章 43: New Hope

LUCIAN'S P.O.V.

I had locked myself away in my room for more than a week—a week of silence, solitude, and the kind of deep emptiness that felt like it would stretch on forever.

I willingly put myself back in that prison I swore I'd never enter again the day my father laid dead by my feet. But here I was, my once-strong frame was reduced to a shell, haunted and worn. I could barely recognize myself in the mirror, let alone the wreckage I had done to my room. My reflection – a twisted, half-human, half-wolf form – barely looked back at me with red eyes that held nothing but despair. And every day, in my dimly lit room, I curled up in bed, waiting, pleading for Ares to answer me, to break this silence that gnawed at my soul. I needed him more than I ever had before, needed him to help me find Teresa. But he remained absent, leaving me in my misery.