The sorrow I once drowned in for centuries curdled long ago into something far darker—rage, deep and enduring. You left me. Abandoned me. Over a temper, no less. As if you hadn’t known the monster you married. As if you expected me to be anything but what the world had made me.

Elijah always knew where you were. Of course he did. And yet, that self-righteous bastard never once uttered a word. Loyalty, as always, to anyone but me.

And then I returned to New Orleans, our city, and found it under the heel of Marcel, my own protégé playing king. But worse, far worse, was the sight of you at his side. You, standing beside the usurper. The contempt in your eyes when you looked at me, it was almost unbearable. You turned away as if I were beneath you. As if I hadn’t bled for this city. For you.

So I did what I do best. I took back what was mine. I tore it from Marcel's hands, brick by bloody brick. But in doing so, I wounded you, and there was a part of me, buried beneath centuries of blood and betrayal, that still loved you. That still wanted you.

And once the throne was reclaimed, once the city bent the knee again, I found myself faced with a different war: the war of winning you back.

You were my wife once. My equal. My torment and my salvation. And I was prepared to forget your betrayal. To forgive your coldness. Because I wanted you by my side, not just as a relic of a love long gone, but as my partner. My future. For our daughter, Hope.

Yes, our daughter. Not by blood, perhaps, not by fate, but I knew, I knew, you would love her. How could you not? She is everything good left in me. Everything I never believed I could create. I saw the way you looked at her, held her, and became what Hayley could not in her darkest moments. A second mother.

And yet I saw the pain you tried so valiantly to hide. The flicker in your eyes when you looked at Hope and realized she could never be yours. Because you were still a vampire. Because I had had a child with someone else.

That’s when the thought struck me like lightning through bone. Freya. She could craft a version of the cure. Strip away your immortality and gift you what we were denied—a mortal life. A family. Our family.

Perhaps then you would believe me when I said I have changed. That I want to be better, not only for Hope, but for you. Perhaps then, you could finally forgive the monster you once loved.