Surrender To Us, Our Luna (One Luna, Four Alphas)-Chapter 544-Mates Holding Each Other

Clementine:

Now that everything had been decided and I knew we had lost too much, I chose to move forward. I wanted to let go of my initial anger, but the grief of losing my child kept rising inside me.

I never even got the chance to cherish my pregnancy. That loss hollowed something inside me.

We were still standing there, discussing what to do next, when distant screams reached us. They were not the sounds of an attack. They were screams of grief.

Fauna reacted first. She drew in a sharp breath and pointed toward the sound.

"That... that’s my sister’s voice," Fauna whispered, her words shaking.

We all stared at her. What would her sister be doing here?

"That’s Mariana’s voice," she insisted, urgency tightening her expression.

Hearing her sister in a place like this was a shock on its own.

"Wait a minute," Haiden said, grabbing her from behind when she tried to run. "This is the North. Anything can happen here. Sometimes monsters mimic the voices of your loved ones."

He tried to reason with her, but she kept shaking her head.

"No. That’s her voice. I just need to see once," she pleaded, turning toward him.

After a brief exchange of looks, we agreed it was better to check.

"She’s right, Haiden. If it’s a monster, we need to know which one. Remember, ignorance is not a blessing," I reminded him.

When my eyes shifted to Ian, I noticed he was smiling.

"It’s good to have you back," he said, giving me a small nod.

I returned the nod, steadying myself.

We moved toward the direction of the screams. By the time we arrived, the cries had stopped, but we knew exactly where they had come from.

We did not have to go far. The scene was already in front of us.

My steps slowed when I saw someone sitting with his back to us. Three dead bodies lay around him.

Mariana stood in front of him, facing us.

"Mariana!" Fauna called out, rushing ahead of us.

Mariana lifted her head and narrowed her eyes as if she were trying to process what she was seeing.

The two sisters fell into each other’s arms and began to cry.

I walked forward and stopped in front of the man sitting on the ground.

"Yorick..." I murmured, my fist tightening without warning.

I had not expected to find him here.

He slowly raised his head. A broken smile formed on his face.

"Look, Clementine. I lost my entire family too," he said quietly.

A surge of heat rushed through my body.

Beside him lay his brother, the one who had turned into a monster. The same brother who had once tried to devour mine.

His mother was dead. His father lay nearby.

Yorick sat between them.

The others gathered around me. I knew Haiden and Troy felt sympathy for him, but no one stepped forward to comfort him because he did not deserve comfort.

It felt like an opportunity had been placed in my hands.

I strode toward him. I pulled the dagger from his father’s chest and pressed it against Yorick’s neck.

"You know why I’m killing you," I told Yorick, my emotions spiraling out of control.

He was the man I had once felt a mate bond with. He was the man I had once dated.

Of course I was emotional, and it was not my fault. Tears streamed down my face, carrying both my anger and everything else I had buried.

"I know. You have every right," he replied, holding my gaze.

"Clementine, think about this once," Haiden urged.

I turned my face slightly and noticed Troy giving me a small nod. Even then, I did not listen.

My finger tightened on the trigger. I do not know whether I would have kept my mind steady until the end, because Mariana suddenly stepped between us.

She moved in front of Yorick and folded her hands in front of me.

"Please don’t kill my mate," she begged, dropping to her knees.

The tears spilling from her eyes slowly forced my hand downward.

"There’s a bag. It has files in it. You’ll find a diary with Yorick’s name in it," she continued, her voice shaking. "Everything his parents did to him is written there." she cried.

"He was under their control," Mariana added quickly in his defense, while Yorick sat in silence.

He looked too numb to react.

Fauna came to her sister’s side and placed a hand on her shoulder. Mariana remained on her knees in front of me.

I did not know they were mates, but the fresh marks on her neck told me enough. They had already marked each other.

What shocked me was that they had not waited for their second chance mate. They could have rejected me and chosen a second chance, but instead they hurt me and seemed to believe that saying sorry would fix everything.

"I swear those files contain everything his parents did. The largest file is about Yorick," Mariana insisted.

I stepped back.

"He’s been under their control since he was five. They shaped him the way they wanted," she explained. "Do you remember how Charles became a monster? One of the medicines they gave the children backfired. The same thing could have happened to Yorick. They kept him on those medications constantly."

As she spoke, my anger began to fade. I forced myself to think clearly.

"You were only there for a few days. Imagine what they did to him. He lived in it since he was born," she said softly.

The pain inside me had not disappeared, but something else surfaced.

I suddenly remembered.

Yorick never gave me the medicine. He only pretended to.

He had deceived his parents for me.

And because of that, they attacked him and drugged him right in front of me.

Then I remembered how Yorick had fought against them to protect me. I remembered how he had argued with his mother, telling her he had been drugged as well.

My head slowly lowered. I dropped to my knees.

Mariana began sobbing harder. Then she turned and wrapped her arms around her mate.

He had been numb until then, but the moment he closed his eyes, he broke down and held her tightly.

Ian came and sat beside me. He pulled me into his arms from the side.

I rested my cheek against his chest and listened to his heartbeat. The steady rhythm grounded me.

I noticed Troy reached for Leysa, while Haiden wrapped his arms around Fauna as well.

All of us stood there, mates holding each other, searching for comfort in familiar arms.

When the hatred finally drained from our hearts, clarity followed. We realized we were trapped in the North.

And the worst part was that the dangerous ones were still plotting against the mainland.