Selene's Point of view.
His fingers touched my face with heartbreaking gentleness. just his fingertips against my cheek, but the contact sent sparks racing across my skin. The mate bond SANG, recognizing this touch as right, as necessary, as what we'd been denying ourselves.
Against every ounce of better judgment, I leaned into his touch.
Just for a moment. Just for one heartbeat where I could pretend this was allowed.
His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, wiping away a tear I hadn't realized had fallen. His green eyes were so close, so impossibly green, looking at me like I was something precious and rare.
"Selene," he whispered. My name sounded like both a prayer and a curse on his lips.
We moved simultaneously....or maybe the mate bond moved us, pulled us together with a force neither of us could resist anymore.
His other hand came up to cup my face. My hands found his chest, feeling his heart hammering beneath my palms. We were drawn together like magnets, like gravity, like destiny itself.
His lips were inches from mine. I could feel his breath, could see the exact moment when his control started to fracture.
"We can't," I breathed, even as I didn't pull away.
"I know." But he leaned closer anyway.
Our lips were a heartbeat apart when...the handle of my door jiggled.
We JOLTED apart like we'd been electrocuted.
"Mom?" Luna's voice came through the locked door, concerned and confused. "Are you in there? Kade?"
Panic slammed into me with the force of a physical blow.
Luna. Here. Now.
She can't find him in here with me.
"Hide," I hissed at Kade, my voice barely above a whisper. "Balcony. Behind the curtains. GO. NOW."
To his credit, he didn't hesitate. He moved silently toward the french doors that led to my private balcony, slipping behind the heavy curtains just as Luna knocked again.
"Mom? I can smell Kade's scent. Is he in there with you?"
I took three seconds to compose myself. Smoothed my hair. Wiped my face. Forced my breathing to steady.
Then I unlocked the door and opened it, every part of me calm and controlled...the Alpha Luna expected to see.
"Luna, sweetheart. What's wrong?"
My daughter stood in the hallway, still wearing her blue jacket from earlier, her face creased with worry and confusion.
"Kade disappeared," she said, looking past me into the office. "I went to get him water and pain medication, and when I came back, he was just... gone. I followed his footprints—they're muddy from the battle....and they led here. Is he here?"
The lie tasted like poison, but I forced it out anyway. "There's no one here but me, darling."
Luna's blue eyes searched mine, then scanned the office behind me. I kept my body carefully positioned in the doorway, blocking her view of the balcony curtains where Kade was hidden.
"But I heard raised voices," Luna insisted. "In the hallway just seconds ago. Coming from your office."
My mind raced fast, grasping for an explanation. "I was on the phone with the Council. Updating them about the rogue attack. You know how heated those conversations can get."
It was a decent lie. The Council and I argued often over pack politics.
Luna studied my face, and I saw the exact moment when she noticed something was off. My flushed cheeks. My slightly disheveled hair. The way I wouldn't quite meet her eyes.
"Mom..." She started slowly. "Are you okay? You seem... strange."
"I'm fine, dear. Just exhausted from the battle. It's been a long night."
"And you really haven't seen Kade?"
"No, sweetheart. Perhaps he went home. He was injured and tired...maybe he decided to return to his own apartment to rest properly."
Luna frowned, clearly uncertain. But after a long moment, she nodded. "Home. That's strange, though. Why wouldn't he tell me he was leaving?"
"Perhaps he didn't want to worry you."
"Maybe." But she still looked troubled. "I'm going to drive to his place. Make sure he's okay and not passed out from blood loss or something."
"That sounds like a good idea," I encouraged, desperate for her to leave before Kade made a sound or shifted behind the curtains. "I'm sure he'll appreciate your concern."
Luna studied me for one more long moment, then finally turned to go.
"Get some rest, Mom. You look like you need it."
"I will. Drive safely, darling."
I waited until her footsteps faded down the hallway, until I heard the distant sound of the front door closing, before I finally released the breath I'd been holding.
The curtains shifted, and Kade emerged from the balcony, his face pale with the same fear that was coursing through me.
"That was too close," I said, my voice shaking despite my attempts to control it. "Far too close."
"Selene..."
"This proves it," I interrupted, turning away from him. "This proves we can never be together. We almost got caught. If Luna had pushed past me, if she'd seen you hiding..."
"But she didn't."
"This time!" I spun back to face him. "But what about next time?
Kade stood there, looking devastated and determined all at once. "Then we'll be more careful."
"There IS no 'we'll be more careful.' There's only you leaving this office right now and us pretending this conversation never happened."
"I can't do that."
"You HAVE to." I moved toward him, using every ounce of Alpha authority I possessed. "You will address me as Alpha Whitmore from this point forward. You will maintain proper distance. And you will leave my office. Now."
I saw him flinch at the coldness in my voice, at the Alpha command that made obedience almost involuntary.
But he straightened his shoulders, met my eyes with a level of courage I had to admire even as it terrified me.
"As you command, Alpha Whitmore," he said formally.
He walked to the door, his hand resting on the handle. Then he stopped and looked back at me.
"I can't control my feelings," he said quietly. "But I can control my actions. I'll break up with Luna—not for us, but because she deserves someone who can love her properly. Someone whose wolf accepts her. Someone who isn't pretending every moment they're together."
My throat tightened. "And then?"
"Then nothing." His green eyes held mine, showing me exactly how much this was costing him. "We'll both suffer in silence. Like you want. You'll be the Alpha who sacrificed her happiness for her daughter. And I'll be the Beta who let his mate slip away because she was too scared of hurting her daughter feelings."
"Kade..."
"That's what you want, isn't it? For us to be noble and self-sacrificing and miserable?"
I couldn't answer. Because he was right. That was exactly what I wanted...what I needed. even if it destroyed us both.
He opened the door and left without another word.
The sound of it closing behind him felt like a death knell.
I stood frozen for several seconds, barely breathing, before my legs gave out and I collapsed into my desk chair.
My wolf was HOWLING—a sound of anguish and loss that echoed through my consciousness like a physical wound.
She'd found her mate. After three years of silence and grief, she'd finally awakened to find the other half of our soul that's was losted.
And I was forcing her to deny him. To reject what the Moon Goddess herself had given us.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to her, to myself, to the universe. "I'm so sorry."
Then something outside caught my eyes through the window.
Luna's car was still in the circular driveway. She was sitting in the driver's seat, engine running, but not moving.
Just... sitting there.
Staring up at my office window.
The window that was still fully open, with the curtains pulled back.
She most have seen everything.
Kade leaving my office—Of him walking to the door and pausing to look back at me with that expression of longing and heartbreak on his face.
Oh no.
No, no, no.
Luna knew. She KNEW we'd been together and had lied he wasn't here.
"Oh no," I breathed, my hands coming up to cover my mouth. "Luna. No."
But I couldn't call out to her. Couldn't rush down to explain—because what explanation could I possibly give that wouldn't make everything worse?
I watched, helpless, as my daughter sat in her car staring up at my window.
I saw as her hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Then she put the car in gear and drove away, with her car tires screeching slightly on the gravel drive as she leaved.