Kael POV
Kael couldn't breathe.
The pain came through the bond like lightning. He was in his war room going through meaningless reports when it hit him. Lyra's agony. Raw and real and tearing through the connection between them like something alive.
He stood so fast his chair fell backward.
The bond was screaming. His wolf was clawing under his skin demanding he go to her. Now. Before the pain consumed her completely. Before the connection between them burned them both to nothing.
Kael didn't think. He just moved.
He climbed the tower stairs in darkness and pushed open the door to her chamber. The sight of her stopped him cold.
Lyra was sitting on the stone floor surrounded by scattered letters. Her face was blotched from crying. Her body looked like it had been broken and couldn't quite remember how to put itself back together. She had her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around herself.
She looked exactly like what she was. A woman whose entire world had just shattered.
Kael sat down across from her on the stone floor and didn't speak for a long time. The bond vibrated between them like a second heartbeat. He could feel her heartbreak. Could feel her confusion. Could feel the moment her entire identity had fractured and reformed into something new.
It mirrored his own pain from nine years ago.
Finally, he broke the silence.
"Your father lied to you about my family. About the yacht fire. About me."
Lyra looked up at him with red eyes that had seen too much truth in too short a time.
"Why are you telling me this?" Her voice was hollow. Empty.
"Because you deserve the truth," Kael said and meant it. "And because I need something from you."
She laughed but there was nothing happy in it. Nothing but bitterness and exhaustion.
"Of course you do," she whispered.
Kael had spent nine years building walls so high that nothing could reach him. He'd spent nine years collecting grievances and planning revenge like it was a religion. He'd spent nine years preparing to destroy a man based on a lie.
And now he was about to give up all of it.
"A contract marriage," he said carefully. "One year. Nothing more."
Lyra's eyes widened slightly but she didn't interrupt.
"The mating bond won't kill us if we're united as one," Kael continued. "If we present as a bonded pair, both packs will accept peace. Your father can't fight me if his own daughter is my wife. Your people will stop fighting if their princess is protected by the Nightshade Alpha."
He watched her process this. Watched her understand what he was offering.
"You want to use me politically," she said and there was no emotion in her voice. Just statement. Fact.
"Yes," he admitted. "And I want to know my mate. To understand the bond before I spend the rest of my life connected to someone I don't know."
She looked away from him toward the scattered letters.
"Six months," Kael said. "We stay bonded for six months to solidify the peace between packs. After that, we divorce. I'll withdraw the acquisition of Soren Textiles completely. Your company goes back to you. Untouched. Yours to rebuild or destroy however you see fit."
It was a cruel offer. Her birthright for her freedom. Everything her father had been trying to protect, returned to her in exchange for temporary marriage to his enemy.
Lyra was quiet for a long time. She was thinking. Calculating. Becoming the strategic woman underneath the broken warrior.
"One condition," she finally said. Her voice was stronger now. More like herself.
Kael waited.
"Separate bedrooms," she said firmly. "You don't touch me except in public where people can see. Where the bond is visible for the packs." She paused and her eyes hardened into something dangerous. "And if you hurt Luca. If you hurt anyone I care about, the contract is void and I'm free to kill you."
Kael didn't know who Luca was. The name meant nothing to him. But he understood that this person mattered to her. That protecting them mattered more than anything else she could possibly want.
He understood that because he felt the same way about her now.
"I accept your conditions," Kael said.
And he meant it.
Lyra stood up slowly. She walked to the window and looked out over the Nightshade territory like she was seeing it for the first time.
"When?" she asked quietly.
"Tomorrow night. Public ceremony. Both packs attending through messengers. By tomorrow, the war between us becomes a peace treaty." Kael stood and moved closer. "By tomorrow, you become the Alpha female of the Nightshade Pack."
She didn't turn around but her hands clenched into fists.
"I don't love you," she said.
"I know," Kael replied.
"I might never love you."
"I know that too."
She finally turned to face him and her silver eyes held something that looked like pain and understanding mixed together into something complex.
"This will hurt," she whispered.
"Yes," Kael agreed. "But we survive it together instead of dying apart. That's what this is."
Lyra nodded like she was accepting a verdict that couldn't be changed. Like she'd run out of other options and this one was at least a choice instead of surrender.
Kael wanted to touch her. Wanted to hold her until the bond stopped screaming between them. Wanted to show her that this didn't have to be only strategy and survival.
But she'd made her condition clear. Separate bedrooms. No touching except in public.
So he stepped back and gave her space.
"I'll arrange everything," he said. "Rest. Tomorrow your life changes."
He was almost to the door when she spoke.
"Kael."
He turned.
"Thank you," she said and her voice was so quiet he almost missed it. "For telling me the truth. Even if it destroys everything I thought I was."
He nodded and left her alone with her fractured identity and the scattered letters that had rewritten her entire world.
Kael was walking down the tower stairs when Rowan stepped out of the shadows. His oldest friend. The man who knew him better than anyone.
Rowan's face went cold with understanding as he watched Kael's expression.
"You're marrying her," Rowan said. It wasn't a question.
"Tomorrow night," Kael confirmed.
Rowan's mouth opened like he was about to argue. Like he was going to remind Kael about nine years of revenge and the plan to destroy Viktor Soren and everything they'd been building toward.
But he didn't say any of that.
Instead, he just studied Kael's face for a long moment.
"The bond is already killing you," Rowan said quietly. "Isn't it?"
Kael didn't answer because the answer was obvious.
The bond had already killed the man he'd been. The cold strategist. The man driven by revenge. The man who'd spent nine years planning destruction.
That man was dead.
And something new was trying to be born in his place.
Something that looked at a broken warrior woman in a tower and couldn't do anything except want to protect her.
Even from himself.