Kieran:
For a heartbeat, I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
Her words echoed through every corner of me - "I, Evaline Greystone, accept you, Rogue Alpha Kieran Thorne, as my mate."
I had imagined this moment countless times in the quiet of my mind. Dreamed of it on sleepless nights when I would watch her from my side of bed, knowing I still had no right to touch her the way my brothers did. I had told myself that if it ever came, I would be calm, gentle, controlled. But the truth was, nothing could have prepared me for the storm her words unleashed inside me.
Before I even realized it, I had pulled her close and crashed my lips against hers.
It wasn't a soft kiss. It wasn't tentative or uncertain like the ones I had been dreaming about. Instead, it was desperate - an explosion of everything I had buried deep under restraint for far too long. Months of longing. Months of jealousy. Endless nights of holding myself back while my brothers loved her freely.
