Sienna's POV
I couldn't breathe.
The words were stuck somewhere in my throat and I couldn't force them out no matter how hard I tried. Kade was sitting beside me in the dark, waiting for me to break, and I felt like I was dying slowly from the inside.
"My aunt created the false scent when I was born," I finally said, the words coming out in a rush like if I didn't say them all at once I'd never say them at all. "She used old magic. Family magic. She made it so no one would ever know what I really was."
Kade didn't interrupt. Just waited.
"She raised me as a servant in her own house," I continued. "My cousins got tutors and dresses and marriage proposals. I got work and shame and being told every single day that I was worthless because I'm an Omega. I believed her. I actually believed that being an Omega meant I deserved to be treated like I was less than human."
My voice was shaking now.
"When the Council came asking for a bride, she volunteered me immediately. Not because she wanted me to have a good life. Because she wanted me gone. She wanted the power I was carrying buried forever where no one could find it."
I wrapped my arms around myself.
"She told me that if I ever showed what I really was, the Council would hunt me down and kill me. That Gareth Drakmore would try to capture me and use my power for himself. That there would be war and thousands would die and it would be my fault for existing."
The tears were coming now. Hot and fast and I couldn't stop them.
"She said you would turn on me," I whispered. "She said the moment you understood what marking me meant, you would send me away to protect your pack."
Kade reached over and pulled me against his chest.
I wanted to push him away. Wanted to protect myself from the pain that was coming when he eventually realized she was right. But I was too tired. Too broken. Too desperate for someone to tell me I wasn't going to destroy everything just by existing.
"She lied," Kade said into my hair. "Every single word was a lie designed to keep you small and controllable."
"But the war," I said. "The death. That's not a lie. That will happen if people know what I am."
"Yes," Kade said, and I pulled back to look at him. I expected him to soften it somehow. To make it less true. Instead he just met my eyes directly. "War will probably come. Death might happen. But not because of you. Because of people like the Council who are terrified of power they can't control."
He wiped my tears away with his thumbs.
"Listen to me," he said. "We don't tell anyone yet. We prepare in silence. We get stronger. We build alliances with Alphas who are tired of the Council's control. We gather resources. We make a plan. And when the time comes, when we're ready, we don't ask permission anymore."
"Kade, you can't—"
"I can," he interrupted. "And I will. Because you're not a burden I have to carry. You're my equal. And I'm not about to waste that by pretending you're something you're not."
He pulled me closer and his arms wrapped around me like a cage made of protection instead of pain.
"You're safe now," he whispered. "I promise you. No one is taking you. No one is hunting you. Not while I'm alive."
Something inside me shattered.
Twenty-two years. Twenty-two years of being small and invisible and worthless. Twenty-two years of my aunt's cruelty disguised as protection. Twenty-two years of believing that I was the problem. That existing was the problem.
And now there was someone who was telling me the opposite.
Someone who was looking at what I was and not running.
Someone who was choosing me.
I cried into his chest like my whole body was breaking and healing at the same time. And he just held me. Didn't try to fix it. Didn't try to make it better. Just let me feel the weight of everything I'd been carrying alone.
"What if you change your mind?" I asked when I finally had enough breath to speak.
"I won't," Kade said.
"But what if—"
"Sienna," he said, pulling back far enough to look at me. "Look at me."
I did. His storm-gray eyes were steady. Certain. Like he'd already made a decision that was going to define the rest of his life.
"I've spent nine years building an empire," he said. "Fighting for territory. Fighting for respect. Fighting to prove that I'm strong enough to hold power. And it all means nothing if the only person who actually matters to me doesn't believe that I'll stand beside her."
My heart was racing.
"I'm telling you right now," he continued. "I will burn the Council down if I have to. I will stand against every rival Alpha in this world. I will lose everything I've built if that's what it takes to keep you safe and help you become what you're meant to be."
He took my hand and pressed it against his chest.
"Do you feel that?" he asked. "That's my heartbeat. That's proof that I'm real. That this is real. That I'm not going to disappear the moment things get hard."
I could feel his heart pounding against my palm.
"My aunt said love would be my weakness," I whispered.
"It's not," Kade said. "Love is what makes you strong enough to stop hiding."
He pulled me back against him and I let myself believe it for just a second. Let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, I could trust someone. Could let someone in. Could stop carrying this weight alone.
We sat like that in the dark gardens for a long time. Not talking. Just existing together. His heartbeat steady against my ear. His arms around me like he was never going to let go.
But as I sat there, feeling safer than I'd ever felt in my life, something shifted inside me.
Something that felt like it might be love.
And I realized with absolute certainty that Evangeline was right about one thing.
Love was going to be my weakness.
Not because Kade was going to turn on me. But because now I had something to lose. Someone to lose. And that made me vulnerable in ways I'd never been before.
The power inside me was waking up. Growing stronger every day. It wanted to fight. It wanted to command. It wanted to burn down everything that had ever hurt me.
But Kade was here now. Kade was real now. And if I let my power loose, if I became the Ancient Queen my bloodline made me, I risked destroying him too.
I could protect myself. I could fight the Council. I could stand against any Alpha that came for me.
But protecting Kade while becoming what I was meant to be? That was the impossible choice.
And I was terrified that when the moment came, I wouldn't be strong enough to do both.
That I'd have to choose between the power that was waking up inside me and the man who'd chosen to stand beside me.
And that either way, it was going to break something that mattered.