Page 111 of Fated
Lena’s feet moved again, carrying her further into the night. Her thoughts were a tempest, swirling with memories she couldn’t control:
Her and Kai under the stars at the Moonshadow ritual grounds, his lips brushing hers as he’d whispered,“You’re my peace, Lena.”His touch had been reverent, as though she were something sacred. But the stars at Moonshadow weren’t the same as the shadows that haunted her in Bloodstone
A tremor started in her hands, spreading up her arms as the memory shifted, jagged and sharp:
Ava’s laugh, syrupy sweet and loud enough to draw every eye. The way she had leaned into Kai, her hands roaming his chest like she had a right to him. Worse, the way he’dlether.
Her breaths came in sharp, painful gasps as memories struck like individual blows, breaking down her walls:
“Do you trust me?”he’d asked her, hand cradling her cheek as his thumb brushed away a tear she hadn’t realized she’d shed. She nodded then, without hesitation, because she had.
But now? What was there left to trust? Her vision blurred as the first tears pressed hot against her eyelids. She forced them back, clenching her jaw until her teeth throbbed.
The ritual grounds loomed ahead, shrouded in shadows cast by dying torches. The air was thick, damp with the scent of charred wood and earth. Lena stepped into the circle, breath hitching as she walked toward the altar. The acrid scent of burnt incense clung to the air like a memory similar to how Kai’sscent still clung to her skin despite everything that had changed between them.
Her steps faltered. Once. Twice. The third time, her legs simply gave out, knees hitting the earth with a muted thud. Her hands trembled as she clutched the cold altar stone. She pressed her forehead to its surface, the chill burning into her skin as the first crack in her composure split wide open. “Selene.” Her voice broke on the Goddess’s name. “If you’re there...if you can hear me...please.”
The silence that followed was deafening. No flicker of warmth, no comforting glow. Just the cold, uncompromising stone beneath her hands and the shadows pressing in from all sides.
A hollow ache spread in her chest. Her ribcage felt too small, too fragile to contain what was building within. Each heartbeat sent fractures through the chest wall like glass struck with a hammer. “You made this bond.” She drew a shaky breath. “It was supposed to be beautiful… It was supposed to make us stronger.” Her fists clenched. “But it’s broken. It’s killing me.” Her body curled forward as crushing sorrow pressed her into the earth, a strangled sob escaping her lips. “Why would you do this? Why would you bind me to someone who doesn’t—” Her voice splintered into raw, guttural sobs. “Whocan’tchoose me?”
The dam inside her broke, her cries ripping through the stillness of the sacred space. She clawed at the stone as she shook with the force of her grief. Every suppressed tear, every buried ache poured out in a torrent, her body buckling under its weight. Memories continued to assault her like waves crashing against the bluffs—
Kai making love to her under the stars at Moonshadow.“Goddess, Lena,”he’d groaned, his voice rough with passion.“You feel… Your… It’s everything.”
His touch that had once made her feel invincible.“Show me,”he’d said.“Show me how to love you.”
The way he’d looked at her the morning everything changed.“Man,”he’d said sleepily.“Seeing your face first thing in the morning is something I could get used to.”
And the way he looked at Ava now. The way he’d let her words hang in the air like a declaration of war.“I’m Ava, Kai’s girlfriend.”His hands on the small of her back. The comforting kisses he left on her temple, the crown of her head…
I gave him everything,Lena thought as she gasped for air.And he gave it to someone else.
A faint whimper resonated in her mind.
Elara.
Her wolf’s voice surfaced weakly, primal and instinctive, tied to the mating bond rather than memory.“I feel him, Lena. Orion’s grief... It mirrors mine.” Elara’s tone held the ancient wisdom of her kind, even as it fractured with Lena’s anguish.“But your pain... It’s breaking me.”
Lena pressed her forehead to the altar, tears soaking into the stone. “I can’t do this,” she choked. “I can’t survive him, Elara. I can’t.”
Elara’s response came like a broken melody trying to find its rhythm, yet with the wolf’s unwavering certainty.“Then we go home. He will fight to bring us back.”
But for every tender memory of Kai’s touch, there was now Ava’s claim on him. For every whispered promise, now his deafening silence. Lena couldn’t live in the spaces between what was promised and what was taken away.
She sniffled, fingers curling tighter against the altar. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” she whispered. “It wasn’t supposed to hurt this much.”
“You are more than the mate bond,”Elara murmured, voice soft yet resolute.“You are more than his struggles. He will learn.”
The bond in her chest pulsed faintly, a thread frayed beyond repair. Lena closed her eyes, sobs breaking into choked gasps as she forced herself to release the pain, the hope, theloveshe’d been clinging to. “I have to let him go,” she said, vocal cords shredded. “I don’t want to, but it will destroy me if I don’t.”
“We go home. Then maybe, he will heal. He will be ours again.”Elara whimpered, tone filled with waning hope that Lena couldn’t allow herself to feel.
The torches lining the grounds flickered one final time before extinguishing completely, leaving the ritual circle cloaked in darkness. Only the faint glow of the moon remained, casting silver shadows over the sacred space.
Her sobs echoed against the stone altar and the now-shadowed trees. The darkness pressed against her, smothering, as though the extinguished flames had stolen what little light and warmth she had left.
Lena didn’t know how long she lay there, body crumpled against the altar, cold earth pressing against her skin, dirt clinging to her hands and knees. Tears leaked from eyes she no longer had the energy to close, each breath a battle she barely had strength to fight. Her body had become a husk, emptied of everything but pain.
