left no room for argument. My daughter-the child I had raised, the baby I had held against my chest-was casting me out of her home.
My pride would not let me beg. I stood, smoothing my blouse, forcing my voice sady.
Very well. I’ll leave you to your life. But don’t imagine for one moment, Seraphina, that blood can be undone by will alone.”
Her eyes glistened, though her chin stayed high. She said nothing.
I left before my knees could give way.
SERAPHINA’S POV
After the door shut behind my mother, the silence in the house felt sharper, like the echo of everything unspoken still hanging in the air.
My chest was tight, and for a moment, I just stared at the spot where she’d sat, torn between guilt and relief.
Lucian’s voice broke the quiet, oddly hesitant. “Sera, did I…overstep?”
I turned to him. His gaze was steady, searching my face for an answer I wasn’t sure I had. I hated that he’d even asked-that he thought he might have done something wrong by defending me.
I shook my head. “No. You didn’t. I just…” My throat ached, the words dragging. “You don’t need to waste your energy on her-on any of them. I don’t want my family’s mess to bleed into your life.”
The corner of his mouth tightened, not in anger, but in that way he had when he was restraining himself.
He stepped closer, close enough that I could feel his steadiness pressing against my chaos.
“Sera,” he said, low and unyielding, “the moment we chose each other, your battles became mine. Protecting you isn’t a waste of energy. It’s my responsibility-my choice. Even if the attacks come from your own family.”
Something inside me trembled, half afraid to lean on those words, half aching to collapse into them.
MARGARET’S POV
The drive home passed by in a haze, but I hardly noticed the route. Each turn slipped by unnoticed, my mind caught somewhere else entirely.
Finally, the Lockwood Manor loomed before me-our home. Except it didn’t feel like a home. It hadn’t in months.
Not since Edward’s laughter no longer echoed through the halls, not since Ethan buried himself in pack duties and found his comfort in the arms of his mate.
Not since Celeste returned to our lives-just to move in with Kieran almost immediately.
What remained was silence. The kind that pressed on the chest like a weight, the kind that made the clink of a spoon against porcelain sound deafening.
I sat in the entryway for a long time, staring at Edward’s coat still hanging on the rack.
We’d been about to go out; he was halfway through tugging it on when the call of the attack came through.
In his haste, he’d shrugged it off and tossed it aside.
And there it had stayed for the past three months, untouched, as if waiting for him to come back and shrug into it.
My throat burned, and I pressed a hand to it, forcing the tears back. I had already cried too much for too long; still, the tears seemed endless. The sorrow eternal.
But right now, what gnawed at me more than grief was confusion.
I replayed the scene at Sera’s house in my mind again and again, trying to pinpoint where I had gone wrong.
Yes, perhaps my motives had gone misunderstood-Sera always did have a way of misconstruing my intentions.
And yes, perhaps I had clung too hard. But what mother didn’t? What mother, after giving life, could be expected to simply let her child turn cold to her?
No matter how many years stretched out between us, no matter how hard she tried to pretend otherwise, I would always be Seraphina’s mother.
And even if I was wrong, what right did Lucian Reed have to interfere? He wasn’t even her husband. His place was nowhere between us.
It was still only late morning, but my outing had had the opposite effect of its purpose and exhausted me greatly. I collapsed into bed without changing.
I curled up on my side, hugging Edward’s pillow to me.
I hadn’t washed it in three months, but his scent was already fading, and I fell asleep like I always did-tears slipping down my cheeks.
And then-rare as rain in drought-I dreamed of him.
Edward stood before me as he once had: broad-shouldered, his hair touched with the faintest silver, eyes a beautiful cerulean-blue that used to both steady and undo me.
Eyes exactly like Sera’s.
His arms opened and I went into them, desperate, clutching at his shirt like a drowning woman clinging to a life vest.
“Edward,” I whispered, the name breaking into a sob. “Oh, Edward.”
“My love.” His voice was warm, slightly gruff. Oh, how I’d missed his voice.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I said, voice thick. “I don’t understand them. I don’t understand her. Everything I say-everything I do-it’s wrong.”
I pulled back to look up at him. “Seraphina hates me, Edward. Our daughter hates me. And
Ethan is so busy, and Celeste… Celeste, I can’t quite figure out. What am I supposed to do?
I don’t know how to do all this without you, Edward.”
His hand smoothed over my hair, his touch so achingly familiar I thought I might dissolve under it.
He didn’t speak for the longest time, only held me the way he always had when words failed him. And then, when the dream had begun to fade, when I could already feel the cold of the waking world creeping back in, he leaned close.
“Don’t forget,” he murmured. “Sera is our daughter, too. No matter what. Don’t lose sight of that. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”
“Edward…”
I tried to cling to him, but he was already dissolving, vanishing into the thinning veil of the dream.
“Edward, please don’t leave me!”
My hands closed over nothing, and panic clawed up my throat. “Edward, I can’t-“
I woke with a jolt, wet cheeks, and a hollow in my chest that no amount of air could fill.
All through the day, his words haunted me.
‘Don’t make the same mistake I did.’
I might not have been the one to cast her out, but I’d stood by and done nothing about it.
I’d been angry, so consumed by Celeste’s pain and grief that I had blinded myself to Sera’s.
Ten years-an entire decade-stood like a wall between us.
Did I truly think a single visit, a handful of stubborn words, could tear it down?
No. Crumbling those defenses would take more than just persistence; it would take humility.
But I wasn’t sure I knew how to do that. After being Luna for more than thirty years, laying my pride down did not come easy.
That evening, I invited Ethan and Celeste to dinner, and to my surprise, they obliged.
Ethan took Edward’s place at the head of the table, and Celeste sat at my side, her fork scraping idly against her plate.
For the first time in a long time, I did not see only them. I saw the empty chair beside
Ethan, the one Sera should have occupied.
And the thought formed unbidden, fragile but persistent: perhaps it wasn’t too late.
“Ethan,” I said softly, laying down my fork. “I was thinking… Perhaps we could invite Seraphina home for a meal. To sit together again, as a family”
The words had barely left my lips when a sharp crash split the air. Celeste’s plate shattered against the marble floor, fragments scattering, food splattering across the polished surface.
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