Mira's POV.

We didn't make it past the outer gate before Darius's wolves surrounded us. Not Lyra's command, his.

Kael shifted into a fighting stance, but there were too many. A dozen rogues with weapons drawn, moving with military precision.

"The great Alpha and his broken mate," a voice said from the shadows. Darius stepped into the torchlight, older than Kael but carrying the same sharp features twisted by bitterness.

Kael went rigid. "You're supposed to be dead."

"Exile looks like death from where you sit on your throne." Darius smiled without warmth. "Take them below. Lyra needs to understand what her parents truly are."

I fought as they grabbed me. My wolf clawed for freedom, but silver-laced nets rendered her sluggish.

They chained me first. Silver cuffs bit into my wrists as they mounted me to the wall at shoulder height.

The metal burned. They dragged him in, fighting every step. "Mira." His eyes found mine across the room. Something in his expression shattered.

"I'm fine," I lied. Blood already trickled where the cuffs cut into skin. It took six of them to chain Kael to the opposite wall. He nearly broke free twice before they caught him back

The distance between us was cruel. Close enough to see every detail of each other's faces, too far to touch.

Exactly like it had always been.

Darius entered once we were both secured. He studied us with the satisfaction of a man who'd waited years for this moment.

"Face each other now," he said softly. "No titles. No packs. Just two people who destroyed everything they touched."

Kael lunged against the chains. "Let her go. Your fight is with me." "My fight is with what you represent." Darius circled the room slowly. "I watched you inherit everything, power, respect, the perfect mate. Then you threw her away because she was inconvenient."

"You don't know what happened, " Kael started.

"I know enough." Darius stopped in front of me. "I know I found your daughter hours old, left in the woods while you built your new life. I gave her what you never could, purpose."

My chains rattled as I jerked forward. "We didn't abandon her. We didn't even know."

"Ignorance isn't innocence." He turned back to Kael. "Lyra will decide your fate in the morning. Until then, enjoy the reunion."

The door slammed. The lock turned with brutal finality. Silence filled the space between us. My shoulders already ached from the angle of the chains.

Kael tested his restraints methodically. They held firm, designed for someone exactly to his strength.

"Are you hurt?" His voice was rough. "Beyond the obvious." "No." I slid down the wall until I was sitting, chains pulling tight on my wrists. "You?"

"I've had worse." He mirrored my position, lowering himself carefully. "We'll find a way out."

"Will we?" The words came out flatter than I intended. "Or is this exactly where we were always going to end up?"

His jaw tightened. "Don't talk like that."

"Like what? Honest?" I leaned my head back against the cold stone. "Chained and facing each other. It's almost poetic."

"Mira."

"She hates us, Kael." My voice cracked. "Our daughter thinks we abandoned her. And maybe she's right."

"She's not right." But conviction wavered in his tone. "She doesn't know the whole story."

"What story?" I met his eyes across the distance. "That you rejected me in front of the entire pack? That I bonded with another Alpha? Those parts are true."

"Did you ever love me?"Or was I always just a complication?"The question slipped out before I could stop it.

"You said the rejection was to protect me. But it felt like you were protecting yourself from me."

"I loved you." His voice dropped to something raw. "That's why it killed me to let you go."

"Convenient that your survival meant power and mine meant exile." I wasn't being fair, but exhaustion stripped away the filter. "You kept everything. I lost it all."

"You think I kept anything that mattered?" Kael's laugh was bitter. "I became the Alpha everyone feared because it was easier than being the man who destroyed his own mate."

The admission hung between us. "It is." I closed my eyes briefly. "Even with Cyrus, there was always this voice saying I wasn't enough. That eventually he'd realize what you did, that I was easier to discard than defend."

"Mira, I'm sorry."

"Sorry doesn't fix it." I opened my eyes. "Sorry doesn't give me back the years I spent thinking I was the problem."

Silence again. Heavier this time, weighted with truths neither of us wanted to hold.

"I searched for you," Kael said finally. "After you left. But my pride." He stopped, started again. "I told myself you were better off. That letting you go completely was kinder than dragging you back into my mess."

"You let guilt make your decisions." The observation wasn't accusatory, just tired. "And I let fear make mine."

"Is that what Cyrus was? Fear?" The jealousy in his voice was barely concealed.

"Cyrus was surviving." I needed him to understand this. "When you rejected me, something broke that I couldn't fix alone. He helped me put the pieces back together."

"Do you love him?" The question cost him something to ask. "Yes." I didn't look away. "But not the way I loved you. Nothing's ever been the way I loved you."

The mate bond pulsed between us. Even now, even here, it hummed with recognition. "I can still feel you," I whispered. "The bond. It never fully broke." "I know." Kael's voice was rough. "I feel it too. Every day for six years."

"How is that possible?" My wrists burned where the silver cut deeper. "I'm bonded to Cyrus. The mate bond should be dormant at best."

"Maybe some things can't be severed cleanly." He shifted, chains scraping against stone. "Maybe we're bound by more than biology."

Hours passed. The torch burned lower, casting the room in deeper shadow. My body screamed in protest, shoulders on fire, wrists bleeding, legs cramping. Kael's breathing had gone shallow with pain.

"Tell me about her," I said into the darkness. "About Lyra, when you saw her. I only got a few minutes before."

"She's fierce." His words came slowly, like he was examining each one. "Strong. Commands respect without demanding it. She has your stubbornness."

"And your eyes." I smiled despite everything. "Well, not yours exactly, but the way she looks at things. Like she's calculating ten steps ahead."

"She thinks we're the enemy." The pain in his voice had nothing to do with chains. "And maybe we are."

"Maybe we don't deserve a chance," I admitted. "Maybe we failed too completely to ever make it right." "Maybe." Kael's chains rattled as he tried to shift closer, failed. "But she deserves parents who'll fight for her anyway."

The door opened without warning. Darius entered with two guards, carrying water skins.

"Darius studied us with cold satisfaction. "I told Lyra you'd beg. That you'd make promises you couldn't keep. She needs to see you broken."

"She needs to see the truth," Kael growled. "This is the truth." Darius gestured at our bound forms. "Powerless. Desperate. Exactly what you made her."

He left us in darkness. The torch had burned too low to cast real light anymore. "Kael?" My voice felt small in the black. "Are you still there?"

"I'm here." His answer came immediately. "Always here."

"I'm scared." The admission cost me everything. "Not of dying. Of her looking at us tomorrow and seeing exactly what Darius wants her to see."

"Me too." His honesty matched mine. "But we face it anyway. What choice do we have?"

None. We had no choices left, just consequences catching up with us. Light began filtering through a crack near the ceiling. Dawn approaching. Judgment coming.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Multiple sets, moving with purpose. Kael and I straightened as much as the chains allowed. Instinctive dignity even in defeat.

"If she kills us, " I started.

"She won't." But doubt threaded through his certainty. "She needs answers first." The door opened. Lyra stepped through flanked by guards, her expression carved from ice.

She looked at us, chained, bloodied, powerless. Her eyes moved from me to Kael and back again. I searched her face for any recognition, any softening. Found nothing but cold calculation.

These were her parents. This was what remained.