Nyra’s POV
Kieran exhaled, the sound sharp, like it hurt him to breathe.
“I didn’t want you to witness that,” he said, voice tight. “The dance. I didn’t want you standing there watching me with her.”
I laughed once, small and hollow, and it scraped my throat on the way out.
“You didn’t want me to witness it,” I repeated, like I was testing the words for meaning.
His hands flexed at his sides. He looked like he wanted to reach for me and didn’t dare.
“It was… protocol,” he said. “Serving the pack. Beverly was the ace student. It was either she danced with my father or with me. And it couldn’t be Father. Not tonight.”
His words fell between us like stones.
I nodded slowly, because my brain understood what he was trying to say.
But my chest,
My chest was doing something else entirely.
Because it wasn’t the dance.
Not really.
It was the way he held her.
The way he didn’t hesitate. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t scan the room first like it might explode if anyone saw his hand on a woman’s waist.
He’d held her like she belonged there.
Like she fit.
Like touching her in front of everyone was the most natural thing in the world.
And I, I had spent four years learning the shape of his love in darkness. Four years learning how to be quiet enough to keep him. Four years learning to accept scraps like they were a feast, because at least they were his.
He could hold Beverly like that.
But never me.
Never me.
And the most brutal part?
His friends were right there. Louis. Charles. Wolves he trusted. Wolves who would one day be his inner circle.
They didn’t even know who I was to him.
That fact slammed into me harder than any of Beverly’s kicks.
Because if he could live with that, if he could laugh with them while I stood alone in the corner like a stain, then what did that make me?
Not a mate.
A secret.
A mistake he kept revisiting.
My lip trembled. Tears pooled before I could stop them. I hated myself for it. I hated that my body still betrayed me with softness when my heart was begging for steel.
“How long?” I managed.
My voice was small. Broken.
Just two words, but they carried four years of swallowing.
Kieran’s jaw tightened. His eyes darkened, flicking over my face as if he could physically see the cracks forming.
“Nyra, ”
“How long?” I whispered again, and the tears spilled properly now, hot tracks down my cheeks. “How long do you want me to keep doing this?”
He didn’t answer.
The silence was the answer.
It hung between us, heavy and cruel, filled with everything he couldn’t bring himself to say.
Kieran took a step forward like he was going to close the distance, like he was going to pull me into his arms and make the world disappear the way he always did.
Then he stopped.
Because even here, in the garden, with the moon watching, he was still measuring the risk of touching me.
“To make it better,” he said finally, voice strained, “I have to be Alpha. You know this, right?”
I stared at him through tears, blinking hard, trying to clear my vision.
Because his soon,
His soon was a horizon that kept moving.
His soon was a promise that might never become real.
“I bleed, Kieran,” I whispered, my voice shaking as the tears kept spilling. “My heart breaks. How much of this do you expect me to take? How much more pain do I have to swallow before you finally make it okay?”
My chest tightened. Rage and grief tangled together until I could barely breathe.
“I told you to reject me and walk away four years ago,” I said, the words coming sharper now. “Because I knew we had no future. But you insisted. You called us a blessing, yet you treat me like a curse.”
He stepped closer.
“Nyra, please, ”
But I shook my head, hard.
“I’d reject you in a heartbeat if I could,” I said, forcing the truth out like it was lodged in my throat. “If I had a wolf. If it was my right. I would do it, just so you’d have nothing to be ashamed of. So you wouldn’t owe me, ” my voice broke, and I swallowed it down, “, a freak, anything.”
He flinched like I’d slapped him, shaking his head as if my words offended him.
But they were true.
“I’d do it, Kieran,” I went on, tears sliding down my cheeks, hot and humiliating. “But you know I can’t. So I’m asking you, how long do I have to be a secret?”
His jaw clenched. Panic bled into his expression.
“The Alpha position isn’t a given for me, Nyra,” he said, desperation tightening his tone. The words rushed out, like if he said them fast enough they might soften the damage. “My cousin Ronan is up for it too. He’ll return soon. If I act recklessly, I might lose the position.”
My breath caught.
Something inside me, something tired and bruised and desperate, made a sound that might have been a sob if I’d let it out.
“Accepting your mate is acting recklessly, Kieran?” I asked.
The words tasted like blood.
His face tightened.
“Nyra, it’s not, ”
Footsteps cut through the garden.
Light laughter.
Perfume.
A presence that made my spine go cold.
