Reborn To Ruin The Alpha Who Broke Me

AVALON POV:

The cold stone slab bit into my back. I was already dying. The wound in my abdomen had festered beyond saving, and every shallow breath sent pain tearing through me. For weeks, my husband had ignored my worsening condition, refusing to send a healer or even come to see me. He had simply locked me in this damp underground cell and left me to die.

Then heavy footsteps sounded on the stone stairs. The iron door groaned open, spilling light into the darkness. A tall silhouette stood in the doorway.

My breath caught.

Cassian Sterling. My husband.

He stepped inside, and the light revealed his face. There was no pity in his brown eyes. No flicker of the bond that was supposed to tie our souls together. He looked at me the way one looks at a piece of trash on the side of the road.

He was wearing his formal attire, the deep blue velvet jacket of the Sterling Pack, embroidered with silver thread. Ready for the mating ceremony.

I tried to push myself up, but my muscles screamed and gave way. My hand, thin and pale, trembled as I reached for the hem of his perfectly pressed trousers. The mate bond, the one the Moon Goddess had forged, pulsed weakly inside me, a desperate call into the void.

"My family," I rasped, my voice a dry crackle. "Please... tell me. How are they?"

My mother's family, the Carlisles, had been exiled to the frozen north for treason. Since Cassian had imprisoned me, their letters had been the only proof I had that they were still alive.

He took a small, neat step back. My fingers brushed against empty air. He avoided my touch as if I were diseased.

He adjusted his collar, his movements unhurried. "Them? Oh, you mean the Carlisles."

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage of bone. I watched his lips, waiting for the verdict that would either save me or shatter me completely.

A small smile touched his mouth. It was a chilling, ugly thing in the gloom of the dungeon. "They're long dead, Avalon."

The words didn't make sense.

"Dead in the second month after you were brought down here."

For a moment, I could neither move nor breathe. His words were the only thing I could hear, repeating over and over in my head.

I shook my head, a frantic, jerky motion. "No... impossible. I got letters... They said they were fine..."

That hope. That single thread I had clung to in this darkness.

His eyes glinted with a cruel, fascinated light. "The letters? You mean the ones that kept you so calm?"

He crouched down, his face close to mine. His scent, once a comfort, now smelled of rot and betrayal. His voice was a venomous whisper against my ear.

"Kaelen wrote those. She said it was amusing, watching you cling to a false hope."

Kaelen Knight.

The name drove a poisoned blade through what remained of my heart. She was the woman Cassian had abandoned me for, cutting off all contact with me so he could publicly claim her as his mate. To the outside world, Kaelen was a direct and kindhearted female Alpha, celebrated for her courage, intelligence, and strength. The people adored her, and Alpha Cassian Sterling openly called her his true love.

I remembered her face, always smiling, her eyes always so full of feigned sincerity.

A sound tore from my throat, raw and inhuman. It was a scream of pure, undiluted hatred, mixed with the agony of a fool who had given everything for nothing. Blood filled my vision, hot tears of it streaming from my eyes.

Cassian stood up, a look of detached satisfaction on his handsome face as he watched me break.

"Don't blame me, Avalon," he said, his voice casual. "You were always too weak. Unworthy of me, and unworthy of being the Luna of the Sterling Pack."

My breathing hitched. It grew shallow, then shallower. The edges of my vision blurred, turning his form into a distorted, monstrous shape.

I saw my mother's smile. My father's pride. The lost honor of the Carlisle name. All sacrificed for this man. For his love.

The hatred burned away the pain. It burned away the sorrow. It was the only thing left.

If... if only I had another chance...

I would make them pay. All of them. In blood and tears.

I would burn their world to the ground.

The last thing I saw was a flicker of surprise cross Cassian's face when he realized I had stopped breathing. It vanished almost at once. Then he turned and left without looking back.

His mating ceremony was waiting, and so was the new life he had chosen.

Darkness swallowed me whole, but the vow was branded onto my soul.

Revenge.