Chapter 45\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every moment of happiness would be poisoned with the knowledge that I was watching, waiting, planning. Every night she managed to sleep peacefully would be followed by nightmares that felt more real than her waking hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I wanted to break her down so completely that no one would be able to put her back together again. Not her precious brother, not her new friends, and especially not that pathetic excuse for an alpha who thought he could protect what belonged to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
46\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d met Tristan Hayes a few days ago, actually. Pure coincidence \u2013 my foot. I thought he\u2019d be so smart, as she\u2019d run to him for protection but he\u2019s nothing compared to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I had pretended my vehicle broke down right where I knew he\u2019d be going for lunch. He\u2019d acted frustrated, like I was running late for something, and he\u2019d offered to help like the good Samaritan he was.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When he was done, I thanked him. Shaken his hand and told him how grateful I was for the assistance. If he only knew he\u2019d been chatting\u00a0<\/p>\n
pleasantly with the monster who was planning to destroy everything he cared about.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTrue alpha,\u201d my ass. The man was weak, soft, ruled entirely by emotions he was too cowardly to even acknowledge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He claimed to be protecting Athena, but he couldn\u2019t even see the danger standing right in front of him. Too busy playing the noble hero\u00a0<\/p>\n
to recognize a real predator when one stood in front of him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what I\u2019d been trying to teach Athena all those years we were together \u2013 that emotions only make you weak. Love, compassion, trust,\u00a0<\/p>\n
hope they were all just vulnerabilities waiting to be exploited by someone strong enough to use them properly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But she was just like all the rest of them. Too weak to embrace what she could become, too soft to appreciate the strength I was trying to\u00a0<\/p>\n
give her. She kept clinging to these pathetic human concepts of kindness and healing instead of accepting the beautiful darkness I\u00a0<\/p>\n
offered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why she needed me. Someone had to show her what real power looked like, what it meant to take what you wanted instead of begging for scraps from people who would abandon you the moment things got difficult.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d tried to be patient with her, tried to teach her gently at first. But gentle lessons hadn\u2019t worked, had they? She\u2019d just gotten more\u00a0<\/p>\n
stubborn, more defiant, more convinced that she deserved something better than what I was offering.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u2019d killed our pup because of she wouldn\u2019t close her eyes when she saw me trying to enjoy myself. It was all her fault.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because she didn\u2019t know her place. Didn\u2019t know that if she walked in on me having sex with someone, she should wait for me to finish.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not stand there and stare at me with those deceptive looks of hers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So I\u2019d been forced to use stronger methods. And just when she was finally starting to understand, finally beginning to break properly,\u00a0<\/p>\n
she\u2019d run away like a coward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But that was fine. The hunt was half the fun anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
1\/2\u00a0<\/p>\n
18:37 Fri, Jan 2 \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 45\u00a0<\/p>\n
I could already imagine the look on her face when she realized I\u2019d found her. The way her eyes would go wide with terror, the way her hands would start shaking uncontrollably, the way she\u2019d try to run and discover there was nowhere left to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n
46\u00a0<\/p>\n
This time, I wouldn\u2019t make the mistake of being too lenient. This time, I\u2019d make sure she understood from the very beginning that there was no escape, no rescue coming, no hope of freedom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d strip away every support system she\u2019d built, every friendship she\u2019d formed, every tiny scrap of confidence she\u2019d managed to scrape\u00a0<\/p>\n
together.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d make her watch as I destroyed the people she cared about, starting with that garage owner who\u2019d given her a job, the one that\u2019s called\u00a0<\/p>\n
Orion. Then I\u2019ll move on to that bubbly little secretary who\u2019d become her friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d save Tristan for last, make sure Athena saw exactly what happened to men who thought they could steal what belonged to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the time I was finished with all of them, she\u2019d be begging me to take her back. She\u2019d be so grateful for my attention, so desperate for\u00a0<\/p>\n
someone to make the pain stop, that she\u2019d never even think about running again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And this time, I\u2019d make sure the lesson stuck permanently.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My wolf was practically vibrating with anticipation, hungry for the violence and domination to come. Soon, we\u2019d remind everyone in this pathetic little pack what real strength looked like. Soon, we\u2019d reclaim what had always been ours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Athena could enjoy her last few days of imagined freedom. She could play house with her substitute family, pretend that her little self-\u00a0<\/p>\n
defense classes were making her stronger, convince herself that she was healing from the lessons I\u2019d taught her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But deep down, she knew the truth. She belonged to me, and I always collected what was mine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The game was just beginning, and this time, I\u2019d make sure there would be no escape for any of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories Drifted Into Soft Silence by Kyx Frost 45 Chapter 45\u00a0 Every moment of happiness would be poisoned with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-second-gear-of-love-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}