Stone Circle I lift up my head and the world is on fire

He smiled warmly at the nuzzle, returning the gesture before halting as his love took a step back. Something was wrong. He'd thought there was from the moment she turned. His smile was replaced with a sad frown, amber gaze staring lovingly at the woman before him, waiting as she prepared to speak, though when her submission returned he crouched low as well, wanting to give her the comfort she needed to confess whatever it was she needed to. She opened her muzzle...

And then his whole world shattered into a billion little pieces.

He didn't scream. He didn't yell. He didn't run away. He just stood there, face dropped with shock and expression holding the pain of a thousand dying soldiers, lost to reality and out of touch with everything. His eyes had lost their fiery spark, remaining dull in their sockets, tail droopy at his hind - she loved Howl. Not him, Howl. His heart cracked down the middle, ripped apart as the words circled like ghosts in his head, the taste of ashes upon his tongue and knives plunged straight into his chest. "I kissed him."

"I couldn't love a stranger mate or not."

He couldn't speak. It was as though in that one confession, he had died. He didn't feel anything but a deep sorrow, a swirling storm of hurt that wouldn't lift, and a deep wound of betrayal that he'd never before felt. It felt in that moment that he'd been hit by a million bullets, all shooting into his body and leaving him weak, bleeding, on the ground. His legs shook. Despite all they'd been through, despite the joy of seeing Illecebra's memories returning, she'd still gone to Howl. And that hurt more than anything he had ever experienced in his life.

"I..." But the words caught in his throat, like he was drowning and the water had enveloped his lungs. He couldn't speak, only stand there as helpless as a newborn while his life crumbled down into nothing, because she was his everything. And she had wanted somebody else.