Page 49 of Shattered Soulmates

This is my punishment. This is my future.

My elaborate game is lost, and it’s time for me to pay the price.

Chapter 22 – Twin Forces of Ice & Fire

Paisley

I can barely breathe. The ache in my chest won’t let up. It’s a dull, exhausting pain that never fades. It began the night of Miles' betrayal at his bachelor party. I try not to think about it, but it tears at my soul. It won’t heal.

Thoughts of Miles, of us, cling to me, persistent and painful.

He chose her. Marissa.

How could he choose her over me, his true, goddess-given mate?

I’ve asked myself that question so many times, and the answer remains the same: he just did. Then, when Marissa took off again, he returned with his apologies.Mea culpa.

But I refuse to fall for Miles’ lies again. So, here I am still grieving, with a broken heart. Even after he marked and mated Marissa, I still feel the bond. It’s fractured and mangled, a meaningless promise that throbs with constant, physical pain.

From the moment we met, when it was just the two of us, the bond felt life-giving.

Bone-deep.

Eternal.

Written in the stars.

His touch felt like home.

Our heartbeats synced.

Sadly, unbeknownst to me, she was always there, hovering like a ghost in our lives, always on the edge of his mind. I never imagined he’d turn his back on us and leave me for her.

I wasn’t naïve. I didn’t step into this blind. He told me their history, but others in the pack had warned me too. They said Marissa played a twisted cat-and-mouse game with Miles, and I wasn’t the first to get caught up in it. She’d been drifting in and out of his life for years. I should’ve been more careful or simply stayed away from him.

But I trusted him because I thought the past was precisely that—past. I believed what we had wasstronger, something untouchable, because it was fated. That made me feel I was the exception.

I now laugh bitterly at my foolishness.

Miles and Marissa certainly taught me a lesson I’ll never forget.

Even now, as I lie here, locked in this bedroom at the motorcycle clubhouse, the ache in my chest feels like a gaping hole I could get lost in. The pain fills the very cracks where our love used to live.

And then… darkness descends.

I shiver as I’m thrust into a void. Everything around me fades until a pitch-black abyss swallows me. I can’t see. I can’t feel. I can’t hear anything except the wild, frantic thump of my desperate heartbeat.

Then, a low hum. Faint at first, distant, as if traveling through water. It grows steadily louder until foreign words begin to take shape and fill my head.

“Bris an ceangal rinn cho neo-ghlic…”

The words sound ancient and ominous, causing my heart to skip a beat.

“Stop!” I scream. The agony in my chest increases as the voices swell.

“Comharraich na fiachan dhuit mar a chaidh am pàigheadh...”

“Mark the debt to thee as paid...”

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