Beneath the Alpha's Moon
Chapter 129: Punishments

Chapter 129: Punishments

ADRIAN’S P.O.V.

I leaned back in my chair, the soft crackle of the fireplace filling the silence. My gaze lingered on Juliette, whose brown eyes were filled with an intensity I couldn’t ignore. Teresa sat with her arms crossed, her expression a mixture of defiance and curiosity. Leonard, of course, lounged like he didn’t have a care in the world, while Lucian’s eyes were turned in my direction, his head tilted as though listening for a hidden truth in my voice.

"How did I come back from that?" I repeated Juliette’s question, my voice calm and deliberate, though the memories stirred a storm inside me. "The truth is, I didn’t. Not really."

The room seemed to lean in closer. Even Leonard, for all his antics, was quiet.

"After Margaret..." I hesitated, the image of her drenched in her family’s blood haunting me for a moment. "After what she did, she hated me. She hated herself more, but her anger—her fury—it was directed at me. For centuries, she chased me away. Fought me, cursed me, blamed me for everything. And I..." I smiled faintly, though there was no humor in it. "I stayed. No matter how much she pushed me away, I refused to leave her side."

"Why would you do that?" Teresa asked sharply, her voice trembling with remnant of anger and other emotions. "She didn’t want you there, Adrian. You should’ve let her be."

"Perhaps," I admitted, my gaze fixed on the flames. "But guilt has a way of binding you to someone. I couldn’t leave her—not after what I had done. I owed her that much. And I loved her."

Lucian let out a low, disbelieving chuckle. "Love? That doesn’t sound like love to me, Daegon. That sounds like punishment."

"Maybe it was both," I said softly.

Juliette’s hand tightened on my arm, grounding me. "How bad did it get between you two?"

"Bad enough," I admitted. "We couldn’t leave physical scars on each other, not as vampires, but the ones we left on each other’s hearts... those were deep. There were moments when I thought I might finally break under the weight of it all, especially when she sought revenge against my parents."

"What do you mean?" Juliette gasped, the shock evident in her gaze. I smiled sadly, recalling the memory.

"She killed my parents, Juliette. She drained both of them of blood and then set them ablaze so they wouldn’t come back as vampires."

Teresa screamed in horror, but Lucian was quick to comfort her with a hug, while tears pooled in Juliette’s eyes. She looked at me, lost for words, her hands still firm in mine as though trying to convey exactly how she felt. I understood; she didn’t need to say anything.

"Adrian, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help," Leonard said sadly. I waved him off, telling him not to worry. "It happened a long time ago. I’m fine now, though the memory still hurts a bit." Leonard nodded but then asked,

"What about your siblings? Did they die by her hands too?"

Everyone looked at me expectantly, and I shook my head before replying, "No. Luckily, my siblings were visiting my grandparents when it happened, so she never saw them."

There were audible sighs of relief around the room, and I continued.

"After that incident, to ensure my family’s safety, I decided to start a coven to protect them from afar. The people I turned were mostly those who wanted to live longer but had been dealt a bad hand in life. It was during that time that I met Harry."

"Harry?" Leonard perked up, his usual smirk returning. "Ah, the ever-loyal second-in-command. I like that guy. Always so serious, though. You should really get him to loosen up."

I chuckled softly, shaking my head. "Harry had been shot in several places by someone and left to die in the forest, but I happened come upon him during his last breathes. His desperation to live made me decide to turn him. After that, Harry became my voice of reason when I had none. He watched me torture myself over Margaret."

Lucian gasped. "You still wanted her after everything she did?"

His disbelief made me laugh, but I quickly answered. "Yeah, I did. I blamed myself for everything she did, and I wanted to stay by her side—even if just to ease her pain a little. One day, Harry asked me a question that got me thinking: ’Why don’t you just let her go?’"

"And what did you say?" Juliette asked, her eyes searching mine.

"I told him the truth," I replied. "That I owed her a debt I could never repay. That I still loved her deeply."

Lucian snorted. "And what did Harry say to that?"

"He told me I was a fool," I said with a wry smile. "He warned me that my feelings for Margaret had started as love but had turned into obsession, then guilt. Finally, I was using it to punish myself for the crimes I committed against her. He said that if I didn’t let her go, she’d destroy me completely. He wasn’t talking about physical death," I added, glancing at Teresa, "but the kind of death that leaves you hollow."

The room fell silent for a moment, the weight of Harry’s words sinking in.

"And did she?" Juliette asked softly.

I hesitated before answering. "Not in the way Harry feared. After centuries of pushing me away, Margaret came back to me willingly. She told me she couldn’t hate me, no matter how much she wanted to. That her heart still belonged to me. And she asked me to forgive her for all the pain she caused me."

"She begged for forgiveness?" Teresa asked, incredulous.

"She did," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "And I forgave her. How could I not? I had been waiting for centuries to hear those words. I apologized to her too, for everything I’d done. For the first time in a long while, I thought we might finally have peace."

"And did you?" Lucian’s tone was sharp, skeptical.

"For a while," I admitted. "Barely two weeks after we reconciled, she told me something that changed everything. She had heard rumors that the witches who took me as a child had resumed their experiments. They were kidnapping children again."

Juliette paled, her hand covering her mouth. "No..."

"I didn’t believe her at first," I said, my jaw tightening. "I had personally ensured that coven’s punishment for what they did to me. It was... gruesome. I won’t repeat the details here." I glanced at Teresa, who looked like she might vomit.

"But Margaret insisted," I continued. "She said she had seen it with her own eyes. When I questioned her further, she grew angry, accusing me of not trusting her."

"And did you?" Leonard asked, surprisingly serious.

"I did," I said simply. "I had no reason to doubt her. So, I gathered my coven, with Margaret by my side, and we marched to the witches’ lair."

"And that’s when it all went to hell, didn’t it?" Lucian said dryly. I bet he wanted to roll his eyes at my stupidity but he held back.

I gave him a faint smile. "You’re not wrong. What I didn’t realize was that Margaret had her own motives. She wasn’t concerned about the children. She wanted vengeance against the coven’s new high priestess, a witch named Nancy Cornwell. Margaret had been manipulating me from the start, using me as a weapon to achieve her goals."

The room was silent, the weight of my confession hanging heavy in the air.

"When did you figure it out?" Juliette asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"By the time I realized the truth, it was too late," I admitted.

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