I closed my eyes, breathing in the faint scent of sugar and milk from Daniel’s cereal. I could hear him clanging around upstairs. The sound of water running. He must have been brushing his teeth. He was oddly meticulous about that ritual. Ten strokes up and down. Ten strokes side to side. Five strokes in each corner.
I felt myself relax at the thought of my son.
That was my anchor. My purpose. Not Kieran’s regrets, not the tangled strings of some flawed divine bond.
“You’re right,” I whispered. “Even if the Moon Goddess herself carved our names into the stars, I would still say no.”
Alina didn’t argue. She just hummed quietly-proud, perhaps, or simply at peace with my decision.
Still, as I walked toward Daniel’s room to check on him, I couldn’t ignore the faint shimmer of electricity beneath my skin-the echo of
Kieran’s touch on my wrist, the spark that shouldn’t have been there.
It pulsed like a secret heartbeat. And no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t quite silence it.
KIERAN’S POV
I didn’t move for a long time after the door slammed shut.
The sound of it reverberated through my bones, echoing in time with my thundering heartbeat.
I stood there in Sera’s driveway, the night pressing cold and unforgiving around me, staring at the door that separated me from everything I wanted. Everything I’d destroyed.
I clenched my fists, feeling Ashar pacing inside my mind-his restlessness rattling through my body, his wounded pride twisting in my gut.
‘You had one chance,’ he growled, low and feral. ‘One damned chance to make it right, and you botched it.’
“I didn’t botch it,” I muttered under my breath, even though I knew that I had, in fact, royally botched it. “She just… she doesn’t believe me.”
‘Why should she?’ Ashar’s voice rose to a roar that vibrated through my skull. ‘You hurt her. Again and again. You refused to mark her, even when I urged you time and time again. You were stubborn. You refused to listen. And now you’re shocked that she turned her back?’
I gritted my teeth. “You think I don’t know all that? You think I don’t feel enough like shit without you berating me?”
Ashar didn’t answer. His fury burned hotter, heavier.
My chest felt too tight to breathe, and what little air that permeated my lungs reeked of lavender and regret. Her scent. Her rejection.
It clung to me like smoke, smothering reason, feeding the thing that wanted to claw its way free.
My fingers curled involuntarily, nails gouging blood from my palms. Every muscle screamed for violent release, begged for destruction, for anything brutal enough to drown out the chaos hammering through my skull.
‘She turned away from us.’ Ashar’s snarl was guttural and raw. ‘She turned away, Kieran.’
“I know,” I hissed.
‘Because of you!’
“I know!” I roared.
But knowing didn’t ease the pressure-only tightened it. My pulse beat erratically, too fast, too loud, as if my heart wanted to tear itself apart just to escape the cage of my chest.
The world around me blurred-trees, wind, the faint lights spilling from Sera’s windows-all distorted by the red haze clouding my vision.
Ashar’s energy seared through me, wild and uncontrollable. Every heartbeat was a drumbeat of fury; every breath, a struggle between restraint and surrender.
My jaw locked painfully. “Calm. The. Fuck. Down,” I ground out.
But Ashar was beyond reason, his emotions a violent tide pulling me under.
My grief was his grief, my pain his own-but magnified, raw, primal. My skin felt too tight, too fragile to contain him. My bones ached from the effort of keeping him in.
Finally, I couldn’t stand the confinement of my human skin anymore.
Logic dictated that I shouldn’t do this in neutral territory, let alone in Sera’s fucking driveway. But logic had never been strong enough to hold back Ashar.
The ground trembled as the Shift ripped through me-violent, unstoppable. The sound tore through the night: bones cracking, muscles stretching, fur bursting from flesh.
For a split second, I thought I heard my own scream echo in the air-then Ashar took over completely, and everything went silent except the thunder of his rage.
The night exploded into sharper color and scent. Ashar surged forward, enormous and wild, a blur of golden fur and obsidian eyes.
He didn’t hesitate. He ran.
The forest welcomed him-our sanctuary, our punishment. Trees blurred past as we tore through them, his fury burning with every stride. I could feel it in my veins: his guilt, his longing.
We howled once-loud enough to shake the valley.
The howl fractured the silence-a sound of fury and heartbreak that rippled through the mountains like thunder rolling off stone.
Ashar’s rage was a wildfire. It wasn’t just running through the forest-it was devouring it.
He rampaged like a hurricane, tearing through trees as though they were nothing but paper, massive paws striking earth hard enough to crack roots. Splinters flew, bark shredded beneath his claws. The forest floor was a blur of crushed leaves and upturned soil.
He was out of control-we were out of control.
The deeper he pushed, the more I recognized the land underfoot. The scent in the wind-iron, pine, cedar-was unmistakable.
Nightfang territory.
My stomach dropped. Shit.
I tried to wrestle back some measure of command, to remind him we weren’t alone here, that this wasn’t just any wilderness.
It was one thing to rage; it was another thing to destroy my own territory. But wasn’t that what I did? Destroy things I was supposed to protect?
Sera’s voice echoed, a painful taunt. ‘That’s your MO, isn’t it?’
‘Ashar, stop!’ I tried to project calm, but he wasn’t listening. He hadn’t been listening since the moment Sera closed that door.
He lunged at a tree trunk, slamming his shoulder into it until it snapped with a deafening crack. The sound reverberated through my ribs.
He ripped the pieces apart, claws gouging deep grooves into the wood, as if tearing it down could quiet the ache inside him.
‘She was ours!’ he roared inside my mind. ‘Ours, and you threw her away!’
I flinched as pain seared down our shared spine. Every muscle ached with the strain of his rage. ‘I didn’t mean to-‘
‘Intent means nothing when the result is the same!’
Another tree fell. Birds scattered into the night sky, wings slicing through the silence we’d shattered. The echo of Ashar’s growl followed them, low and guttural, vibrating the air like the growl of a storm about to break.
I tried to pull at the tether that connected us-my last thread of control-but it snapped back, biting into me with the force of his fury. He wasn’t going to stop. Not until something-or someone-made him.
‘Gavin,’ I growled through the mind-link. ‘I need you.’
His response was instant, the pulse of another mind brushing against mine.
‘Where the hell are you?’ His voice was sharp, alert. ‘Half the northern patrol just heard that howl. What’s going on?’
I pushed through the chaos to form coherent words. ‘It’s Ashar. He’s-‘ I stopped, wincing as we collided with another trunk, sending bark and branches flying. He’s out of control.’
A pause. Then: ‘Where?’
‘Near the border. Northwest ridge-past the old stream.’
I could feel his frustration spike through the link. ‘I can’t just have three weeks to myself and my family?’
The image of my Beta, holding his wife and newborn daughter, stabbed a bolt of blinding agony through me.
Ashar threw his head back and howled, long and loud.
Gavin sighed. ‘I’m on my way.’
GAVIN’S POV
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