After Eight Winters of a False Mate Bond, I Walked Away

(Marisel’s POV)

The moment Trevian placed the flowers into the vase, I violently swept them onto the floor.

“Get out! I said get out!”

Glass shattered across the tiles.

Trevian did not become angry. Instead, he crouched down quietly and began picking up the broken pieces.

A sharp hiss escaped him when one shard cut into his finger.

Instinctively, he looked toward me. But I did not even spare him a glance. I kept my face turned toward the window.

A heavy silence filled the room.

Finally, he stood up, walked closer, and sat beside the window before holding my face firmly in his hands.

“I know you are angry with me,” he said quietly. “But at that moment, I could only save one person.”

“Frista was closer, so I rescued her first. Besides, you are fine now, aren’t you?”

As though trying to soften his excuses, he pulled a piece of chocolate from his pocket like a small surprise.

“Eat something sweet. It will help your mood.”

He unwrapped it and tried feeding it to me.

Disgust rushed through my body, and I slapped his hand away.

“Are you deaf? I told you to leave!”

The chocolate rolled across the floor before stopping near the wall.

After being cursed at repeatedly, the last bit of guilt inside him finally disappeared. His face turned cold as he stood up abruptly.

“If you continue acting like this, I will stop your brother’s treatment!”

My trembling hand slowly lifted and pointed toward the door.

“Get. Out.”

This time, he slammed the door hard behind him.

I buried myself beneath the blankets and cried until my throat burned raw and my lungs ached painfully.

During my stay in the healer’s hall, Trevian came almost every day. And every single time, I forced him out.

Our arguments became sharper each day. He was the one who broke every promise and crossed every line.

Yet to outsiders, I looked like the unreasonable Luna who never knew when to stop.

I covered my ears tightly and whispered to myself again and again.

“Fifteen more days. Just fifteen more days until the severing certificate is complete.”

But I never expected that on the day I was discharged from the healer’s hall…

Frista would dare appear before me. She looked beautiful as always with elegant robes and perfect makeup. Such a graceful appearance.

But the poison hidden behind her smile had never changed. Her eyes slowly swept across me before she clicked her tongue in disdain.

“A crow will always be a crow, even if it sits inside a phoenix nest.”

“Marisel, your luck is truly disgusting. First, you acted weak and pitiful to seduce Ardyn Vaultere. Then you clung to Trevian back when he was still only a rising young wolf.”

Her sweet face twisted with cruelty.

“But none of that matters. I crushed you once before, and I can destroy you a thousand more times.”

Frista sneered as she waved an old crystal recording proudly in front of me.

“Back then, didn’t you look exactly like a filthy stray wolf dragged into the light?”

Inside the crystal screen, my face was pale with humiliation, and my body had been stripped bare.

Countless crystal communicators and crystal devices pointed toward me while cruel laughter echoed around me. Some people even reached out to mock me openly.

I thought I had already escaped that nightmare.

But the moment it replayed before my eyes, my body shook uncontrollably. The old wounds buried inside me began burning painfully once again.

My gaze slowly moved toward the fruit knife resting on the table nearby.

“What’s wrong?” Frista’s voice dripped with mockery. “Does it hurt to watch?”

“I heard after you were expelled from the Royal Moon Academy, you fell into depression and even tried taking your own life.”

Her laughter sounded like a curse ringing through the room.

“You are insane, and your crippled brother is already dead. No wonder the two of you are siblings.”

She leaned closer and shoved the crystal screen near my face, forcing me to watch every second.

“Do you know? I have many recordings like this. When I studied abroad, I watched one every night before sleeping.”

Her smile slowly widened as she enjoyed my suffering.

“Oh, right. There is one more thing you probably never knew…”

She paused deliberately, savoring my trembling silence.

“The day your brother died… I was in bed with Trevian.”