Arin's POV
Arin hadn't eaten in three days.
She couldn't. Every time she tried to put food in her mouth, her stomach twisted and she thought she would be sick. Her hands shook when she held a cup. Her eyes couldn't focus on anything. She was falling apart in pieces and everyone could see it.
The servants whispered about it. The guards noticed. Even Lyra was starting to look worried in a way that scared her more than the assassination attempts.
Tonight she just couldn't stay in her chambers anymore.
She slipped out when the guards changed shifts. Snuck through the palace corridors using routes she'd memorized. Avoided the main halls and the people who would try to stop her.
The palace gardens were empty at midnight.
Arin found a stone bench beneath a willow tree and sat down. The moonlight was silver through the branches. Cold. Quiet. The only place she'd found since arriving at this place that didn't feel like it was trying to kill her.
She started to cry.
Not soft tears. Real crying. The kind that made her shoulders shake and her breath come in gasps. Three weeks of holding it together. Three weeks of surviving assassination attempts and watching the Alpha King look at her with coldness. Three weeks of being completely alone while everyone around her plotted her death.
She couldn't do this anymore.
Why had she come to the palace? Why had she thought she could survive here? She was nobody. Just a servant girl who healed people. She didn't know how to be a Luna. She didn't know how to survive in a place where everyone wanted her dead.
She should have refused when Elena pulled her into the ritual chamber. Should have fought harder. Should have found a way to escape.
Instead she was trapped.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel path.
Arin froze. Her whole body went rigid. An assassination attempt. It had to be. Out here alone. Away from guards. Perfect opportunity.
She turned to run but hands caught her.
Then she felt the bond.
Kael. It was Kael.
But not the cold, distant version of him that sat across from her at meals. Not the person who treated her like a problem to manage.
This version of Kael was different.
He pulled her against his chest and just held her. Not like a guard protecting an asset. Like someone who couldn't bear to let her go.
"Don't cry," he whispered against her hair. "Please don't cry."
Arin couldn't stop. The tears kept coming. All of it spilled out. Three weeks of terror and loneliness and the desperate need to understand why he had looked at her like she meant nothing to him.
Kael sat down on the bench and pulled her with him. She ended up against his body, his arms around her, his face buried in her hair. He didn't let her go.
"You're safe," he said. His voice was rough. Broken. Nothing like the Alpha King's voice. This was just a man. A person. Someone scared out of his mind. "You're safe. I promise you're safe."
"I want to leave," Arin whispered. "I want to go back to Silver Creek. I want to go home."
His arms tightened so hard she could barely breathe.
"You can't," he said quietly. "And I'm sorry but you can't."
"Then why did you let me live this long?" Arin asked. "If I'm just going to die here, why not let them poison me that first night?"
Kael pulled back enough to look at her. His grey eyes were raw. Full of something so intense it made her chest hurt.
"Because I need you alive," he said simply. "Because the moment you fell into my arms, the moment the bond took hold, you stopped being a problem. You became the only thing that mattered. And I know that makes me weak. I know that makes me a bad king. But I can't... I can't..."
He couldn't finish.
Arin reached up and touched his face. His jaw was hard beneath her palm. Real. Present. Not cold and distant anymore.
"The bond wasn't an accident," Kael said. His voice was barely a whisper. "I need you to know that. The ancient magic didn't make a mistake when it seized you. It recognized something. Something true between us that was supposed to happen."
"How could it recognize anything?" Arin asked. "We don't even know each other."
"Sometimes magic knows things before we do," Kael said. He was looking at her like she was the only person in the world. Like everything else had stopped existing. "Sometimes the deepest magic recognizes a bond that was always meant to exist. That will always exist."
"You were so cold to me," Arin whispered.
"I know."
"You wouldn't even look at me."
"I know."
"Why?"
Kael's hand came up and cupped her face. His thumb brushed across her cheek, wiping away tears.
"Because if I looked at you the way I wanted to, if I let myself care about you the way the bond demanded, they would use you against me," he said. "They would threaten your life to control my decisions. And I was willing to be cold forever if it meant keeping you safe."
Arin's breath caught.
"But I can't do it anymore," Kael continued. "I can't keep pretending I don't feel this. I can't keep standing outside your door at night like a ghost. I can't keep treating you like you don't matter when you're the only thing that does."
Arin stared at him.
"You stand outside my door at night?"
"Every night," he said. "Making sure nothing hurts you. Making sure you're safe. Going crazy because I can't touch you. Can't be with you. Can't admit that you've completely destroyed me."
He kissed her before she could respond.
Not soft. Not gentle. Desperate and hungry and like he'd been holding his breath since the moment she fell into his arms. His hands gripped her face like she was the only solid thing keeping him anchored to earth.
Arin kissed him back because she had to. Because everything in her was screaming at him to do this. Because the cold distance had been killing her and this was finally truth.
When he pulled away, they were both breathing hard.
"This changes everything," Kael said. "Once anyone knows how I feel about you, you become even more of a target. They'll use this against both of us."
"I don't care," Arin said. She was surprised to find that she meant it.
"You should," Kael replied. But he was already pulling her close again. Kissing her forehead. Her cheeks. Her lips. Like he was memorizing the shape of her.
"Someone's coming," Arin whispered.
She could feel it through the bond. Feel the presence approaching the gardens. Multiple people. Moving with purpose.
Kael pulled back immediately.
"Guards," he said, listening to something only he could hear. "Palace guards. But something's wrong."
He stood and pulled Arin up with him.
The guards appeared through the willow trees. Six of them. But they weren't moving like they were protecting the Alpha King. They were moving like they were hunting him.
"My king," the lead guard said. His voice was strange. Wrong. "You need to come with us. There's been a situation in the council chambers."
Kael's hand went to his sword.
"What situation?"
"Your sister," another guard said. "Seraphine collapsed. She's dying. They need you in the chambers immediately."
Kael's entire body went rigid.
"That's a lie," he said quietly. But Arin could feel the fear through the bond. Feel him torn between staying with her and running to save his sister.
"No lies, my king," the guard said. "The curse is consuming her. The healers say she has minutes."
More guards emerged from the shadows of the garden.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
Too many. Way too many for a simple escort.
Arin felt it the same moment Kael did.
This was a trap.
Separating them. Getting Kael away from her. Luring him to a place where he would be vulnerable.
"Run," Kael whispered to her. "Go back to your chambers. Get Lyra. Don't trust anyone."
"No," Arin said.
But the guards were already moving. Closing in. Kael pushed her toward the trees and she stumbled backward, watching as he turned to face the guards with his hand on his sword.
"If my sister is hurt because of this," he said to the lead guard, "I will burn your family alive."
"Just come with us, my king," the guard replied. And there was something in his voice. Something knowing. Something that made Arin understand this was bigger than just an assassination attempt.
The guards surrounded Kael and pulled him toward the palace.
He looked back at Arin one last time.
"Don't let anyone separate us," he said. His voice was fierce. Absolute. "No matter what they tell you. No matter what they claim. I'm coming back for you."
Then he was gone.
Swallowed by guards and darkness and whatever trap was waiting for him in the palace.
Arin stood alone in the garden, her lips still tingling from his kiss, and realized with absolute clarity that everything had just gotten much worse.
Because now Kael had admitted he cared about her.
And the kingdom had seen it.
And they would use it to destroy them both.