Page 116 of Fated
Their first run together—her vulnerability after they’d made love…
Kai hadn’t forgotten the way she’d looked at him that night, like he was more than the sum of his failures.
Those memories alone were enough to carve an empty space within him. The pain intensified as other moments crashed through his defenses in rapid succession.
Lena’s attempts to comfort him in the aftermath of the rogue attack…
Her touch when her father delivered the news. Her insistence on being there for him so he wasn’t alone…
Her time in Bloodstone. She hadn’t hesitated. She’d cared for his people, even when she didn’t have to. She cared for him, even when he didn’t let her…
The evidence was overwhelming: Lena had shown him in a thousand ways how she felt about him, that she saw him.
Ava was wrong. Kai knew that now with an ache so sharp it felt like it might split him in two.
But Lena was still leaving.
Orion growled, the sound low and reverberating.“You can’t fix it if you let her leave.”
Kai yanked open a drawer, movements clumsy as he searched for a clean shirt. His hands trembled. His breath came in short, uneven bursts. The room felt too small, the air too thick.
He needed to move.
To act.
To stop her.
Orion’s presence was steady in the back of his mind, a grounding force amidst the chaos.“You panic because you know what you’re losing.”There was no judgment in Orion’s tone, only the brutal, primal honesty that wolves possessed.
Kai froze, grip tightening on the edge of the drawer. He swallowed hard, throat dry. Tension radiated through his body, coiling tighter with each heartbeat until his ribcage felt like an iron vise being cranked shut.
More memories flooded him—not of Lena’s actions but of the way she made himfeel—consuming him with their intensity:
The rightness of her in his arms when she’d thrown herself at him that first night of the summit, like she belonged there. The way his wolf had stilled, satisfied in her presence, as if it had been waiting for her all along…
The flash of possessiveness and jealousy that burned through him when he’d seen her with Jace at Moonshadow. How he hated how natural their connection looked, how easy it had seemed between them, because he’d wanted to be the only one who could bring her that kind of ease…
The quiet, grounding warmth of her pinky hooking with his. That small, simple gesture that anchored him in ways he couldn’t explain…
Or the way her voice would soften when she called him “mate,” as if the title was a promise, not just a fact…
The overwhelming need to give her everything when they made love—the way she unraveled beneath him and pulled him apart all at once. He’d wanted to give her every pleasure, everything she deserved, because in those moments, nothing else in the world felt as right as her…
Kai’s heart stilled, the depth of his feelings for Lena overwhelming his system. She’d given him everything, and he’d given her so little in return.
Orion’s voice came again, softer this time, a nudge rather than a push.“You love her.”
The declaration knocked the breath from his lungs.
Love.
The realization triggered an avalanche of truth: it wasn’t the bond. It wasn’t Selene’s will. It wasLena. Her fire, her strength, her kindness. The way she saw him—not as the alpha-heir, not as her fated, justhim. It had always been her.
Kai stumbled back, pressing a hand to his chest. His heart thundered beneath his palm, each beat pulsing with the truth he’d been too afraid to face.
I love her… I love Lena.
“Find mate,”Orion urged.“Talk to her. Before it is too late.”
