Page 56 of Fated
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”
“Just tell me the truth.” Her voice softened but remained insistent. “What happened last night? What were you thinking?”
LENA
Lena braced herself for Kai’s truth, fingernails biting into her palms. Deep down, she already knew the answer. Had seen it in the desperate way he’d pressed Ava against that car. In how his hands had gripped her hips with such familiar possession. The memory made bile rise in her throat and the bond twist in her chest.
Elara’s grief bled through their connection.“He wanted to have her first,”the wolf whimpered.“Make her his before being bound to us forever.”
The thought felt like a punch to the gut. As if Ava was his choice, and Lena was just his sentence.
“I’veneverbeen out of control like that. I wasn’t thinking.” The confession fell from Kai’s lips barely above a whisper, breaking through Lena’s ruminations. “I know that’s not an excuse, but it’s the truth. I was overwhelmed—by the summit, the bond, my dad threatening to banish me. I felt like I was drowning, and then Ava was there, crying, broken...” His voice cracked. “She’s been my everything for so long. We were months from our mating ceremony, starting the life we’d planned for years. Seeing her shattered because of me...” He drew a shaky breath. “When she kissed me, I didn’t stop it. I should have, but everything just poured out—frustration, desire, guilt, need. I lost myself completely.”
The silence stretched. Tears shimmered in her eyes though she fought to hold them back.
“And let me guess,” she said, voice unnaturally steady. “You hate what happened? But what would you have done if I hadn’t stopped you?” Her tone cracked with fury. “Would you have fucked her? Given her what was meant to be mine?”
Kai flinched hard. “You’re right,” he choked out. “It’s not hers to have. If you hadn’t stopped us... I don’t know if I would have stopped myself. And I hatethatmore than anything. I’d always planned… I mean, I thought my first time would be special. Sacred. On my mating night with—” He stopped speaking, swallowing hard before continuing. “I never wanted it to be like that. Desperate and panicked against a car. That’s not…that’s not how it should be, and I don’t think I could have lived with myself.”
Lena’s chest heaved as she fought to control her breathing. She turned to stare out the window, unwilling to let him see how deeply his words cut.
“What do you want, Kai?” She stared straight ahead, each word measured and precise. “What are you doing here with me if she means that much to you?”
She counted her own heartbeats while he wrestled with an answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was raw. “Honestly...I don’t know. My feelings are so tangled.”
Lena felt the bond pulse between them, making her breath hitch as Elara paced restlessly beneath her skin.
“The bond pulls me toward you with this...gravitythat feels impossible to fight. It stirs a want and need for you that I can’t even begin to comprehend. My wolf aches for yours, like there’s this magnetic force trying to drag us together.”
Each word of raw confession vibrated through the invisible cord connecting them, setting off ripples of heat that traveled from her chest outward. The current raced through arteries and veins until her fingertips pulsed with tiny heartbeats of their own, each one urging her hand toward his. Her knuckles whitened as she dug her fingers deeper into her knees, anchoring her hands in place. His scent filled the car—orange and nutmeg tinged with confusion and need—making Elara whine in response.
“But then I think about Ava and see everything we built. Everything we dreamed of and…” He paused, almost stealing himself for the rest, while Lena fought to control her breathing, to ignore the way the bond constricted with each mention of Ava’s name. “I think I want both of you, but I don’t know if it’s real. If it’s just the bond pulling me to you. If it’s the fear of losing Ava and knowing she would share me that pulls me in the other direction. I hate that I can’t give you a real answer, Lena. I’m just so…lost.”
His admission hit her chest like a hammer to glass, hairline fractures spreading outward with each breath, sending shards into her lungs with every inhale. She straightened, vertebrae aligning one by one as she turned toward him.
“I will not share you.”
Each syllable hung suspended between them, unmistakable in their meaning as the bond squeezed around her ribs like a steel band, compressing her lungs until each breath became shallow and insufficient.
She pressed on, voice softening though her resolve never wavered.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t feel the bond strongly. That I don’t want you—” Heat crawled up her spine as her wolf stretched toward his. “Goddess, Kai, I do. But after last night?” Her voice caught. “I know I couldn’t bear it. As your fated, I would feel it—” Nausea rolled through her as phantom sensations flooded her mind. “Feel it when you were with her. When you touched her. When you—” The bond contorted, making her gasp as images of him pressed against Ava splintered her vision.
“We cannot survive that, Lena.”Elara’s voice trembled, a mourning howl compressed into their shared body.“We are not made to share our mate.”
Tears spilled from her eyes as she continued. “Don’t ask that of me. It might seem simple to her, but she’ll never feel her soul being ripped apart because her fated gave himself to someone else.”
KAI
Her words carved into him like claws. Silent tears tracked down his face as he pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road, no longer trusting himself to drive through the blur of emotion. The engine idled, its quiet rumble the only sound besides their uneven breathing.
He turned to face her fully, needing her to understand. “I feel like I’m being pulled apart,” he whispered. “My heart one way, my soul another. The bond feels like a rope around my chest, tightening every time I resist. Sometimes I can’t breathe, and I can’t tell what’s real anymore—what’s me versus the bond versus Ava. It terrifies me, Lena.”
Orion scraped against Kai’s consciousness, each bristled hair a separate point of pressure beneath his skin.
“Tell her the rest.”The wolf’s demand manifested as a bass vibration that originated in Kai’s marrow and resonated outward through bone, muscle, and skin. “Tell mate why you fight us.”
Kai swallowed hard. “It’s not just about Ava. It’s about thechoice. About feeling like I have no control over my destiny. Like the Moon Goddess, my dad, and even my wolf, are invalidating everything I feel. Telling me that Ava isn’t enough. Telling me that what’s in my heart is wrong.” The words came with a decisive exhale, releasing a burden he’d been carrying for too long.
