Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 580

Andrei’s POV

The collar of my shirt was pissing me off.

I had fastened it twice already and it still insisted on sitting crooked, pulling too tight on the left side. I undid it a third time and redid it, slower, watching my hands in the mirror rather than my own face. My reflection had been bothering me since I woke up. I couldn’t put my finger on why.

Outside the window, I could already hear them gathering. The noise was low and distant at this hour, more of a murmur than a roar, but it was getting louder as the crowd grew.

I finished with the collar and reached for my jacket.

The guilt had been there since I woke up. That was the only word I had for it, even though it didn’t make sense, and even though I’d tried several times already this morning to push it down. It kept coming back, growing heavier every time my mind

wandered back to the woman in the cell below me.

She’d tried to kill me. I had given her every opportunity to cooperate, and instead she had stolen one of my tools and waited for the moment I got too close. The bitch had gone for my eye. That was not the behavior of someone who was here with innocent

intentions, whatever her story was.

She was a threat. She had to be dealt with.

I knew all of that. I’d reminded myself of it several times this morning, and yet each time, the guilt in my chest got just a little

bit bigger.

“Stop stalling,” my Lord said.

“I’m not stalling.”

“You’ve been standing in front of that mirror for twenty minutes.”

I pulled my jacket on and turned away from the mirror. He was right. I was stalling, although I would never admit it to him.

A knock came at the door.

“My Lord.” My attendant’s voice came through the wood. “They’re ready for you.”

“Wait for me,” I said. “I’ll be out shortly.”

Footsteps retreated down the corridor.

I stood in the middle of the room and scraped my fingers through my hair, messing up the careful styling without even noticing.

The guilt was almost nauseating now, rising into my throat like fresh bile. I hadn’t felt anything like it in as long as I could remember. I didn’t feel guilt. Guilt was for weak people, and I was not weak.

And yet…

She had amber hair.

I didn’t know where the thought came from, or why. It arrived completely unbidden, in a voice that didn’t feel like mine. Not my Lord’s either. Something else, quieter and older, buried so far down I hadn’t heard it before now.

She had amber hair, and you knew the smell of it.

“Stop,” I said, out loud, to no one.

You knew her.

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Chapter 580

+25 Bonus

Something cracked open in the back of my mind. A sensation like a door swinging open in a room that had been sealed shut so long the air inside had gone stale. Something warm came through it. Something that felt like the opposite of everything in this place.

I put my hand on the wall.

The feeling was brief and disorienting and it brought something with it–a ghost of a ghost of a memory.

A weight in my arms that I recognized before I could name it. Something small and warm and alive, pressed against my chest. The smell of fresh linens and something cooking on the stove. A woman’s voice.

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