Kael’s POV.

“I’m… thinking,” Kael muttered. “About choices and mistakes, I have made.” Rhian let out a low sigh. “You mean thinking about Mira.” She paused, letting the wind tug at her hair. “You still blame yourself, don’t you?” Kael’s jaw tightened. “Every day. I keep wondering if I even had a choice at all.”

Six years had passed, but I recalled every detail. And with her return to the city, everything seemed overly familiar.

Six years ago… “You will reject her.” Elder Garron’s voice cut through the council chamber. I stood tall. “She’s, my mate.”

“She’s a risk,” Elder Marna snapped. “She has no noble lineage. She refuses the council tradition. She challenges your authority. The bond clouds your judgment.”

“She makes me stronger,” I argued.

“She makes you human,” Garron hissed. “And humans don’t survive in this seat.”

They circled me like vultures. I was only twenty-four. Alpha by name, but still treated like a child who needed control. And they knew it.

“If you keep her, you risk everything,” Marna said. “Reject her, or we call a vote of no confidence. Blackridge cannot afford an Alpha whose loyalty is split.”

They made me choose: the woman I loved or the power that kept this pack from tearing itself apart.

That night, I found Mira by the garden steps. She wore white. Her hair was wind-tangled. She looked up and smiled, like she trusted me. I shattered that smile with one sentence.

“I, Kael Thorne, reject you as my mate.”

Then she turned and walked away. I never saw her again. I opened my eyes now, heart pounding like I’d just spoken those words again. Guilt pressed into my chest like a weight I’d worn for years. I had rejected her in front of the Moon.

But not because I stopped loving her. Because I didn’t know how to fight the system built to break us.

A sound behind me pulled me out of the memory. My Beta, Rhian, stepped into view. “You still come up here when you're spiraling,” she said quietly. I didn’t deny it. She crossed her arms. “You saw her today. Didn't go well?” I shook my head.

“You thought she’d fall back into your arms just because you finally feel the ache you gave her?”

I stared out at the city. “No. I didn’t expect anything. But I didn’t expect it to hurt this much either.” Rhian sighed. “Maybe now you understand what it cost her.” I nodded. “She loved you, Kael. She would’ve followed you anywhere. You burned that down in a single breath. I didn’t answer. I should’ve been in strategy meetings.

Reviewing border patrols. Discussing the breach that left a crescent-and-dagger symbol carved into a tree, one we hadn’t seen in years. But my mind wasn’t on enemies outside the walls. My mind was on the one I’d driven away. I ended up in the courtyard garden, the place I last saw Mira before the bond was broken.

The stone bench where I rejected her was still there. I sat, running a hand through my hair. I had told myself I made the right decision. That duty outweighed desire. That she’d be safer away from me. But Mira never asked to be protected. She asked to be chosen. I turned, my chest tightened.

“I don’t,” I said. “Not since you left.” She didn’t come closer. “Why did you do it, Kael?” There was no accusation in her tone. Just quiet devastation. I stood. “Because they gave me a choice: give you up, or lose the throne.”

Her eyes didn’t flinch. “You picked power.” I swallowed. “I thought I was picking protection. For you. For the pack.” She laughed once, bitterly. “That’s not how it felt on the receiving end.” Silence. I took a step forward.

“You were never the problem, Mira. I was. I thought I had to be the Alpha they expected. Cold. Detached. I thought that’s what strength meant.”

“You hurt me,” she said, voice low. “And then you let them talk about me like I was nothing. You let them erase me.”

“I didn’t stop them,” I admitted. “And I should have.” Another silence stretched between us. Then, softly, she asked, “Do you regret it?” I looked into her eyes. “Every day.” She didn’t speak. So, I did “I never stopped loving you. I just stopped believing I was allowed to.” She turned away then. Not in anger. Not in forgiveness either.

. Long enough for the wind to shift. Long enough for my wolf to stir at the edge of my senses, agitated, alert. Then I saw movement near the garden gate. A shadow darted between trees. I stepped forward, eyes narrowing.

Another symbol was scratched into the bark. Fresh. A threat. But even with that danger stirring outside our gates, my thoughts stayed on her. The woman I let go. The woman I may have already lost, again.