POV - Elara
I ran through the trees with Cassian, and I refused to look back.
Looking back meant seeing Kieran standing there with Victoria's hand on his arm. Looking back meant remembering the way he'd said "I don't know how to choose" like our baby wasn't reason enough.
Looking back meant breaking totally, and I needed to stay strong for the life growing inside me.
"We need to keep moving," Cassian said softly. "The Council warriors won't be far behind."
"How much farther?" My lungs burned. My legs ached. The mental exhaustion was worse than the physical pain.
"There's a safe house about five miles from here. We can rest there and plan our next move." Cassian glanced at me with worry. "Are you okay? The baby—"
"The baby is fine," I said sharply. Then softer, "Sorry. I'm just... I can't believe this is my life now. Running through the trees in the middle of the night, hiding from Councils and hunters, while the father of my child plans his wedding to someone else."
"Kieran loves you," Cassian said quietly.
"Not enough." The words tasted bitter. "If he loved me enough, he would have picked us. Instead, he picked politics and power and duty."
"Sometimes love isn't about choosing what you want," Cassian said. "It's about choosing what keeps the people you love safe."
I stopped walking and turned to face him. "Why are you defending him? You're the one helping me leave. You're the one risking your life to protect me."
Cassian's amber eyes were sad. "Because I feel everything he feels through our bond. His love for you. His fear for your safety. His guilt eating him alive. He's not a monster, Elara. He's just a man who was given impossible choices."
"Then why are you here with me instead of him?" I challenged.
"Because someone needs to choose you," Cassian said simply. "And apparently, I'm the only one brave enough to do it."
His words hit me harder than I expected. Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them away. I'd cried enough over Kieran Blackthorn. No more.
We walked in silence until we reached a small house hidden deep in the trees. It looked abandoned, but when Cassian opened the door, I saw supplies inside—food, blankets, medical tools.
"I've been preparing for this day," Cassian revealed. "Ever since the bond activated and I realized what was going between you and Kieran. I knew eventually the Council would come for all of us."
"You knew about the royal bloodline?" I asked, feeling my stomach where strange power still hummed beneath my skin.
"I suspected." Cassian started a fire in the small fireplace. "Your smell was different from other omegas. Stronger. More involved. And when Kieran fell for you so fully despite his rules about never repeating women, I knew you had to be special."
"Special enough to ruin everyone's lives," I said angrily.
"Special enough to change everything," Cassian amended. "The Council has been in power for two hundred years, Elara. They've controlled packs through fear and ancient rules that don't make sense anymore. Your bloodline risks all of that."
I sat down on the worn couch, suddenly tired. "I don't want to scare anyone. I just want to have my baby in peace."
"I know." Cassian knelt in front of me, his face gentle. "And I'm going to make sure that happens. I promise."
"Why?" I whispered. "Why would you risk everything for someone you barely know?"
Cassian was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "Because for six years, I've been alone with this tie to Kieran. Feeling his sadness. His isolation. His opinion that he was too broken to ever deserve love. And then you appeared, and suddenly I felt joy through our bond for the first time. Happiness. Hope." He paused. "You saved him, even if he couldn't save you. That makes you worth protecting."
Before I could react, pain exploded through my head.
I gasped, holding my skull. Images filled my mind—not my memories, but someone else's. A young boy being pulled into a ritual circle. Blood power burning into his skin. Screams booming through stone halls.
"What's happening?" I choked out.
"The bond," Cassian said quickly. "It's pulling you in. You're seeing Kieran's memories through our link."
The visions increased. I saw Kieran as a child, crying while Elders carved symbols into his skin. Saw him as a teenager, learning to bury feelings deep where they couldn't hurt him. Saw him as a young Alpha, making walls around his heart because love was weakness and weakness was death.
Then I saw myself through his eyes. The moment he first smelled me at the pack assembly. The shock and confusion on his face. The way he'd fought against the attraction for exactly three seconds before surrendering fully.
I felt his emotions—not my understanding of them, but the real, raw feelings. Terror that he was losing control. Joy that he'd finally found something worth wanting. Love so fierce it burned through every wall he'd ever built.
And underneath it all, a desperate, painful certainty: She's mine. She's everything. And I'm going to destroy her.
The visions cut off suddenly, leaving me gasping.
"He knew," I whispered. "From the very beginning, Kieran knew loving me would end badly. But he couldn't stop himself."
"Neither could you," Cassian pointed out kindly.
He was right. I'd fallen just as hard, just as fast, despite all the warnings. Despite knowing his name. Despite knowing that Alphas like Kieran didn't do forever.
"I hate him," I said, but the words lacked force.
"No, you don't." Cassian smiled sadly. "You hate what he picked. But you still love him. The bond won't let you stop."
"Then the bond is cruel."
"The bond just is," Cassian said. "We don't get to choose who we're linked to. We only get to choose what we do about it."
I was about to reply when the cabin door exploded inward for the second time that night.
But it wasn't Victoria this time.
It was Lyra—the other pregnant woman. The one carrying Kieran's drugged, stolen child.
And she was holding a gun.
"I'm sorry," Lyra said, tears running down her face. "They have my father. They said if I don't bring you back, they'll kill him. Please don't make this harder than it already is."
Cassian moved in front of me protectively. "You don't have to do this. We can help you—"
"You can't help anyone," Lyra interrupted. "The Council rules everything. They always have. They always will." Her hand shook on the gun. "I don't want to hurt you. But I will if I have to."
"Why does the Council want me so badly?" I asked. "I'm just one person—"
"Because you're pregnant with royal blood," Lyra said. "And according to ancient prophecy, a child born from both royal and Alpha bloodlines will have the power to overthrow the Council totally. They can't let that baby be born."
My hand flew to my stomach protectively.
"They're going to kill my child," I whispered.
"They're going to kill all of us," Lyra corrected. "Unless you come with me right now. They promised if you surrender quietly, they'll let Kieran and Cassian live. Your baby too—they'll just bind its powers and raise it under Council control."
"That's not living," Cassian growled. "That's imprisonment."
"It's survival," Lyra replied. "Which is more than any of us will get if you keep running."
She was right. I could see it in her desperate eyes. The Council was too strong. They'd hunt us forever. And finally, they'd catch us.
Unless I gave them what they wanted.
"Elara, no—" Cassian started.
"I'll go," I said quietly. "But only if you promise Kieran and Cassian will be safe. And my baby won't be hurt."
"I promise," Lyra said quickly. "The Council just wants power. They don't want pointless deaths."
I didn't believe her. But I also didn't see another choice.
I stood up, ready to surrender everything I'd fought for.
Then the window broke.
Kieran crashed through in full wolf form, his silver eyes blazing with anger and something that looked terrifyingly like madness.
And behind him, the entire forest was burning with magical fire that shouldn't exist.
"Nobody," Kieran growled in his Alpha voice that made the cabin walls shake, "touches my mate."