Kael POV
Three days.
Kael hadn't slept in three days.
He'd tried. He'd gone through the motions of lying in the chamber he shared with Lydia, closing his eyes, pretending to rest. But the moment he got close to sleep, his mind would pull him back to Seraphine. To the way she smelled like woodsmoke and winter. To the way her grey eyes had looked at him with a coldness that somehow burned hotter than any fire.
So he stopped trying to sleep.
Instead he'd taken to walking the balconies at night, staring out at the frozen territory and the borders where Seraphine's army was positioned. Three hundred wolves camped on Moonstone land. Three hundred wolves that belonged to the girl he'd broken five years ago.
He couldn't eat either. Food tasted like ash in his mouth. His body was operating on pure adrenaline and desperation and the constant roar of the mate bond demanding he do something before it tore him apart from the inside.
The rejection bond he'd built was completely shattered now. There was nothing holding him together except the terrified hope that maybe, somehow, Seraphine would let him explain. Would let him try to fix what he'd destroyed.
The balcony door opened behind him.
Kael didn't turn around. He knew who it was without looking. Lydia moved with a specific kind of grace, all calculated elegance and sharp edges.
His wife.
The word felt wrong in his mouth.
Lydia stepped beside him, wrapping a silk robe around her body. She was beautiful in the moonlight. Sharp cheekbones and ice-blonde hair and eyes that had never once looked at him with anything resembling love.
Do you remember your vows, she asked quietly.
Her voice was dangerous in that way it got when she was about to destroy something.
Kael closed his eyes. He did remember. He'd spoken them in front of the pack, binding his life to hers for the sake of Moonstone's survival. He'd meant them as much as he could mean anything that wasn't connected to Seraphine.
I remember, he said.
You promised to honor the bond. To build a life together. To be loyal to me above all others.
Lydia wasn't looking at the territory. She was looking at him with an expression he'd never seen before. Like she was seeing someone completely different than who she thought she'd married.
I know what I promised.
And yet here you are at midnight, staring out at the border where your Omega is camped with her army. Barely eating. Not sleeping. Completely useless to this pack because you're too busy falling apart over a girl who left five years ago.
Kael wanted to defend himself. Wanted to explain that Seraphine was necessary. That her army was the only thing keeping them alive. That this wasn't about his heart, it was about survival.
But the truth came out instead.
My heart was never yours, he said quietly.
The words hung in the frozen air between them.
I've been trying for five years. I've been trying to be the husband you deserve. I've been trying to be the Alpha this pack needs. But I can't do both because my heart belongs to someone else. Someone I destroyed to try to keep safe.
Lydia's face didn't change. Her expression just hardened into something sharper. Something colder. Something that made Kael realize he'd just made a terrible mistake.
She reached out and ran one finger down his jaw. A gesture that used to be affectionate. Now it felt like she was studying him. Deciding what to do with him.
I came to this pack believing in you, she said softly. My father sent me to strengthen an alliance. Instead I got a broken man who was already in love with a ghost.
Lydia dropped her hand and stepped away from him.
If you can't honor the bond we share, I'll find someone who will. Someone who can actually choose me instead of pretend I'm enough to fill the space where his true mate used to be.
She turned to leave but stopped at the balcony door.
I hope she destroys you the way you deserve, Lydia said. I hope she makes you feel every moment of pain you caused her. And I hope when she's done, there's nothing left of you to rebuild.
Then she was gone.
Kael stood alone on the balcony and realized what he'd just done.
A wronged mate was dangerous. Lydia had been trying to make the bond work and he'd just told her, in so many words, that she would never be enough. That she was second choice. That she'd always be second choice.
A female like that could destroy everything if she wanted to.
But even knowing that, even understanding the threat she posed, Kael couldn't bring himself to care. Because the alternative was living the rest of his life pretending to be someone he wasn't. Hiding from the one thing that mattered.
Seraphine was here.
She was alive and angry and demanding he face the truth of what he'd done. She was giving him a chance to explain, whether she realized it or not.
And if he didn't take that chance, if he kept hiding and pretending and maintaining distance, he was going to lose her again.
This time the loss would actually kill him.
Kael gripped the railing of the balcony so hard it creaked under the pressure. His wolf was clawing at his chest, desperate to shift and run toward the border. Desperate to find Seraphine and make her understand that everything he'd done had been for her survival.
That the rejection had been an act of love even though it had felt like an act of violence.
He had to tell her.
He had to tell her before the war. Before Marcus attacked. Before they ran out of time. Because if he died in that battle without telling her the truth, she would spend the rest of her life hating him for a reason that wasn't real.
And Kael couldn't bear that thought.
He couldn't bear the thought of dying believing that the only person he'd ever truly loved thought he'd stopped loving her.
I'm going to lose her if I don't tell her the truth, he whispered into the frozen night air.
And this time, losing her is going to kill me.
The mate bond roared inside his chest like an animal demanding blood. Like something that had been caged too long and was about to break free.
Kael stood on that balcony and made a choice.
Tomorrow. He would find her tomorrow and he would tell her everything. Even if she hated him for it. Even if it made her want to destroy him more. Even if it gave her every reason to leave Moonstone and take her army with her.
She deserved the truth.
And Kael was finally ready to stop running from it.