And now... There was space. Space she intended to fill.

So she leaned closer, voice breaking just enough to make it sound real, convincing, and pitiful.

"Look at me, Nathan... please..." Because if she played this right, if she kept him drowning in guilt and tethered to her—

He wouldn’t think.

He wouldn’t question.

And slowly, inevitably...

He would choose her. And little by little, he’d tilt toward her until Ashley faded out of his memory completely.

She hadn’t planned for things to spiral this far, but she couldn’t deny that the outcome pleased her.

Nathan still refused to believe the woman they pulled from the lake wasn’t Ashley. That stubborn doubt lingered, clinging to him. But now that Maddison was here, she would erase it, force reality to bend if she had to. Truth didn’t matter. Proof didn’t matter. What mattered was what Nathan believed.

And she would make him believe.

That the corpse in that lake was Ashley. Whether it was or not.

A faint, creeping smile threatened to surface on her lips, but Maddison buried it fast. When she looked up at Nathan, her expression was soft, pleading, and fragile enough to make him steady himself, to make him forget about Ashley and instead choose her.

Right now, Nathan’s mind was a void, nothing but noise and emptiness tangled together.

Even with Maddison holding him, even with her trying to steady both him and his wolf through their mate bond, he could barely feel it. Everything inside him felt hollowed out, scraped raw. His wolf was grieving just as hard, because if Ashley was truly gone... There was nothing left for him to fix. No apology needed. No making it right anymore.

And that was the part that tore deeper at his heart.

He had never, not once, considered that Ashley might die because of him. But now the thought latched on, vicious and unrelenting. He was the one who pushed her. The one who cornered her into whatever led her there.

Then another darker thought crept into his mind like a shadow.

What if she found out?

About him. About Maddison.

Because why else would she go near that part of the lake? She knew how dangerous it was, that steep cliff, one wrong step and she’d be gone. Ashley wasn’t careless. She wouldn’t just wander there for no reason.

Unless something drove her to it.

That possibility twisted the knife deeper, guilt crashing into him from all sides. His thoughts collided, spiraling out of control, each one worse than the last, until his head was nothing but chaos, and he couldn’t even tell which part of it was the truth anymore.

"Argh!" Nathan’s loud shout ripped out of his throat as he violently shoved Maddison away.

Then he roared — deafening, savage, enough to make the air tremble.

Everyone froze.

It was instinct. Pure, primal fear rooting them to the ground as his rage crashed over the entire place. Not a single person dared move.

And before anyone could even process what was happening...

Nathan bolted.

He disappeared in a blink, running off without direction, without warning. By the time anyone snapped out of it, he was already gone, leaving behind nothing but stunned silence and the lingering echo of his fury. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

But in Nathan’s mind, none of it was real.

He refused to accept what lay right in front of him. The woman they pulled from the lake had Ashley’s build, but her face, God, her face was so badly smashed it was unrecognizable. Even if they tried to stitch it back together, he knew it would never be enough to confirm anything.

And that doubt, no matter how thin, how desperate, was all he needed.

Because as long as there was uncertainty, Ashley could still be alive.

So he clung to it.

To the possibility that she’d been swept away by the current... or that she’d somehow made it to the shore, injured, waiting... waiting for him to find her.

And once that thought took hold, it consumed him completely.

Nathan tore through every edge of the lake, from his own territory to the unclaimed lands beyond, searching without pause, without reason. He moved like a man possessed, wild, relentless, borderline unhinged.

Because in his mind, there was only one truth left.

Ashley was still out there.

And he would find her, no matter what it cost.

And the truth was, Nathan’s instincts weren’t wrong.

「Last Night...」

When Ashley made that desperate gamble and threw herself off the cliff, she wasn’t panicking. She calculated the fall, angling her body, twisting midair, doing everything she could to avoid the jagged rocks jutting beneath the surface.

But it still wasn’t enough.

The moment she hit the water, something slammed into her, a rock hidden a few meters below. The impact wrenched her shoulder out of place, pain exploding through her body. Sharp rocks tore into her skin, leaving deep, gushing wounds that weakened her instantly. For a second, her vision blurred, her consciousness flickering as the pain threatened to drag her under.

Blood seeped into the water, spreading in thick, dark clouds above her.

From the cliff, it looked like she died upon impact.

The two warriors saw the red blood blooming on the water and assumed the worst, that she’d been crushed on impact. They didn’t even bother searching immediately.

And that mistake saved her.

Clinging to what little strength she had left, Ashley forced herself to move. Slowly but silently. Fighting through the pain, she swam toward the base of the cliff, staying out of their line of sight.

The blood clouding the water ruined her vision, turning everything into a dark, shifting blur. Ashley couldn’t seem, she could only rely on memory, forcing her body in the direction where she knew the cliff’s edge should be.

Every movement hurt.

Her wounds were still bleeding, staining the water around her, draining what little strength she had left. But she kept going desperately and stubbornly.

Then...

Her fingers scraped against something rough.

Stone.

Relief hit sharp and sudden as she clung to the jagged surface of the cliff, dragging herself upward until she finally broke through the surface.

Air.

She nearly gasped, lungs burning, chest heaving, but she bit it back at the last second, forcing the sound down her throat. Even as her body screamed for oxygen, she stayed silent.

Because above her, those two warriors were still there.

And thirty meters of distance wouldn’t mean a thing if she made a single sound.

"Ugh..."

Ashley bit down hard on the sound, forcing the groan to stay trapped in her throat as pain tore through her body. Her vision swam, consciousness slipping in and out as she clung to the rock for dear life.

She was lucky.

Insanely lucky that her gamble had paid off, that she was still breathing after that fall.

And now... this might actually work.

If no body surfaced in the next few days, they’d come to their own conclusion. The lake, the current, the creatures beneath, it would be easy to assume whatever was left of her had been swallowed whole. There would be no proof or trace to prove that she was still alive.

And Nathan...

Ashley’s jaw tightened despite the pain.