Chapter 169: Unexpected Heat
Rebecca’s POV
I held my breath, my back pressing hard against the edge of the bed.
"Every time I look at you," Kaden began, his voice dropping to a rough, tortured whisper, "my wolf screams at me to touch you. I lie awake at night, and the only thing I can smell is your scent. I look at you... and for a second, the pain of losing Helen just... vanishes."
He let out a ragged, self-deprecating laugh, shaking his head.
"I forget the grief. I forget the darkness. And it terrifies me, Rebecca. I hate myself for it. Every single day, I hate myself for what you make me feel. I thought if I treated you like an enemy, if I punished you, I could make this feeling go away."
He leaned in closer, his forehead almost touching mine. The intensity in his eyes was suffocating.
"But it’s not going away," he whispered, his hands sliding slowly from my waist up to my arms, holding me as if I were the only thing keeping him anchored to the earth. "It’s only getting stronger. I think... I think I’m falling for you, Rebecca."
My heart violently slammed against my ribs.
It was true. Kane was right. His inability to let me go... it was the bond. He was my second-chance mate. The Moon Goddess had tied my soul to the man who had torn my life to shreds.
"Rebecca," Kaden pleaded, his hands sliding up to cup my face. His thumbs brushed gently over my cheekbones. "Can we... can you give us a chance? Just one chance."
I stared at him, my mind screaming.
I looked into his desperate eyes, then my gaze flicked past him to the table, where the wildflowers Kane had brought lay scattered and dying.
A chance?
A bubble of hysterical, bitter laughter rose in my throat. I scoffed, shaking my head violently as I forced his hands off my face.
"Alpha Kaden... you are insane," I whispered, stepping back, though there was nowhere left to go. "Are you okay? Do you hear the words coming out of your mouth?"
Kaden didn’t let me back away. He stepped forward quickly, grabbing my hands and pressing them flat against his chest. I could feel the fast, heavy beating of his heart under his shirt.
"I am serious, Rebecca," he urged, his eyes wide, pleading with me. "I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether you killed Helen or not."
Smack!
The loud, sharp sound of my hand hitting his cheek cut him off instantly.
The force of the blow turned his head to the side. My palm stung, burning with a fierce heat. I stood frozen, my chest heaving, my breath catching in my throat. I had actually slapped him. I had slapped the ruthless Alpha who could kill me without a second thought.
For a terrifying second, there was absolute silence.
Slowly, Kaden turned his head back to face me. The red imprint of my fingers was already blooming against his pale skin. He didn’t yell. He didn’t reach out to hurt me. He just watched me with a heavy, dark gaze.
"It matters!" I screamed, the tears of built-up trauma, anger, and frustration finally spilling over my eyelashes. "It fucking matters to me!"
I yanked my hands out of his grip, pointing a trembling, accusing finger at his chest.
"Of course it doesn’t matter to you!" I cried out, my voice cracking under the weight of my agony. "Because you aren’t the one who was falsely accused! You aren’t the one who was dragged through hell, locked in a cage, starved, and broken for a crime you didn’t commit!"
I took a deep, shuddering breath, my eyes blazing with pure hatred.
"You tortured me, Kaden. You destroyed my entire life, you locked my wolf away with this cursed silver, and now you stand here telling me you’re falling for me? Asking me for a chance?"
I let out a cold, bitter laugh.
"What makes you think I would ever want to be with you, Alpha Kaden?" I said, my voice dropping to a dark, angry whisper. "I would rather die."
My words hung in the air like poison.
I expected him to snap. I expected the dangerous, angry Alpha to come back and punish me for talking to him like this. I braced myself, waiting for him to lock me away or yell.
But he didn’t.
Instead, Kaden looked as if I had stabbed him right in the heart. The pain on his face was so real it shocked me. He stepped back, his hands dropping to his sides. He stared at me as if he were looking at a ghost, his shoulders shaking slightly.
"You... you would rather die?" he repeated, his voice barely a whisper. It sounded like he couldn’t breathe.
"Yes," I said, keeping my chin up even though my body was shaking. "I would rather take my last breath than ever belong to you."
He stared at his own hands, then slowly looked back up at me. There was a deep, dark sadness in his eyes that I had never seen before. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. For the first time since I had been brought to this pack, Alpha Kaden had nothing left to say.
Without another word, he turned around and walked out of the room.
As soon as he was gone, all the strength left my body. My legs shook so hard I couldn’t stand. I sank onto the edge of the bed, my hands covering my face as the tears finally came. They rolled down my cheeks, hot and unstoppable.
"Why, Moon Goddess?" I sobbed. "Why? Why did you mate me to this man?"
Of all the thousands of men in the world, why did it have to be him? Why the man who had broken me? Why the man who had shown me nothing but pain?
"Please let it not be true," I whispered, clutching my chest. My heart hurt so badly it was hard to breathe. "Please, let it just be a mistake. Let it just be a bad guess. Don’t do this to me."
But deep down, in a place I couldn’t hide, I knew the truth.
I crawled under the blankets, pulling them up to my chin to stop my shaking. I cried until my eyes were swollen and my throat was dry, until my body was too tired to cry anymore. Finally, I fell into a heavy, dark sleep.
I woke up in the middle of the night, gasping for air.
My whole body was burning.
It wasn’t a normal fever. It was a deep, painful heat that started in my chest and spread through my blood, down to my very bones. My skin felt too hot to touch, and I was soaking wet with sweat. I kicked the heavy blankets off, but the cool air of the room did nothing to stop the fire inside me.
"Ah..." I gasped, my throat tight.
The silver collar around my neck felt like a ring of hot iron. It was burning into my skin, choking me as my inner wolf tried to wake up. She was clawing at the block, desperate to break free.
Then, a sudden, heavy ache pooled deep in my belly. My head felt dizzy, and a strange, empty feeling took over my body. Every single part of me was screaming for something—for a touch, for him.
I wanted Kaden.
My mind screamed in horror at the thought, but my body didn’t care. It wanted his cold hands on my hot skin. It wanted his scent to wrap around me. My wolf, even locked away under the silver, was crying out for him.
I rolled onto my side, clutching my stomach as another wave of heat washed over me, leaving me weak and shaking.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
I was going into heat.
Why now? I had never gone into heat before. Since I had been locked up and had no mate, my body’s cycle had stayed completely asleep. But now, I knew exactly why this was happening.
A female wolf’s heat is tied to her mate. When Kaden confessed his feelings—when he admitted his wolf was screaming for me—the second-chance mate bond between us had snapped awake. His powerful Alpha energy had triggered my body. Even with the silver collar trying to choke my wolf and block our connection, the sheer power of the Moon Goddess’s bond was too strong. It had bypassed the silver, forcing my body into a sudden, chaotic heat.
And without my wolf to help me handle it, the heat was going to tear me apart.
Suddenly, I heard the click of my door opening.
Through my blurry, half-open eyes, I saw a tall figure step into the dark room.
Kaden.
My heart leaped, and a small sigh of relief escaped my dry lips. My body was screaming for him, desperate for his touch to cool the fire burning inside me.
But as the figure stepped closer, leaving the shadows of the doorway, my relief turned into pure horror.
The scent in the air wasn’t mint and rain. It was the smell of pine and winter wood.
It wasn’t Kaden.
It was Alpha Kane.
Comments