Nyra’s POV
I didn’t go home after Beverly finished with me.
I couldn’t.
Home meant my mother’s eyes, sharp enough to slice through any lie. Home meant questions I didn’t know how to answer. Home meant that quiet corner of the pack where pain echoed louder because nothing else lived there.
So I limped into the woods instead.
Night came quickly, the sky bruising purple, the air damp with rain waiting to fall. My ribs ached with every breath, and my side burned where her boot had landed again and again. Each step sent the same message through my body: you’re human. you’re soft. you’re breakable.
I hated that the pack could make me feel like a mistake in my own skin.
I hated even more that I still carried hope like a sickness I couldn’t cure.
The cabin sat deeper in the woods, hidden behind thick branches and climbing vines. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t his either. Abandoned years ago, left to rot, and somehow it became ours.
A place for secrets.
A place for love that couldn’t survive daylight.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The air was cold and stale, but it still held traces of him, pine smoke, steel, and something warm that made my chest ache.
I sank onto the edge of the narrow bed and pressed my yearbook to my lap.
The cover was bent. A smear of dried blood marked one corner where I must’ve grabbed it after Beverly kicked me down.
Graduation.
Everyone else would have pages filled with signatures and inside jokes and promises to visit.
Mine would stay blank.
I stared at it until my vision blurred, not from the ache in my ribs, but from the heavier pain behind my eyes. The kind that didn’t bruise, but still bled.
A sound outside made me stiffen.
Footsteps.
Fast. Controlled. Familiar.
The door swung open so hard it hit the wall.
Kieran stood there, chest rising and falling like he’d run the whole way, hair damp with mist, eyes darker than I’d ever seen them.
For a moment he didn’t move.
He just looked at me, like he needed to see me alive with his own eyes before his lungs remembered how to work.
Then he crossed the room in three strides and dropped to his knees in front of me.
His hands cupped my face, thumbs brushing the corners of my mouth with careful, trembling gentleness.
“Nyra.” My name came out like a prayer. Like a wound.
I flinched when his fingers grazed a tender spot near my jaw.
His eyes narrowed instantly. “They did this.”
“It’s fine,” I whispered, because that was what I always said. Because the truth felt too big to fit inside the room.
Kieran’s jaw flexed. His hands slid down to my wrists, as if he needed to hold me to stop himself from doing something violent.
“I heard,” he said, voice low, tight. “I heard what happened.”
Something in me cracked. “Did you?”
Confusion flickered, then guilt.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course I did.”
I laughed softly, and it sounded wrong. “No. I mean… did you see and hear what they said too? Or were you busy pretending you didn’t know me?”
His breath caught.
He looked away for half a second, and it was all the answer I needed.
Kieran leaned in, forehead pressing to mine. His hands slid around the back of my neck, holding me like he was afraid I’d vanish.
“I’m glad,” he whispered. “I’m glad you won’t have to deal with them anymore.”
The words should’ve comforted me.
Instead, they twisted something deep in my stomach.
“Glad,” I echoed. “You’re glad.”
He lifted his head, frowning. “That’s not what I, Nyra, look at you. You’re bleeding. You’re hurt. You don’t heal like we do. I can’t, ” His voice cracked, and he swallowed. “I can’t keep watching them do this to you.”
I stared at him, my chest tight. “Then stop it.”
His eyes widened. “I am trying.”
“No,” I said, sharper than I meant. “You try in private. You try here where no one can see. But out there…” I tilted my head, and my ribs screamed. I ignored it. “Out there you let them believe I’m nothing.”
Kieran’s face hardened, not at me, at himself.
He exhaled slowly, then reached into his jacket and pulled out a small cloth. He dabbed gently at the blood near my lip.
The tenderness made my throat burn.
“Promise me something,” he said.
I stared at him. “What?”
“Stay away from them,” he said, voice rough. “Stay away from the academy after today. Don’t go near Beverly. Don’t go near the training yard. Don’t, ” His eyes lifted, intense. “Don’t give them an opening.”
My laugh came out broken. “Kieran… they don’t need an opening. I exist. That’s enough.”
He went still.
Then his hands slid back to my cheeks, firmer now, forcing me to meet his gaze.
“You’re not thinking,” he said.
“What should I be thinking like?” I whispered. “Like an outcast? Like someone who should accept being beaten quietly so I don’t embarrass the pack?”
His throat bobbed.
I saw anger there, real anger, but not aimed at them.
It was aimed at the situation.
At the truth he couldn’t stand to say out loud.
My voice dropped. “Why did you pull away?”
He blinked.
“In the hall,” I continued, my mouth dry. “When you helped me up. I reached for you, and you, ” My fingers curled into my skirt. “You moved away like I was something you didn’t want to touch.”
Pain flashed across his face. “Nyra, ”
“Are you ashamed of me?” The words slipped out before I could stop them, ugly, raw. “Because if you are, say it. If you don’t want me, reject me. You’re the Alpha’s son. You can. You could’ve done it years ago.”
Kieran’s face drained of colour like I’d struck him.
He grabbed my hands and pulled them to his chest.
“Don’t,” he said, voice shaking now. “Don’t say that.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
His eyes searched mine like he was drowning.
“I pulled away because people were watching,” he admitted, and the confession hit like a stone. “Because if I held you the way I wanted to, if I touched you the way I touch you here, ”
“Then they’d know,” I finished bitterly.
“Yes.” His voice broke on the word. “And they’d destroy you even more for it. They’d rip you apart just to punish me. To punish us.”
I stared at him. My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat a bruise.
“You think you’re protecting me,” I whispered.
“I am.” His grip tightened. “Nyra, you’re everything to me. Everything. I can’t lose you.”
The words were exactly what I needed.
And they still hurt.
Because love that had to be hidden didn’t feel like love.
It felt like being buried alive.
“Kieran,” I whispered, “I’m already losing myself.”
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. Then my temple. Then the corner of my mouth where the blood had dried. Gentle kisses that made my body ache with need and my heart ache with grief.
“I love you,” he said against my skin. “I love you so much it scares me.”
My throat tightened. “Then why does it feel like I’m the only one who pays for it?”
