Evander POV
Evander had been waiting five years to see Seraphine again.
He hadn't expected it to hurt this much.
She walked beside him toward the northern border, studying Moonstone's defensive positions like they were a puzzle she could solve if she just looked hard enough. Her grey eyes were sharp and focused and beautiful in a way that made his chest ache.
This was worse than when she disappeared. Then at least he could pretend he'd get over her eventually. Now she was here and he was dying slowly from the inside out.
He tried to keep his voice professional. The eastern ridge is the strongest position. We can hold there if we pull soldiers from the western posts.
Seraphine nodded, her eyes scanning the terrain. And the forest passages to the north.
Weak, Evander said. We've known that for years. Marcus probably knows it too.
She stopped walking and turned to face him. Her expression was curious but not concerned. Just reading him the way she'd always been able to do.
You know something, she said. Something about the rejection.
It wasn't a question.
Evander's jaw clenched. He looked away at the frozen forest stretching out before them. Five years of keeping this secret and she'd figured it out in seconds.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Evander, she said quietly.
Her voice used to be gentle. Now it was edged with steel. But there was something underneath the steel. Something that sounded like she cared whether he answered.
He couldn't handle that. Couldn't handle her caring about anything he thought or felt when the only thing she cared about was Kael.
Look, I can't, Evander started.
You're going to tell me.
Seraphine stepped closer and her wolf must have been close to the surface because the pressure of it was tangible. She'd learned to use that in five years. The dominance of an army commander. The weight of someone who'd learned to break people if they didn't cooperate.
She was breaking him right now and she probably didn't even realize it.
Evander turned away from her completely. His hands were shaking and he couldn't let her see that.
Why do you care. You came back for revenge anyway.
You're right, Seraphine said. I did. But something's wrong. You're looking at me like you know something that would change my mind. So tell me.
The words hung between them.
Evander took a sharp breath. If I tell you this, it changes everything. You won't get to hate him the way you've been hating him.
Good, Seraphine said. I want to hate him.
But she didn't sound convinced. She sounded like someone who was terrified that maybe she couldn't.
Evander turned back to face her.
Marcus Velis threatened to take you. That first year when your father was killed, when everything was chaos, Marcus sent a message to Kael. He said if Moonstone didn't submit, he'd take you captive. Use you as leverage. Break you to break the pack.
He watched the words land. Watched Seraphine's expression shift from anger to something else entirely.
So Kael rejected you publicly, Evander continued. Made you seem worthless. Made you unimportant. If Marcus thought you didn't matter to him, you'd be safe. You'd be beneath notice.
Seraphine had gone very still. The kind of still that meant her entire world was shifting.
He's been in a political marriage for five years that he hates. He's been punishing himself for breaking the one thing that mattered because he thought it was the only way to keep you alive. And when you disappeared, he thought he'd killed you with his own hands.
The silence stretched out between them, so heavy it was hard to breathe.
Evander knew he should stop talking. Should let her process. But he'd been holding this inside for five years and it was pouring out now like something breaking.
He would have broken your bond a thousand times over if it meant keeping you alive. He loves you so much that he was willing to be hated by you forever if it meant you survived.
Seraphine's hand came up to her chest like it hurt to breathe.
The story she'd been telling herself for five years was shattering. The narrative where Kael had just stopped loving her. Where he'd chosen politics over her heart. Where she was weak and he'd simply moved on.
That story was a lie.
And the truth was so much worse because it meant she'd hated him for loving her. She'd built an army on the foundation of thinking he didn't care.
Evander reached out to touch her shoulder but stopped himself. He didn't have the right.
He didn't reject you because you weren't enough, he said quietly. He rejected you to keep you alive. And it's been destroying him ever since.
The words fell like stones into still water.
Seraphine's face was completely blank. Her eyes had gone distant like she was somewhere else entirely. Processing. Breaking. Rebuilding everything she thought she knew about the rejection.
Everything she thought she knew about Kael.
Evander watched her and felt his heart crack a little more because he knew what was about to happen. She was going to go back to Kael. She was going to forgive him. She was going to remember why she'd loved him in the first place.
And Evander was going to have to keep watching her look at his best friend like Kael was the only real thing in the world.