Chapter 239: Every Bridge The Gods Built, He’d Burn

Dexmon had broken bones. He’d been stabbed, burned, and given Viper’s Kiss. None of it prepared him for what this memory was about to do to him.

He watched Asher’s horror, revulsion, desperation. He could feel himself fighting it the way you feel someone gripping your hand in the dark, knuckles white, holding on. He was holding on. But the fact that he had to hold on at all was the thing that was killing her.

Natalia let go. Her eyes were welling, but she held her composure, not letting any tears fall. She took a steadying breath, swallowed, then turned, leaving the hall.

Asher stood frozen, unaware for a minute.

Then he shook his head once, coming back to his senses.

"Nat—"

He looked to his right where she was just standing, but she was gone. His eyes widened. He shoved past anyone in his path without apology, heart hammering.

Across the ballroom, Ronan’s hand flew to his sternum. He pushed his way through the crowd, following Asher.

As soon as he reached the hall, he broke out into a full-on sprint, following both of their scents. But when he turned the corner, he stopped cold.

Natalia stood before Asher, unflinchingly strong.

Asher reached for her, desperate. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Natalia—"

Her voice shook, but her spine didn’t. "Asher, what is the one thing I asked of you the day you asked me to be your mate?"

She swallowed. "You gave me your word. Do you remember what it was?"

He didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

She pressed on. "I said if you ever met your fated mate, you would honor that."

There was pure panic in his eyes. "Nat, I said that to get you to agree to be my mate. I never meant it. Ever. You’re it for me. We should be fated. My wolf agrees. It makes no sense why we’re not—"

She held up a hand cutting him off, and took a step back from him.

"If you break a fated bond, you will regret it for the rest of your life."

"Regret?" He laughed, and it was the ugliest sound he’d ever made. "I will regret losing you on my deathbed. I choose you. I will always choose you. Every day for the rest of my life. The Moon Goddess can take her fated matebond and choke on it."

His eyes were red-rimmed. His hands were shaking. The desperation pouring off him through their matebond was so thick it was suffocating.

"I don’t want her, Natalia. I have never wanted anything in my life the way I want you. Tell me you know that. Tell me you believe me."

"That’s not true." Her lips trembled. "I feel what you’re feeling and you’re trying to fight it. Trying to do the right thing."

"You’re tangling your feelings with mine, baby," Asher said, voice softening. "I am not trying to do anything like that."

"Ash..." A tear slipped down her cheek. "It’s not your fault. You rejecting your fated mate dishonors her."

"Then I’ll be dishonorable." He said it without hesitation. "Write it in every history book in this kingdom. Asher Valerion, the fool who loved a woman so much he burned every bridge the gods built for him. I will wear that. Gladly. For the rest of my life. Because the alternative is a life without you, and I have looked at that future, Natalia, and there is nothing in it."

"I won’t be the obstacle standing in the way of someone’s destiny."

"Nat." His voice cracked on her name. "I’ll break it with Odette. Let me fix this, baby."

She didn’t say anything.

He reached for her, with both arms, wanting to pull her to his chest. But she stepped back from him, not letting him touch her.

"Don’t do this. I only want you," Asher said, forcing his voice calm. "That matebond isn’t right. My wolf agrees. It doesn’t even come close to the pull I have for you—"

"My wolf feels it too." She swallowed, and took a steadying breath. "You don’t know what you’re saying."

"Yes I do—"

"I, Natalia Moonveil—"

Asher lunged forward, putting his lips on hers before she could finish. He pulled away, hands cupping her face. "Baby, you’re upset. Let me fix this. I’ll go break it with her. I have loved you since the second I set eyes on you and I won’t stop. I don’t need a fated matebond to tell me that."

She let out a sob, and pulled her head out of his hands. "I reject you, Asher Valerion, as my chosen mate."

"Natalia! Damnit—" Asher hunched over, clutching his chest, his words cut off. A sound escaped him that was half sob, half denial. The sound was inhuman. It started in his chest, a raw, guttural roar that climbed through his throat and hit the marble walls with enough force to rattle the sconces. It was a full sob from the chest. Grief he’d never shown before.

Natalia’s legs buckled at the same time. Ronan was already moving at Alpha speed, sliding on his knees before she hit the floor, catching her in time.

Asher grunted, hand on his sternum for three full seconds. His wolf howled so loud it split his skull open. Then, slowly, he straightened.

"This isn’t right." His fist drove into the wall. Marble cracked outward from the impact in a web of fractures, stone dust clouding the air. His knuckles split. Blood painted the white stone. "No. I refuse it. She’s supposed to be mine. This isn’t right."

Asher pushed himself off the ground, wiping his eyes. "I need to fix this. This isn’t how this is supposed to be."

He hit it again. Harder. The crack deepened, chunks of marble falling to the floor. His hand was a wreck, bone visible beneath torn skin, and he couldn’t feel it because the pain in his chest was so vast it consumed everything else.

Ronan stood with Natalia in his arms, her head in the crook of his neck.

And the older Dexmon saw the look of pure guilt warring with grief on Ronan’s face.

He hated himself for the relief. He would hate himself for it for the rest of his life.

"I’ve got you," he said, and his voice cracked on the second word. "I’ve got you, Natalia."

Footsteps echoed behind them.

Odette rounded the corner.

Dark hair still perfect. Hazel eyes bright with the specific, unsettling focus of a woman who had located exactly the situation she was looking for.

She assessed the corridor in a single sweep: the blood on the wall, the shattered stone, Natalia curled into Ronan, Asher bent forward with his forehead pressed against cracked marble and his ruined hand hanging at his side.

Her gaze settled on Asher.

She tilted her head. Her voice came out smooth and warm and entirely inappropriate for the devastation surrounding her.

"Well," she said, stepping closer to him. "That looked painful."

Asher’s head turned. His eyes were gold, wolf surging, tear tracks cutting through the tension on his face. Blood dripped from his knuckles to the marble.

Odette was undeterred. She stopped two feet from him, close enough that the pull between them was visible in the way his body angled towards hers despite every conscious effort to resist it. His wolf recognized her. But his soul was screaming for Natalia.

"Let’s talk, Asher." She said his name like she was tasting it, a woman who understood her leverage and had no intention of wasting it. "I think you and I have a lot to discuss."

Behind them, Ronan’s arms tightened around Natalia, and his eyes opened above her head, locking onto that woman with an expression that, on any other man, would have been rage.

On Ronan Goldenvein, it was something quieter and infinitely worse.

It was the look of a man who had just been handed everything he wanted by watching two people he loved tear each other apart, and who understood with cold clarity, that the Moon Goddess’s kindness and her cruelty had always been the same thing.

The memory collapsed.

Dexmon stood in the void, breathing hard, the phantom pain of a broken matebond burning through a chest that didn’t belong to this timeline.