Chapter 132

The Evening Before D-Day Ciara's POV I left because I couldn’t bear the thought of being betrayed again. I believed Wade’s love for me would endure, that it would stand the test of time, but it didn’t. And I soon realized that avoiding the pain didn’t make it any less real. The bond Wade and I share is powerful, far deeper than anything I ever had with Jace. What made it worse this time was that the bond was mutual. With Jace, I was the only one marked; he had refused to let me mark him. But with Wade, we were truly connected. That made the heartbreak cut so much deeper and showed me just how weak my feelings for Jace really were in comparison. Still, I know most of the pain came from having Maya torn from me. And now, seeing how close I am to losing Wade too… I don’t know if I would ever come back from that. I genuinely tried to shield Maya from the truth, but the pain eventually became too much to hide. I shouldn’t have disappeared the way I did, but my first instinct was to escape,