Kieran laughed darkly, rolling his shoulder. “And what, you think you’re her savior now?”
“She doesn’t need a savior,” Lucian shot back. “She’s stronger than you give her credit, and you’d know that if you took your head out of your ass once in a while and stopped hiding like a coward behind old claims and wounded pride.”
I flinched as Kieran’s eyes flared. Oh, Lucian should not have said that.
KIERAN’S POV
I wasn’t thinking straight anymore.
All I could feel was the pounding in my skull-rage, panic, confusion, fear. The sting on my cheek where Sera slapped me and the bruising injury on my shoulder were nothing compared to the ache inside.
To the molten fear I felt in the split second watching that van barrel towards her.
The knowledge that if I hadn’t gotten the update from her security team that she was walking to OTS instead of driving, if I hadn’t listened to the part of me that urged me to make sure she was safe out in the open, she would have-
I hadn’t felt fear that strong since… Well, since the damned silver bullet.
And the thought that this time, she had been the one to dive headfirst into danger wrecked something inside me.
Fear and anger were a deadly combination, and they swirled like a vortex inside me that only grew stronger the more she looked at me with that hatred and defiance in those ridiculously, infuriatingly beautiful eyes.
And fuck-that look.
It gutted me more than the slap ever could.
She hated me.
And part of me hated her right back-for making me feel like the villain when I was the one bleeding for her, hurting for her, watching over her when she didn’t even ask or show a modicum of appreciation.
Most of all, I hated her for running straight to Lucian like he was some sort of fucking safe space.
Of course he came running.
Of course she instinctively moved to him.
He stood there between us, infuriatingly calm and smug, and all I wanted to do was rip his spine out and stab him with it.
Ashar snarled, in one of his rare moments when he was irrational, clawing at my control.
The sight of Lucian and Sera was doing something to him.
I needed to hit something. I needed to feel something other than this seething rage.
I stepped toward him.
Lucian didn’t flinch. Sera did.
But just as my fist curled, my phone rang.
I hesitated, breathing hard.
The second ring sliced through the storm in my
I answered.
“What?” I snapped. chest.
Ethan’s voice was breathless, panicked. “Kieran-you need to get to the hospital. Now.”
My body stilled. “What? Why?”
“It’s Celeste. She-she took something. She tried to kill herself, Kieran!”
All the fire of my fury left me, and my blood ran cold.
Ethan’s voice cracked. “She left a note and everything.”
I couldn’t breathe. Everything inside me halted. Time felt like it splintered.
Sera and Lucian seemed to cease to exist behind me.
My rage vanished, and the fear I had felt watching Sera run into the road tripled, turning into a sick, hollow dread.
“I’m on my way,” I muttered, and hung up.
I turned to Sera and Lucian and felt…shame.
I’d done it again. I’d let Sera overwhelm me above all else.
Now it was life or death. Again.
This time, it was Celeste who needed saving.
KIERAN’S POV
The hospital hallway reeked of antiseptic and dread. Every step toward Celeste’s room felt like I was walking towards an execution-one I’d set up for myself.
The doctor’s words still rang in my ears. “Her wolf is deteriorating rapidly. Any further emotional instability could cause irreversible damage. Don’t provoke her?”
I wanted to scream-not at the doctor, not at Ethan, not even at Celeste. At myself-at the storm inside my own damn chest.
Ethan walked silently beside me. His posture was stiff, wary, as if he knew I was barely holding on.
And gods, he had no fucking idea. He hadn’t seen the way I’d nearly lunged for Lucian, hadn’t heard the things I said to Seraphina. Words and actions that tasted like rusted regret now.
I forced those thoughts to the furthest crevice of my mind.
Celeste was more important than anything else right now. She was on the brink-and I was simultaneously the one who pushed her there and the only thing tethering her to the edge.
I braced myself before stepping into her room, feeling like I was stepping onto a battlefield of a war I was ill-equipped to fight.
She looked so fragile in the bed.
Apparently, she’d drank from a bottle of bleach a careless cleaner had left behind in her bathroom, and what had turned into an overnight stay because she fainted was now an indefinite admission.
They’d performed oral irrigation, and she was now attached to IV lines. The doctor assured us she was out of the woods and the worst thing we had to worry about was her mental state.
Her eyes fluttered open as we closed the door behind us, and a slow, tired smile spread on her lips-which, surprisingly, were glossy.
“Hey, sis,” Ethan said softly, moving to her side.
I hesitated. The wires, the IV line, the oxygen tube-it was all too damn much.
“Kieran?” Ethan shot me a pointed look, and I forced myself to move. “Oh, gods, Celeste,” I choked out, rushing to her side.
I gently sat on the edge of the bed. “You scared us. Why would you do that?” Try as I did, I couldn’t keep the accusation out of my voice.
She turned away, staring at the wall by her bed. “I wasn’t… I didn’t think. I just wanted all the pain and heartache to stop.”
Guilt curdled in my stomach like my own personal poison, and I gripped her hand gently, leaning down to kiss her forehead. “Celeste, I am so sorry you felt that way.”
She stiffened.
Slowly, she turned her head back to me, disbelief blanketing her features. Her nose wrinkled as she took a delicate sniff and then-
“I don’t believe this,” she whispered.
I frowned. “What?”
“You were with her?”
I froze as rage filled her wide eyes.
“You left me last night and went to her, didn’t you?” Her voice shook with fury. “You’re coming from her right now, aren’t you?”
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