Mira’s POV

The air smelled different out here, like everything had teeth. Kael stood three feet from me, adjusting his worn-out leather pack. It was an effort at disguising, but it worked: rough clothes. He bore a stubbled jaw. The posture of someone who’d learned how to look down on. Anyone else would’ve walked past without a second glance.

But I’d know him blind. “Ready?” he asked, voice careful. Everything between us was careful now. I touched the false papers Marcus had given us. Refugees from the Northern collapse. Mates seeking sanctuary. A lie that tasted bitter every time I swallowed it.

“Mira”

I looked up. Cyrus stood at the gate. My stomach dropped. We’d agreed he wouldn’t come. Agreed, he wouldn’t make this harder than it already was.

“I needed to see you off,” he said, walking toward me. I felt Kael go still beside me, two Alphas, standing six feet apart, both looking at me like I was something fragile. Cyrus pulled a silver pendant from his pocket. “For protection.” “I don’t need.”

“Let me do this.” His fingers brushed my collarbone as he fastened it. Intimate. Deliberate. “Come back to me.” “Of course,” I said automatically. His eyes narrowed. “Do you mean that?” I couldn’t answer with Kael right there, listening to every breath.

Cyrus stared at me and leaned in and kissed my forehead. He smiled and smirked. “I know what I’m asking you to do. Who am I asking you to do it with?” he whispered.

Then he looked straight at Kael. “Bring her home alive… or don’t come back at all.” Kael’s jaw flexed. “Understood.” Cyrus walked away, and I watched him go… and hated myself for the relief that came when he disappeared through the gate.

“We should move.” Kael’s voice had gone flat. “Daylight’s burning.” The Shadow-veil Border lived up to its name. Mist clung to everything, making the world gray and uncertain.

“We have to remove your Luna marks,” Kael said, kneeling beside a circle of stones and building a small fire. “The ritual requires ash and moonlight.” “I know the ritual.” I sat across from him. “I watched my mother do it once. She screamed.”

Kael’s hands stilled. “It’s going to hurt.” “Everything hurts,” I muttered. “Let’s get it over with.” He mixed the ash with something sharp-smelling. His fingers trembled slightly as he reached for my arm.

“I’m not made of glass, Kael,” I said, smirking. “I know exactly what you’re made of.” He looked up at me. “That’s what terrifies me.” The paste burned immediately, deep, searing, the kind of pain that lived beneath the skin. I bit down hard, tasted blood.

“Breathe,” Kael murmured. “Just breathe through it.” “Don’t,” I gasped when another wave hit. “Don’t use your Alpha voice on me.” “I’m not. I’m just…” His hand hovered near my shoulder, not quite touching. “I’m here.”

The marks dissolved slowly. With them went Cyrus’s claim. His protection. My status.

I became just another wolf in dangerous territory. When I finally opened my eyes, Kael was staring at my shoulder.

“What?”

“You have scars I never saw before.” I pulled my jacket closed. “Six years is a long time.” “Mira, we need to move.”

Border scouts appeared like mist condensing into bodies. “Papers, the lead scout, a woman with eyes like sharpened steel, studied our documents far too long. “You fight like a warrior,” she said, gaze raking over Kael. “Not a refugee.” My heart slammed against my ribs. One wrong word and we were dead.

So, I stepped forward, wrapped my arms around Kael’s neck, and kissed him. His whole body went rigid in shock. Then his hands gripped my waist, pulled me closer, and he kissed me back with the desperation of a drowning man finding air. It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t calculated. Six years of hunger ignited in ten reckless seconds.

When I pulled back, we were both shaking. “He was a warrior,” I told the scout, breathy, affected. “Before our pack fell. Now he’s just mine.”

The scout smirked. “Lucky you.” She handed back our papers. “Thornwick’s three miles east. Watch yourselves. They don’t like pretty faces there.” We walked away. Kael’s hand stayed on my lower back until we were out of sight.

Then he stopped, breathing hard. “That was.” “Our cover.” “Mira.” “Don’t.” I kept walking. “It was tactical.” “It felt like a lot more than tactical.”

I spun on him. “What do you want me to say? That I felt it too? That being near you is like being burned alive? You rejected me, Kael. You don’t get to act wounded when I do what I need to survive this mission.” “I rejected you to save your life!”

“You rejected me to save yourself.” The words tore out of me. “Between me and your precious political position. Between love and power. You chose power.” “I chose wrong.” His voice cracked. “I chose wrong, and I’ve spent six years drowning in that mistake.”

A branch snapped behind us. We froze. Someone had followed us from the checkpoint. Kael signaled left, and I went right. We moved in sync, the way we always had, our bodies remembering what we tried so hard to forget.

The follower was young. Sixteen, maybe. Crouched behind a fallen log. I had my knife to his throat before he could even blink. “Who sent you?” “No one! I wasn’t.” Kael appeared on his other side. “Try again.”

Terror rolled off the boy. “Seraphine! Seraphine sent me. To follow you. To report where you go, what you find.” My blood iced over. “She knows about the mission.” “She knows everything,” he sobbed. “She said you’d try to find the girl, said to make sure you never do, said.”

The arrow hit him mid-sentence. Straight through the chest. He collapsed in my hands. Kael dragged me behind a tree as two more arrows thudded into the bark where we’d stood. One arrow carried a message, written in blood. Turn back, or join your daughter in chains.

We ran until my lungs burned, until the mist thinned, until the forest spat us out into scrubland.

We found an abandoned chapel, half-eaten by vines, and ducked inside. Kael paced like a caged animal. “We go back. Get reinforcements. If Seraphine’s working with the rogue.”

“No.”

“Mira, every day we wait is another day Lyra thinks we abandoned her.” I dropped onto a broken pew, exhaustion slamming into me. “I won’t lose more time.” “You could lose your life!” “Then I lose it!” I shot to my feet. “You don’t get to make that decision for me. Not again.” “I’m trying to protect you!”

“I don’t want your protection!” My voice cracked violently. “I want my daughter back. I want the six years you stole from us. I want to stop feeling like my heart is being ripped out every time I look at you.”

Kael crossed the room in two strides. “You think this is easy for me?” His voice was raw. “Being this close to you, pretending I don’t still.” “Still what?”

“Still feel everything.” His hand lifted toward my face, then fell. “The bond never broke, Mira. It just… went quiet. But it’s screaming now.”

I felt it too, a golden thread pulled so tight it hurt. “I made vows to Cyrus.” “I know.” “I can’t… we can’t.” “I know.” He stepped back. “But if we die out there… at least we die together.”

The words settled in the air, terrifying, honest, inevitable. “If we survive,” I whispered, “we go back to separate lives.” Something in him dimmed. “Then I’ll take what I can get.” Dawn crept through the shattered windows. We sat on the floor, shoulders barely touching, letting the light wash over the stone.

For a single stolen moment, I leaned into him. Just long enough to remember what it felt like to be his. His breath hitched, but he didn’t pull away. Didn’t pull me closer. We just existed, caught between what we were and what we could never be again.

“The Eastern Wastes are three days from here,” I said finally. “We’ll need a guide.” “I know someone in Thornwick.” He rose and offered me his hand. “If she’s still alive.” I took it. Let him pull me up. Our hands stayed clasped a second too long.

Then we stepped out into the morning, toward danger, toward truth, toward our daughter. Together, but separate. Close, but impossible. Two wolves hunting the same prey. Bound by a love we couldn’t have… and couldn’t kill