After I Amazed the World the Cold Alpha Regretted

Chapter 184

The first syllables of the piano echoed softly, pulling me back to a time long past.

As my fingers traced the familiar keys, memories washed over me, vivid and haunting.

I had been ostracized by my foster parents as a child, and my only refuge was a broken piano stowed away in the dusty attic.

It was my escape, the one thing that could alleviate my loneliness when no one else was there.

On my seventh birthday, I had crept to the top of the stairs, hoping for a surprise, hoping maybe this year they would remember.

read. I saw my foster parents, arms around Alice, leading her out the door to play, laughing as they left me behind. Forgotten. Unwanted.

I had crept back to the attic with tears in my eyes and sat at the piano.

It was then that I composed my first melody.

A simple, fragile tune that whispered the only birthday wish I'd receive that day.

Happy birthday to me. That small song became my secret, a balm for the wounds I carried from my so-called family.

Later, as the years went by, my foster parents would drag me along on visits to other packs, parading me in front of strangers to show their kindness

A cruel irony, really. They would never treat me with kindness themselves, but to outsiders, they wanted to appear generous.

visit to Silvermoon stayed

from the group and stumbled upon a grand piano in the hallway of the pack's

it, like

sat down and started playing the melody I had

time I played it anywhere other

wind blew softly through the open window, carrying with it the

had bathed the room in golden light, and

of that year, sitting alone and lost, overlapped with the me of this moment, standing

pressed the keys again, lost in the melody

that I noticed a change in the air. Leo, who

went pale, and a look of disbelief

if he'd seen a

to face him, only to find him staring at me with a mix of shock and

that song?" Leo asked, his voice barely a whisper, but his tone was heavy, filled with an urgency

pounded. I had guessed right. He had

"I wrote it when I was a child, on my birthday. No one else has ever heard it. I

expression shifted, pain and realization flickering in his eyes. He staggered back a step as if the weight of the truth was too

broke, "It wasn't Aira... It was

with regret, and I

egretted

Chapter 184