POV - Elara
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely unlock my door.
It was past midnight. The rest of the Blackthorn fortress was quiet. I'd been pacing in my small quarters since the assembly finished, replaying that moment over and over. The Alpha had looked at me. The most powerful man in the Northern Territories had stared at me like I was something impossible.
Then the knock came.
No news. No sign. Just a hard tap on my door that made my entire body go rigid. I opened it slowly, not knowing what I'd find.
Kieran Blackthorn stood in my doorway, and he looked nothing like the cold, untouchable Alpha from the gathering.
His shirt was half-unbuttoned. His dark hair was messy like he'd been running his hands through it. His silver eyes were wild—desperate and confused and hungry all at the same time. He looked like someone was breaking him from the inside out.
"I don't understand this," he said, stepping inside without waiting for permission. His voice was rough. Raw. "You're different. Your smell is different. Everything about you is different, and I can't—"
He stopped talking and just looked at me. Really looked at me. Like he was trying to remember my face.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I don't know what I did—"
"You didn't do anything," he said, moving closer. "That's the trouble. I've never felt this before. I've never wanted—"
He reached out and touched my face like I was made of glass. His hand was shaking.
"Everyone says I don't do this," he continued softly. "That I'm ice. That I use women and throw them away. It's true. I've never wanted to see someone twice. I've never wanted to... stay."
"Why are you here?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"Because I'm going crazy not being here," he said. "Because every second away from you feels like I'm suffocating."
He pulled me into his arms, and it was nothing like I'd imagined. It wasn't nice. It was desperate. He held me like I was the only thing keeping him from drowning, his face buried in my hair, breathing me in like he needed my smell to survive.
"I don't understand what you're doing to me," he whispered.
For hours, we just held each other. He told me things I never expected to hear from the famous Alpha.
"My father was a brutal man," Kieran said, lying on my bed with me tucked against his chest. "He raised me to be a tool, not a person. He said feelings were weakness. He said love was a tool that foes could use against you."
I traced the old scars on his shoulders—marks from his youth training.
"He made me participate in rituals I didn't understand," Kieran continued. "Blood magic. Dark things. He said it would make me stronger. All it did was make me empty."
"You're not empty," I said softly.
"I am," he said. "I've been empty for so long that I forgot what it felt like to want something for myself instead of for power or territory. Then I looked at you in that crowd, and something broke open inside me."
He lifted my chin and kissed me. It was soft and desperate and full of something that felt like love but also felt scary. Like he was taking a risk bigger than anything he'd ever done.
"I've never done this with anyone," Kieran whispered against my lips. "Never held someone like this. Never wanted tomorrow with the same person."
"Tomorrow?" I asked, hope growing in my chest.
"Tomorrow and the day after that," he said. "If you'll let me."
We made love that night, and it was nothing like I'd expected. He was gentle and careful, like he was afraid of breaking me. He worshipped my body with his hands and his mouth and his words. He told me I was beautiful. He told me I counted. He told me I was the only real thing he'd ever found in his entire life.
Afterward, we lay twisted together, and I felt something I'd never felt before—complete. Whole. Like all the broken pieces of me had found their match in him.
"I have to leave before dawn," Kieran said, holding me closer. "People will suspect if I stay."
"When will I see you again?" I asked.
"Tomorrow night," he promised. "Every night. I don't care about my rules anymore. I don't care about anything except you."
I fell asleep in his arms believing he meant it. Believing in forever.
But I woke up to someone beating on my door.
It was still dark. Pre-dawn. The kind of time when nothing good happens.
I scrambled to pull on clothes while Kieran tensed beside me, his Alpha reflexes awakening.
"Stay," he ordered quietly. "Don't open that door."
But I was already going. I yanked it open to find Sara, my best friend, pale and frightened.
"Council messengers just arrived," she gasped. "They're asking to see the Alpha immediately. They're talking about a political marriage. Kieran is meant to unite with the High Council daughter."
My entire world stopped.
Kieran emerged behind me, pulling me against his chest protectively. "Who is she?" he asked.
"Victoria Ashcroft," Sara said sadly. "She comes in three days to negotiate the union. The Council is threatening territorial growth if Kieran refuses."
I felt his body go completely rigid. His arms around me tighter like a cage.
"When does the announcement happen?" he asked, his voice cold again. That ice was coming back.
"Today. At the afternoon meeting," Sara said. "I'm sorry, Elara. I'm so sorry."
She left. Kieran didn't move. He just held me, and I could feel him breaking. I could feel him fighting something inside himself—duty versus want, power versus love, the Alpha he was supposed to be versus the man I'd just spent the night with.
"Kieran—" I started.
"I have to go," he said, already pulling away. "I have to think. I have to—"
"What about us?" I asked. "What about tomorrow night?"
He turned to look at me, and I saw something die in his eyes. Something valuable and fragile that had bloomed in the dark just hours before.
"I don't know," he whispered.
Before I could answer, an explosion of power exploded through the entire fortress. It wasn't fighting. It was magic—ancient, furious, and so strong that my teeth rattled in my head.
Kieran's face went white. "The ritual," he breathed. "Oh God, the routine is waking up. I can feel it. I can feel Cassian."
"What does that mean?" I asked, frightened.
"It means," a voice said from my doorway—a voice that definitely wasn't mine or Kieran's—"that the three-person bond is already beginning to activate, and you have no idea what you've just set in motion."
A stranger stood in my room. Someone with Kieran's bone structure and his dark hair, but with kinder eyes. And I knew immediately who he was.
Kieran's cousin. The one who'd disappeared years ago.
Cassian.
And
he was looking at me like I'd just ruined all their lives.