Kael POV
Sleep was impossible.
Kael sat at his war room desk with documents spread in front of him that he couldn't focus on. The numbers blurred. The words meant nothing. His entire body was vibrating with something he didn't have a name for.
The bond.
It screamed at him constantly. A pull that existed deeper than his own heartbeat. His wolf clawed under his skin demanding he go to her. Go up those tower stairs. Go to Lyra and claim her properly and stop pretending that distance could kill what the magic had started.
He'd never felt anything like this.
In nine years of building his empire, Kael had trained himself to need nothing except revenge. Emotions were liabilities. Love was weakness. Connections were traps that broke strong men and turned them into ordinary people with ordinary problems.
But this was both and it was destroying him from the inside.
Three times during the night he'd gotten up to go to the tower. Three times he'd walked halfway up the stairs before forcing himself to turn back. The bond was a living thing inside his chest. It didn't care about his plans. It didn't care about Viktor Soren or revenge or nine years of careful strategy.
It only cared about her.
The sky was starting to turn gray when Rowan walked into the war room. His oldest friend. The only person in the world who understood what lived underneath Kael's controlled exterior.
Rowan didn't comment on the fact that Kael clearly hadn't slept. He just set a cup of coffee on the desk and pulled up a chair.
"You need to know something," Rowan said and his voice was careful in a way that meant this mattered. "About the bond."
Kael didn't look up from the documents he wasn't reading.
"You have three moons," Rowan continued quietly. "That's how the mating bond works. Three moons for both of you to accept it. After that, if you still reject it, the magic will consume you both."
Kael's hands clenched into fists.
"You'll die," Rowan said. "Both of you. The magic is older than the packs. Older than any of us. It doesn't accept rejection. If you and Lyra spend three moons fighting the bond, it will tear you apart from the inside."
"I know," Kael said and he did know. Somewhere deep in his wolf nature, he'd always known what a rejected mating bond meant. Death. Madness. The slow dissolution of everything that made a person coherent.
Three moons.
Ninety days to figure out how to live with a woman who was supposed to be his enemy. A woman whose father he was supposed to destroy. A woman whose very existence complicated everything he'd spent nine years planning.
"Viktor is demanding her release," Rowan said, watching Kael carefully. "He sent a messenger this morning. Says he'll negotiate peace between the packs if you let her go unharmed."
Kael laughed and it wasn't kind.
"He's lying," Kael said. "Viktor doesn't want peace. He wants time. He wants me to release his daughter so he can rebuild. So he can counterattack. So he can use the next few months to gather strength and come back at me harder."
That was how the game worked. That was strategy. Viktor knew that. Kael knew that. They'd been playing this version of war for nine years.
But now Kael had Viktor's daughter.
And that changed everything in ways he wasn't prepared for.
The mating bond was absolute. The magic didn't care about politics or strategy or nine years of carefully planned revenge. The magic saw Lyra and marked her as his. And every instinct Kael had was screaming that he needed to protect her. Needed to keep her safe. Needed to make sure nothing in this world ever hurt her again.
Even if that something was him.
"Keep her in the tower," Kael finally said. "And find out everything about her. Who she is. What she does. If she knew about that border camp or if her father kept her in the dark."
Rowan nodded like he expected this answer.
"I need to know if she was complicit," Kael continued. "If Viktor sent her deliberately into a trap or if he used her as bait without her knowledge."
"And if she didn't know?" Rowan asked carefully.
Kael didn't answer because he didn't know the answer. If Lyra was innocent. If her father had sacrificed her for strategy. If she was a victim in this war just like Kael had been a victim nine years ago when his father burned.
That thought landed in his chest like a knife.
"Just find out," Kael said quietly.
Rowan left and Kael sat alone in the war room as dawn broke over the castle. He could feel Lyra above him in the tower. Could feel her through the bond like she was a second heartbeat. She wasn't sleeping either. She was pacing. Panicking. Trying to build walls that the bond wouldn't let her keep.
He could feel her fear and it was destroying him.
The documents on his desk suddenly looked absurd. Contracts and mergers and financial strategies that had seemed so important yesterday. Today they felt like the obsessions of a man who was already dead.
Because that's what Kael had been. Dead. Moving through the world like a ghost looking for someone to blame for the fire that took his family. Looking for revenge like it was redemption.
And he'd almost had it.
One more day and he would have crushed Viktor's company completely. One more day and his nine-year plan would have been finished. One more day and he could have finally put the past to rest.
Then Lyra walked into his war room with blood on her clothes and silver eyes burning with fury and everything fell apart.
Kael stood and walked to the window. Outside, the Nightshade territory was waking up. Warriors training. Pack members moving about their daily lives. Everything normal. Everything the same as it had been yesterday.
But nothing was the same.
Nothing would ever be the same.
Three moons. Ninety days. Four thousand three hundred and twenty hours for him and Lyra to figure out how to survive the magic that bound them together. Four thousand three hundred and twenty hours for the bond to either kill them both or force them to accept something neither of them wanted.
Kael pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window. Somewhere in the tower above him, Lyra was probably doing the same thing. Probably wondering how this happened. Probably cursing the magic. Probably trying to figure out how to escape.
He almost laughed at the thought.
There was no escape from a mating bond. There was only acceptance or death.
And Kael had just realized something that terrified him more than anything in his nine years of revenge.
He didn't know if he could kill her to end the bond.
But he also didn't know if he could let her go.
Kael turned away from the window and whispered the words to the empty war room.
"Three moons. I can survive anything for three moons."
But even as he said it, he knew it was a lie.
Because the thing he couldn't survive was the bond between them getting stronger every single second she was alive and breathing in his castle.
The thing he couldn't survive was falling in love with his enemy.
And that's exactly what the magic was forcing him to do.