27 Where Promises Co to Die
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22 Where Promises Go to Die
Nyra’s POV
I didn’t remember deciding to run.
I only remember the way my chest felt too tight to hold my heart.
The way the cheers behind me sounded like wolves celebrating my funeral.
The way my feet moved on their own, faster and faster, carrying me away from the assembly grounds before my knees could give out and my tears could expose me.
I didn’t stop until the pack centre was far behind me.
Until the torches became distant dots.
Until the voices turned into nothing but a ringing in my ears.
And then I realised where my body had taken me.
The path curved through the trees, familiar in the way an old scar is familiar, something you never forget
how to touch.
The cabin.
Our cabin.
The one hidden deep in the woods where the world didn’t exist and Kieran could pretend I was worth holding.
I stumbled up the steps like a drunk, my breath ragged, my hands shaking so hard the draft paper crumpled further in my fist.
Maid.
The word was printed in ink, but it felt carved into my skin.
I pushed the door open and the smell of old wood and ash and him hit me so hard it made my throat
close.
It was here.
Every memory was here.
The place he had kissed my forehead and told me soon.
The place he had whispered about our future like it was something real.
The place he had made me believe I wasn’t just surviving.
I closed the door behind me and leaned against it, sliding down until I was sitting on the floor.
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22 Where Promises Go to Die
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And then I broke.
Not neatly.
Not silently.
I cried the way you cry when you’ve held it in for too long, ugly and shaking, a sound ripped out of you like you were being skinned.
My fingers clenched around the maid draft until my knuckles ached, the paper biting into my palm.
I pressed it to my chest like I could crush it into dust.
Like I could crush the reality it represented.
My sobs echoed in the cabin, bouncing off walls that had heard my laughter once, my whispered dreams, my desperate promises to myself that it would all be worth it.
It wasn’t.
It wasn’t worth it.
I tilted my face up toward the ceiling beams, tears streaming into my hairline.
“What do you want from me?” I whispered to the universe like it was a living thing.
My voice cracked.
“What is this bond even for?” I choked out. “Why… why give me a mate if all it does is hurt? Why tie me to
someone who won’t choose me?”
The bond in my chest ached again, dull now, like a bruise being pressed.
Beverly’s hand on his arm replayed behind my eyes.
The announcement.
The cheers.
The way I had felt my heart tear, not in metaphor, but physically, as if something inside me had split and bled.
I wrapped my arms around myself, rocking slightly like I could soothe the pain by sheer force.
“What else do you have planned for me?” I whispered, trembling. “Other than this… this useless bond that’s brought me nothing but shame?”
My breath hitched.
The world outside was dangerous. Wolves knew that. They grew up learning it.
The weak got devoured.
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The helpless got used.
The ones without power were prey, whether the predator wore claws or a crown.
And I… I had no wolf.
No protection.
No standing.
And now… apparently, no mate either.
The joke had been on me all along.
It wasn’t just the pack laughing.
It was fate.
It was the Moon.
It was the universe, dangling love in front of a starving girl just to see how long she’d chase it.
I thought about the signs I’d ignored.
How he never introduced me to his friends.
How he always pulled away in public like I was poisonous.
How he could touch me in the dark, claim me in whispers, press his mouth to my skin like I mattered…
….then look through me in daylight.
I had called it caution.
I had called it strategy.
I had called it love.
But love didn’t hide you like shame.
A part of me, foolish, uncontrollable, still wished he would walk through that door.
Still wished he would come with that worried look, that soft voice, those hands that always made me
melt.
I wanted him to hold me.
To tell me it was a misunderstanding.
To promise it would be okay.
Even if they were empty promises.
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Even if they were lies.
Because lies from him had always soothed the ache for a little while.
But the cabin stayed silent.
Hours passed.
The night grew colder.
My tears dried and returned and dried again, leaving salt on my lips and heaviness in my bones.
I stayed on the floor until my hips went numb.
Until my throat was raw from crying.
Until the torchlight outside faded and the darkness thinned.
Until dawn crawled in, grey and cruel.
Kieran never came.
He never tried to make it okay.
He never tried, at all.
And somehow, that was worse than the announcement.
Worse than the maid draft.
Because it meant the truth had been sitting there all along, waiting for me to finally stop lying to myself.
He didn’t come because he didn’t choose me.
Not when the pack was watching.
Not when his father was speaking.
Not when his future was on the line.
I stared at the pale strip of light beginning to slip under the door and felt something inside me go very still.
My mind kept circling back, cruel and obsessive.
Did he know all along?
Was I just a placeholder? A pastime? A secret he kept until he didn’t need me anymore?
He’d held on to the bond for four years.
And for what?
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If he truly wanted me, he would have fought.
He would have stood in that assembly ground and said my name.
He would have rejected Beverly.
He would have chosen humiliation over losing me.
But he hadn’t.
Because being Alpha mattered more.
Because his father’s pride mattered more.
Because power mattered more.
And I, Nyra Moonchild, had always been last on his list.
While he had been first on mine.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand, the skin under my eyes sore.
Then I stood.
My legs wobbled, but I forced them steady.
No more crying in this cabin.
No more begging fate.
No more breaking my own heart to keep loving someone who refused to hold it in the light.
I stepped outside.
The air was cold and damp, the early morning mist clinging to everything.
I left the cabin behind without looking back.
Because if I looked back, I might not keep walking.
And I couldn’t stay there, waiting for a ghost.
The path to my mother’s cabin felt longer than it ever had.
My body moved on instinct, my mind still heavy and raw.
By the time I reached the outcast edge, the sun was just beginning to brighten the trees.
The cabin came in view… and I froze.
Alpha Ethan was standing at my mother’s door.
Not alone.
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22 Where Promises Go to Die
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Two of his men stood a few feet behind him, stiff and watchful, hands near their belts as if they were prepared for trouble.
My mother, Elaine, stood in the doorway, shoulders squared, eyes blazing.
They were arguing.
And even from where I stood, I could hear my name in the air between them.
“…you cannot do this,” my mother was saying, her voice low but vicious. “Not to my daughter.”
Alpha Ethan’s tone was cold, controlled. “Watch your mouth, Elaine.”
“I have watched my mouth for twenty years,” she snapped. “And it has gotten us nothing but chains.”
My mother’s tone made me realise that this wasn’t over.
And whatever this argument was about….
It was about to become my problem. So I lingered in the shadows away from view to listen.
Karima Sa’ad Usman Author
Thank you all for coming on this adventure. I hope the story is coming along nicely. Thank you for the votes and comments. Please, if you can, kindly leave an honest review on the book info page to give this work a rating. Thank you all once again.
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