Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 230

Chapter 230

For a moment, Cynthia could not look away from him. There it was. The old hurt, not fully dead. The truth of how he had taken her

in because he loved her, how he had pushed past his own wolf’s unease, how Klein had felt something wrong with Medley and

Sebastien ignored it because he wanted to believe love could make sense of what Cynthia had done. She remembered that version of

him. The Sebastien who had wanted to claim her. The Sebastien who had looked at her with pride instead of suspicion. The

Sebastien who had once believed she would stand with him because she loved him, not because she was waiting for a better ladder.

“I have been a fool because of love. I kept you from the Alpha to protect you, Cynthia. You do not know why I am working for him. It has nothing to do with owning a pack, but you had to go behind my back where he was concerned,” he said.

Cynthia shook her head quickly, even though there was no proper denial to give. She had gone behind his back. She had contacted the Alpha because she wanted a way around Sebastien. She had seen a higher hand and reached for it. That was who she was, She could call it survival. She could call it ambition. She could call it being smart. But Sebastien knew her well enough to strip all the

nicer words away.

He began to laugh, but there was no humour in the sound. It was tired. Bitter. Almost broken.

“I do not enjoy going about hurting people. I do not like it, but I have to. It is a price I am paying. I knew what I was getting myself into when I took the job, but not you,” he said.

Then he sat on the couch and bowed his head.

Cynthia watched him, unsettled by the shift. His anger had been easier to understand than this. This exhausted sadness, this warning, this strange confession that there was more to his loyalty to the Alpha than greed. She wanted to ask him what he meant. What price? What had the Alpha done? What hold did he have over him? But her pride and fear held her tongue. She had spent too long making Sebastien her stepping stone to suddenly ask him like she cared.

“I hope you get what you are looking for, Cynthia, but I am ending whatever is between us this morning because I see no redemption for you. You are too power-hungry for your own good,” he said, looking at her.

The look in his eyes told her he was done.

Not angry-done. Not threatening-done. Not the kind of done that came after a beating and dissolved into rough desire later. This was different. His face held something final. Something that had taken years to build and one more betrayal to settle. He had tried to make it work. He had forced himself to forgive and keep going, hopeful she would see the light and change. He had taken insult after insult against his pride and told himself love meant endurance. Now he realised she would never change, and just like Ethan McCloud, he was another stepping stone she no longer needed.

Sebastien went to the wardrobe in the hotel room and began to pack his things.

Cynthia watched him for a moment, stunned. The sound of clothes being pulled from hangers, zippers opening, items being gathered, felt louder than it should have. It was one thing for him to shout that it was over. It was another thing to see him actually packing. Leaving. Removing himself from the room, from her body, from the ugly bond they had dragged behind them for seven

years.

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Chapter 230

“Where are you going?” she asked him.

He did not respond. He focused on the task and ensured he packed all his stuff. That silence frightened her more than another insult would have. Sebastien had always reacted. Always argued. Always punished. Always returned. But now he moved like a man who had finished grieving something and had no strength left to discuss it.

Once he was done, he looked at her and smiled.

The smile was not kind.

“I hope you enjoy your time as Luna of Whitewood because I doubt it will be pleasant or last. I have been assigned to take over Ceenas as its new Alpha. Goodbye, Cynthia and please do not contact or call me when shit blows up in your face. I am not only ending this; I am moving on. Not that you will care since you already have your next victim. Trust me, you will be the victim this time because he is much worse than you, and unlike you, he is smart and patient,” he said.

Before she could say anything, he walked out of the room.

The door closed behind him.

For a long moment, Cynthia did not move. The room felt too large suddenly, too quiet, too full of the absence he had left behind. She had wanted freedom from Sebastien. She had imagined leaving him, rising above him, showing him she had found better. She had imagined the satisfaction of watching him realise she no longer needed him. But she had not imagined the silence after he left first. She had not imagined the small hollow feeling under her ribs.

Cynthia did not know how to feel about what had just happened. She felt a tinge of guilt, but she tried to shrug it off. Guilt was useless. Guilt was for people who had time to sit with regret. She had a mission now. Whitewood. The Alpha. A possible place as Luna if she performed well. Sebastien walking out should have felt like the final chain snapping. Instead, it felt like the floor

shifting under her feet.

“He is just trying to scare us so we can feel bad,” she told Medley, her wolf.

But even Medley was silent because she knew they were in the wrong.

That silence irritated Cynthia. It made her feel judged from inside her own skin.

“Do not go silent on me,” she said to her wolf.

Medley whimpered.

“He loved us, Cynthia. Sebastien and Klein truly loved us,” her wolf finally said, feeling the inevitable loss with how Cynthia

behaved.

Cynthia’s face hardened. She did not want to hear that. Love had not made them powerful. Love had not made them safe. Love had not given them a pack, a title, or a place above women who sneered behind their hands. Love had turned Sebastien cruel and turned Cynthia desperate. Love had not been enough.

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Underwater: The Silent Luna