Nyra’s POV
My voice came out thin. “People will side with an Alpha who has a formidable Luna.”
Kieran hesitated, just one breath too long.
My stomach dropped.
The pain that followed wasn’t sharp anymore.
It was deep. Heavy. Like something collapsing inside my chest.
“So she’s your Luna now?” I asked.
He shook his head quickly. “No. Nyra, no.”
But the answer had already been said.
He didn’t need to claim her with words.
He’d claimed her with his public hand on her waist.
With his silence.
With the way the pack was already speaking it into existence.
My eyes stung.
“So all those promises,” I whispered, voice breaking. “All the things you said… they were empty words?”
Kieran’s face twisted. “They weren’t empty.”
“If she is your Luna,” I said, tears spilling now, unstoppable, “then what will happen to me, Kieran?”
My voice rose with the question, not loud, just raw.
“I will remain your dirty secret forever. Those things you promised, sunlight, freedom, a home, will still be in secret.” I swallowed hard, forcing myself to say the words that tasted like poison. “I will be your homewrecker. The other woman. The bitch in the story.”
Kieran surged forward, reaching for me again. “No, ”
I stepped back.
“Don’t touch me,” I whispered.
It wasn’t anger.
It was survival.
Because if he touched me, I would fall back into him. I would soften again. I would start hoping again.
And hope was killing me.
He froze, eyes wide with pain.
“I’m trying to do this the right way,” he said, voice rough. “Once I’m Alpha, you and your mother will live freely in the pack, ”
I laughed.
It burst out of me, ugly and wet, and it shocked even me.
“You think I’m a fool,” I whispered.
Kieran’s eyes flashed. “Nyra, ”
“If you couldn’t claim me in public now,” I said, tears spilling down my cheeks, “there will never be a day when you protect me. Let alone my mother.” My voice cracked. “Power doesn’t make cowards brave, Kieran. It just makes them louder.”
His jaw clenched, and he looked like he wanted to shout, but instead he said, softer, “I told Charles to protect you at the party.”
I stared at him.
A bitter kind of disbelief settled in.
“No need,” I said.
His face tightened. “Nyra, ”
“Please,” I whispered. “Reject me.”
The words made my throat burn like I’d swallowed fire.
“Reject me because as far as I’m concerned, nothing can be between us.”
Kieran’s eyes widened, panic flashing. “No.”
“I hold no grudge,” I went on quickly, because if I slowed down, I would crumble. “I’m grateful for the secret four years.” My voice shook. “I’m grateful for the nights you made me feel wanted. I’m grateful for every time you looked at me like I wasn’t a mistake.”
A sob threatened. I swallowed it down.
“But I can’t continue living in the shadows anymore,” I whispered. “I can’t keep waiting for you to claim me in public. I can’t keep hoping.”
Kieran’s throat worked like he was swallowing knives.
“I’m releasing you,” I said, tears blurring him into a dark shape. “I bear no grudge. Don’t look for me anymore.”
His breath hitched.
“I wish you the best,” I forced out. “I hope you get everything you want.”
Kieran stepped forward so fast it startled me.
“You are all that I want, Nyra.” His voice cracked. “If you leave me, I’ll have nothing left to look forward to. My heart is in your hands, ”
“And I am also a thing of shame to you,” I cut in, shaking my head, voice trembling with pain. “I don’t want you sneaking around when you can live in the sun, Kieran.”
I wiped my cheeks roughly with the back of my hand, angry at the tears for existing.
“I’m not a fool,” I whispered. “At this rate I will die waiting for you.”
He looked like he might fall to his knees.
I kept going anyway.
“Next time you see me, you can look away,” I said, voice breaking. “Rest assured, I won’t hurt.”
My throat closed around the words.
“Next time you step away from me so you don’t catch whatever you think I have… you can rest assured my heart won’t bleed.”
I inhaled shakily.
“And if I ever get my wolf,” I whispered, “I will accept the rejection.”
Kieran’s eyes burned, fierce and frantic.
“I am not letting you go, Nyra.” His voice rose, raw with desperation. “I won’t. I will find a way for us, whether you believe me or not.”
I stared at him, and for a moment, I felt nothing.
Not because I didn’t love him.
Because love had finally become too painful to hold.
I was tired.
Tired down to the bone.
“You were the one in our way, Kieran,” I said quietly. “Not the pack. Not my shame.”
My voice softened, not with kindness, with truth.
“You.”
His face twisted.
“Unless you have found a way to overcome yourself…” I swallowed. “That will be a tall dream too.”
Then I walked him to the door.
He didn’t want to go. I could feel it in the way he moved, the way his gaze clung to me like hands.
But I opened the door anyway.
He stepped onto the porch.
I shut it.
Kieran’s voice came through the wood immediately, hoarse, pleading.
“Nyra… Nyra, open the door.”
I leaned my forehead against the inside of the door, eyes squeezed shut, tears spilling silently.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t do this. Don’t give up on us.”
Us.
The word hurt like a fresh bruise.
How could he ask me not to give up when he had never even given us a chance?
He kept calling my name outside, like if he said it enough times it would rewind the last four years and make him brave.
I didn’t answer.
I waited until his footsteps finally faded.
Only then did I slide down the door and cover my mouth with my hand so no one would hear the sound I refused to make while he was here.
I cried until my chest hurt.
Until the room tilted.
Until the grief made me feel like I was hollow too.
That night, I took a walk into the woods to ease the aching in my heart.
The air was cold, the trees tall and silent, the moon pale above the branches.
I walked without thinking, deeper and deeper, because the woods had always been the only place that didn’t laugh at me.
I imagined running away.
Just… leaving.
But the thought died quickly because my mother was here.
I couldn’t abandon her.
Not after everything she’d sacrificed to keep me alive.
So I kept walking, letting the darkness swallow me, letting the silence press against my skin like a balm.
The farther I went, the less familiar the path became.
The trees thickened. The ground dipped. Shadows deepened.
My breath came out in thin clouds.
And then I stopped.
Because I didn’t recognise anything around me.
My pulse stuttered.
I turned slowly, trying to find the trail, trying to find the way back.
But the woods looked the same in every direction, endless trunks, endless darkness, endless quiet.
Lost.
A cold panic crawled up my spine.
Then,
a low sound rolled through the trees.
A growl.
Not from any wolf I knew.
A snarl answered it, closer.
My blood turned to ice.
I knew that sound.
I knew what it meant.
I was in rogue territory.
