Five years was supposed to be long enough to forget him.
It wasn't.
The moment I stepped into the glittering ballroom of the Aurora Hotel, ironic name, considering, his scent hit me like a freight train. Pine, leather, and that indefinable something that used to make my wolf purr before he rejected us and she went silent forever.
Or so I thought.
"Mommy, you okay?" Finn's voice crackled through my phone. My four-year-old son, safe in our hotel room with Mrs. Chen, probably watching cartoons and eating the snacks I'd explicitly forbidden.
"Fine, baby. Mommy's just at the boring work party. I'll be back soon."
Liar.
I wasn't fine. Because across the room, through the crowd of Seattle's elite in their designer gowns and tailored tuxedos, stood Kael Blackthorne.
The Alpha King.
The man who destroyed me.
And he was looking directly at me.
His golden eyes, the same ones my son inherited, locked onto mine across the crowded ballroom. The champagne flute in my hand trembled. Five years. Five years of running, hiding, rebuilding myself from the shattered pieces he'd left behind.
Five years, and one look still brought me to my knees.
"Aurora." My name wasn't spoken. It was felt. The mate bond I thought had died with his rejection suddenly roared to life, a living thing between us that made my skin burn and my heart hammer against my ribs.
No. No, no, no.
I turned, ready to flee like the coward I swore I'd never be again, but the crowd had shifted. People were moving, parting like the Red Sea, and I realized with growing horror that they were making way for him.
For their King.
"Excuse me, Ms. Winters?" A hand touched my elbow. I jumped, nearly dropping my glass. A young woman in a server's uniform smiled apologetically. "You're with Moonlight Bakery, correct? The judges would like to speak with you about your presentation."
Right. The bakery convention. The reason I'd stupidly agreed to return to Seattle, to his territory, after five years of successfully avoiding this city like the plague. The Grand Prize, fifty thousand dollars and a feature in Northwest Living magazine, would cover Finn's medical tests. The specialists we needed. The answers about why my baby boy sometimes woke screaming from nightmares about wolves and blood and a moon that called to him.
"Of course," I managed, my voice steadier than I felt. "Lead the way."
I didn't look back. Didn't dare. But I felt him moving through the crowd, a predator tracking prey. Every instinct screamed at me to run, but I forced myself to walk calmly, professionally, toward the judges' table.
I'd built a life in the small coastal town of Moonhaven. A good life. A bakery that was actually turning a profit. A son who was happy, healthy, mostly, and surrounded by people who loved him. I wasn't that broken twenty-one-year-old girl anymore, the one who'd believed in fairy tales and fated mates and happily ever afters.
That girl had died the night Kael Blackthorne stood in front of his pack, in front of his elegant fiancée, and told me I was nothing. That I'd never be anything. That the mate bond was a mistake, a cosmic joke, and he rejected it. Rejected me.
Rejected us.
I'd been two weeks pregnant and hadn't known it yet.
"Ms. Winters, your lavender honey cake was exceptional," one of the judges was saying. An older woman with kind eyes and silver hair pulled into an elegant twist. "The way you balanced the floral notes with the sweetness—"
"She's not staying."
The voice came from behind me. Deep. Commanding. Vibrated through my bones like thunder.
I closed my eyes. Breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth. Turned slowly.
Kael Blackthorne stood three feet away, and God help me, he was even more devastating than I remembered. Six-foot-four of pure muscle wrapped in a black tuxedo that probably cost more than my monthly rent. Dark hair slightly longer than before, falling across his forehead in a way that made my fingers itch to brush it back. Those golden eyes, Alpha eyes, pinned me in place.
But it was his expression that gutted me. Hunger. Desperation. And beneath it all, something that looked almost like pain.
"Excuse me?" the judge said, her voice sharp with disapproval. "And you are?"
"Kael Blackthorne." He didn't look away from me. "And Aurora was just leaving."
The judge gasped. Everyone within hearing distance went silent. Of course they recognized him. Kael didn't just own half of Seattle's commercial real estate. He didn't just run a tech empire worth billions. He was the Alpha King, the leader of every werewolf pack in North America.
And he was making a scene at a bakery convention.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said, proud that my voice didn't shake. "I'm here for the competition. You have no right—"
"I have every right." He moved closer. The judges scrambled backward. Smart people. "You're in my territory. My city. And we need to talk."
"We have nothing to talk about." I gripped my clutch so hard my knuckles went white. "You made yourself very clear five years ago."
Something flashed in his eyes. Regret? No. Couldn't be. Men like Kael Blackthorne didn't do regret.
"Aurora." My name again, but this time it was almost gentle. Almost. "Please."
I'd never heard him say please. Not once in the whirlwind three weeks we'd known each other before he'd ripped my heart out. The word felt wrong in his mouth, foreign, like he wasn't sure how to shape it.
"No."
I turned back to the judges, to the competition, to the life I'd built without him. "I apologize for the interruption. As I was saying about the lavender—"
His hand wrapped around my wrist. Not hard. Not painful. But the touch sent electricity shooting up my arm, the mate bond singing with recognition and need and want that I'd thought I'd buried.
"Don't." I looked down at his hand, then up at his face. "Touch. Me."
"Aurora—"
"You don't get to do this." My voice rose. People were staring. Let them. "You don't get to reject me, to humiliate me, to throw me away like I was nothing, and then waltz back in five years later and expect—what? Forgiveness? A second chance?"
"I know I don't deserve—"
"You're damn right you don't."
"—but I'm asking anyway." His grip tightened fractionally. "Five minutes. Just give me five minutes to explain."
"There's nothing to explain." I yanked my hand back. The loss of contact felt like a physical wound. Stupid mate bond. "You made your choice. I made mine. We're done."
"We'll never be done." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, meant only for me. "You know that as well as I do. The bond—"
"The bond died when you rejected it." The lie tasted bitter on my tongue. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a competition to win and a life to get back to. One that doesn't include you."
I walked away. Forced myself to put one foot in front of the other, to smile at the judges, to pretend my entire world wasn't fracturing apart again. Made it exactly seven steps before his voice stopped me cold.
"I know about Finn."
The world tilted. My blood turned to ice in my veins. Slowly, so slowly, I turned back around.
"What did you just say?"
Kael's expression was unreadable, but his eyes…his eyes were molten gold, his wolf close to the surface. "Your son. Finn Winters. Four years old. Birthday is September 15th." He took a step toward me. "My son."
Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
"I don't know what you're—"
"Don't." The command in his voice made me flinch. Made everyone in the vicinity bow their heads in submission. "Don't lie to me. Not about this."
How? How did he know? I'd been so careful. Changed my name, used my mother's maiden name instead of my father's. Moved to a tiny town where pack politics didn't matter. Kept Finn away from anything supernatural.
"I see him in you," Kael continued, his voice rough. Raw. "Every time I close my eyes. The son I never knew about. The family I—" He stopped. Swallowed hard. "We need to talk. Now."
"No."
"Aurora—"
"I said no!" My shout echoed through the ballroom. Conversations died. Music stopped. "You want to know about Finn? Fine. He's mine. Mine. You gave up any right to him the night you rejected me. When I was carrying your child and you told me I was nothing."
His face went white. "You were pregnant? That night?"
"Two weeks." The words came out sharp, weapons meant to wound. "Two weeks pregnant when you looked me in the eye and said the mate bond was a mistake. When you chose your perfect pack princess over your actual mate."
"I didn't know—"
"Would it have mattered?" I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Tell me the truth, Kael. If you'd known, would you have chosen differently? Or would you have just paid me off, made me sign an NDA, and moved on with your political marriage?"
He opened his mouth. Closed it. And that moment of hesitation told me everything I needed to know.
"That's what I thought." I blinked back tears I refused to let fall. Not here. Not in front of him. "Stay away from me. Stay away from my son. We don't need you. We never did."
I made it to the ballroom doors before my phone rang. Mrs. Chen's name flashed on the screen.
"Ms. Winters?" Her voice was panicked. "I'm so sorry, I only looked away for a second, but Finn, he's not in the room. He said he heard his daddy calling and ran out the door before I could stop him and—"
The phone slipped from my fingers, clattered to the marble floor.
Finn was gone.
And every instinct I had was screaming that he was coming here. To the ballroom.
To his father.